Final Report: Battle of Somewaresville

Last weekend we completed the Battle of Somewarsville. It was a Confederate victory with high casualties on the Union side. It was a 2:1 loss ration in favor of the Confederates.

As the game continued, the Confederate left flank had pretty much fought to a standstill. The Union center was demolished! When the game ended, the Union center was being basically held by 2 artillery batteries and a general. On the right, which was where I was commanding, I had managed to rout a couple of Union brigade's and was able to take up a defensive posture. I also had my final division arrive on board which was a relief for me. The Union lads also had a final division appear. They should have appeared sooner, but were mistakenly overlooked. Could they have made a difference? They had arrived in the center but were too late to be effective by games end. However, if they had arrived as scheduled, it could have changed my deployments. I may have not focused so much on my flank by moving more of my units to the center. I knew I had a reserve arriving that would have been more than a match for any Union units they would have faced.

In the end, it was roughly 100+ stands lost on the Union side to less than 50 stands for the Confederates. The artillery losses were 5 for the Confederates and 4 for the Union. Cavalry losses were in favor of the Union forces. Losses were in the form of actual kills and routed units.

Some rules changes are going to be made. I am thinking of making ammo allotments for the artillery. This could prevent some of the arguing over what is a good shot and what isn't. Less shots may be taken knowing that if the die roll doesn't go their way, the player losses that round of ammo. I am also looking at using the artillery arc from Fire and Fury. I am going to make the Corps commanders more important by designating points to them, that could be allotted to Division commanders. This would help more units to move along and be useful if a unit needs to do something important. As it was, I had the Corps commanders basically as figure heads that would replace a Division commander if they were knocked off.

All in all I was happy with the game. It was the largest game I had ever set up and I am looking forward to setting up another with the rules changes. The rules I have are simple and basic and I wish to keep them that way. This will allow me to continue to put on larger games and keep it relatively realistic.