More ACW developments

With Crisis Point out of the way and with Andy T seemingly well on top of the planning for our Joy of Six game, I find myself increasingly focussed back onto Sharp Practice in general and the American Civil War in particular.

My plan this year is to put on a game at Steel Lard that doesn't require ridiculous amounts of specially built terrain. I don't want to get hyper-focussed on one project to the exclusion of actually enjoying my gaming and I really can't afford the storage space for a large amount of new terrain. 

The plan, then, is to create a game that uses my existing ACW collection and little or no scenario-specific terrain pieces. That game is provisionally titled Running From Bull Run. It's inspired by this painting:

I want to create a game where most of the players represent Union officers struggling to put together some sort of ordered rear-guard in the chaotic aftermath of defeat in the first pitched battle of the war.

It seems like a good idea to take advantage of the space available at Patriot Games and the fact that I now have two very nice Geek Villain mats to create a long table (12'x4') depicting the Warrenton Turnpike, down which the Union troops are fleeing. I already have enough road sections and a river and bridge that can represent Cub Run and disguise the join between the two mats.

Game rules are in development - I'll certainly need to find a different way of handling morale as any reasonable assessment says the Union Force Morale has already reached zero!

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The other consideration for Steel Lard is that I don't want to find myself in the position (again) of having to put on an emergency game because a game-runner's had to drop out at the last minute. Inevitably the players in any such game get a little short-changed.

My plan, then, is that Running From Bull Run can be replaced, using more-or-less exactly the same forces and terrain, by The Battle of Patriot Run.  This would be a fictional, up-to-four-a-side battle still using Sharp Practice but designed for minimal umpiring complexity. The presence of a river (the Patriot Run of the title) dividing the battlefield into two halves would allow the game to run as two parallel, smaller games to keep the action moving.

Having said that I don't want to get involved in building loads of new stuff, I do have some unpainted figures and want a variety of troop types either retreating down the turnpike or in line of battle astride Patriot Run.

After a little research I decided to paint some Perry plastics as the 13th New York Infantry, a unit that at Bull Run was in grey uniforms with pale blue trim and dark blue kepis.

Next to the drummer stands a white metal officer kindly provided by Richard Phillips. Obviously they're all yet to be properly based. Some more of these guys and some RP-provided zouaves are also on the list of things to paint.

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The final ACW project that I need to work on right now is the Muddy River play-by-email campaign. It got delayed while Richard was working away from home and I need to spend a few hours detailed study to remind myself where we're up to in the story. I do want to get the campaign completed so I can properly report here on how things transpired. Keep an eye out for developments!

More Muddy River pics

The Muddy River Blues campaign continues. We're now seven campaign turns (three-and-a-half days) into the story and as previously I can't give away too much at this stage. Suffice to say there has been a small skirmish somewhere in Hendricks County, Mississippi.

With just a dozen or so men involved, the game was too small to play out with Sharp Practice so I dusted off Arc of Fire, a nice, flexible set of rules that'll cope with smaller forces.

The top of my plan chest was big enough to represent an area of woodland with a patch of denser undergrowth created using my Woebetides elephant grass pieces.

I played the game solo and used the session to remind myself of the variant activation system we worked out for a past Crisis Point. I'll do a post later this week to explain this in detail.

Muddy River pics

I am able to confirm that my Muddy River Blues campaign exploring the operations of the Mississippi Marine Brigade is well under way and, indeed, has seen its first action on the tabletop.

To keep the players in the dark I can't share a full after action report here but I'll let you have a few atmospheric shots:

A Confederate column in the swamp land

Gunsmoke along the Muddy River

Stand-in river boat model

Muddy River Blues part one

My 2024 gaming year is kicking off with a short Sharp Practice campaign called Muddy River Blues.

Set in April-May 1863, it's an exploration of Mississippi Marine Brigade operations against Confederate raiders in the swamplands of western Mississippi. Richard Phillips and Ron Pearce are signed up to play, respectively, Union and Confederate commanders.

I don't want to share too much information at present as we're only just getting started and hidden movement is going to be a major factor but here's the campaign map. If you were around in the 1970s I trust you will be able to detect the nominative theme.

Each of the grey-outline rectangles is a 6'x4' Sharp Practice tabletop. I'll be adding more details of each of them as the players visit them. The blue strip down the western edge of the map is the Mississippi River. The Union troops begin based at Hendricks and the Confederates at Badfinger.

I'll provide some updates as the campaign proceeds.

Now to check if I have enough in the way of wide river sections!