This entry will walk the reader through the process of three activations. I intend to explain in detail how the action/reaction process works in a gaming situation. I also intend to explain how officers take casualties as well as how skirmishers, sharpshooters, and line regiments incur them. I included the firing stick as well into this scenario.
The black Queen activates the Union side’s two sharpshooters. Sharpshooters may move/fire or fire/move. Terrain deductions do not infringe on their movement. However, terrain and smoke might block their line of sight. Players are to resolve any controversy over that matter with a die roll off, with the higher number winning. The idea is to have fun, not to get into heated arguments, nor to resolve “discussions” with fisticuffs.
Note the smoke emanating from the steeple. The one Yankee sharpshooter has just fired at a group of officers in the center of the cornfield.
The ADC on horseback has gotten hit once before as indicated by the red marker. The sniper rolls a D6. 1 – 4 score that many hits on the target. 5 – 6 means he gotten “winged” but not badly. The roll is a 1 meaning he now has been hit twice, therefore the player places the white chip under him and removes the red one. Two more hits eliminates that piece.
The second Union sniper stands on the hill overlooking the brick farmhouse below. He has zeroed in on the artillery captain in front pf the house.
The “6” indicates that he only nicked the Reb. That ends the Union snipers’ activation.
The next card, a red Queen means the 2 Confederate sharpshooters may move/fire.
In this instance, the Confederate sharpshooter on the hill above the country road has moved into the loft of the barn and is firing at the gaggle of officers on the lower hill below. Note the targets in the foreground and the smoke from the loft at the top of the picture.
The sniper rolled a “1” which means he wounded the ADC once, which is why the red chip goes under the stand.
The second Reb sniper is along a fence in a woodlot firing at the mounted officer in the road behind the zouaves to his right front. Being mounted, the officer shows above the stonewall and is a good target.
The sharpshooter rolled a “2”. Therefore, he places a white chip under the officer. Two more hits will remove the officer from the game.
The “3” of Hearts activate the Confederates’ Third Brigade, which occupies the cornfield in the hollow between the road and the church on the hill. When playing solitaire, I move the regiments from the left flank of the brigade to the right of the brigade.
This regiment, having been forced to do so, withdrew in a panic, as signified by the “W” and therefore has to be rallied. It still has all three staff officers. The colonel (mounted) was hid three times in that action and is in bad shape. The lieutenant colonel, in his post on the left of the line has suffered a severe wound as indicated by the “2 hit” white chip under his stand. The perished in the attack against the road and is no longer available. They have to rally the regiment or it will withdraw 6 inches to the rear and possibly disrupt the regiment moving in column behind it.
To do so, the brigadier of that brigade will roll 2 D10s of different colors two times (one pair/officer), as needed to see if they rallied the regiment. The light blue represents the officer and the other color the men. On the first roll, the officer scored the higher number and thereby stopped the panic. The brigadier removes the “W” and places a small red marker on the line, indicating that it is disorganized.
If both officers had failed their roll the higher number, the regiment would have kept the “W” and backed up 6 inches into the corn, destroying the fence in the process. When the red 3 is again drawn the officers will roll to the red marker to allow the regiment to activate. If not, it remains stalled on the field and can only defend itself but at a disadvantage.
In this shot, the stalled regiment is still stalled despite the fact that the red marker is not shown. The regiment behind it, being in column of 4s advances 23 of its allotted 24 inches before expending 1 movement point to face by the right flank into line.
The regiment on its right, in the cornfield, rather than expend its entire 19 inches in movement, advanced to the edge of the corn and sheltered behind the fence.
The regiment in reserve (not shown) stayed put. The one on the far right, moved by column and flanked right along the rail fence.
The left wing (4 stands) decided to react by firing and the three staff officers decided to let it do so. Therefore, they did not roll the 2 different colored D10s to stop them. [A regiment may move and fire by sections as long as there is a staff officer to control each section.]
The stick is a wooden blind slat cut 27 inches long and divided into 9 3-inch sections (3 inches/section.) The distance from the Yankees to the rebs is “7.” Because the Confederates are behind a fence the distance gets extended to a “6.” The little red dot indicates a reaction fire which means the two stands will roll 1 D6 and divided the result in half and deduct the result from the firing stick. 1 divided by 2 = .5, which rounds up to 1. This means the “6” on the stick becomes a “5.” The brigadier rolls 4 D10s. All numbers “5” or lower score hits. The “2” equals 1 hit, the others being misses.
The second part of the regiment, to the right, now fires, using the same formula. It rolled a “5” on the D6 which turns into a -3 on the stick and add it to -1 for the rail fence. The regular effective range of “6” less the -4 now becomes a “2.” The left wing (half) of the regiment did some pretty poor shooting. Two his converts into 8 casualties out of 400 rounds fired.
The results are mixed. A look as the D10s show that both affected regiments did not react. When fired upon during a reaction fire the units hit may respond once.
The lieutenant colonel in the upper left of the photo got severely hit (blue chip) ass did the colonel of the regiment on the right flank (blue chip.) The major on the left of the right regiment, was moderately wounded (2 hits – white chip).
The Confederate 3rd Brigade had ended its activation. It still may be subject to reaction from Federal regiments or artillery in vicinity.
More will follow in other blogs of this series. The next one will focus on Artillery, and charges. I intend to add charts later.
As always, thank you for your patience. I genuinely appreciate constructive comment, observations, and suggestions.
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