Gettysburg Day 1: Blocher's Knoll and Forney Farm

 Last month the Fremont gamer's got together to play in Gil's game recreating the action during the first day of Gettysburg, particularly in the area of Blocher's Knoll and Forney Farm.

Most, if not all, of the models on the table were inherited by us from our dear friend Paul Le Febvre, Gil made this awesome commemorative base in his honor and I love it

 

During the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, the fight for Blocher's Knoll was pivotal as Union forces sought to establish defensive positions against advancing Confederate troops. As Union Brigadier General John F. Reynolds positioned his soldiers to hold off elements of the Confederate Army under General Henry Heth, fierce skirmishes erupted in and around Blocher's Knoll. The Union troops initially held strong, but the intense fighting and overwhelming numbers of the Confederates ultimately forced the Union to retreat. 

 

We used the Pickett's Charge rules by Too Fat Lardies, a Civil War version of our much beloved General d'Armee. The rules are basically the same with a few changes and new terms to match the period. We ran into a bit of confusion getting the terminology mixed around and eventually settled on just using the GDA terminology we were used to. One small change that confounded me was changing Discipline Test to Elephant Test. I'd still like to know from the designers the historical context of that term.

The scenario was a simple attack and defense. The Confederate objective was to capture Blocher's Knoll and the Union objective was to hold for 6 turns.

Union cannons positioned on top Blocher's Knoll, with advancing Confederate forces opposite them

 I took the Confederate C-in-C and led the 3 brigades that would be assaulting Blocher's Knoll. Opposing me would be our new friend Phillip Forshaw. I also had Matt and Chris playing on my side, and Keith and Andy on the Union side.

Our side went first, I knew 6 turns wouldn't be a lot of time to take that knoll, but the longer I took the more time the Union would have to get their rear troops into defensive positions. I sent 2 brigades forward for a frontal assault and sent 1 brigade left towards some hills that overlooked the Union flank. It was a predictable plan, and the Union knew it was coming, but it was also the best plan available to me.

Avery's Brigade marches double quick to take the hill overlooking the Union flank

On our center and right flank, as there were no objectives on those sides of the map, my teammates Chris and Matt did their best to tie up Union forces to keep them from reinforcing Blocher's Knoll

Back on my side of the table, although I was advancing the frontal assault, my flanking attack wasn't moving much. I had a bad experience with the -2 moving and shooting penalty, leading to a lot of Fire Discipline, and I made the poor choice of keeping my flank standing still to fire instead of advancing like I should have in retrospect. Our GM Gil, who is a very aggressive commander when playing Confederates, was extremely disappointed in my lack of temerity.

The first brigade I sent on the frontal attack took heavy losses from grapeshot fire trying to clear the cannons off that knoll but that allowed my 2nd brigade to get in range relatively unscathed. My flanking attack had finally closed to close range with the Union but I took too much time getting there and at that point the Union rear had already taken defensive positions along the knoll.

In our center, Matt was having trouble getting one of his 2 brigades to activate and was experiencing the duality of man. 

On one hand, we had Daniel's Brigade, which had fought tooth and nail for every inch of gained ground to the point where every single regiment was unformed and badly wounded

... And on the other hand we had Iverson's Brigade, which was standing around at deployment, having failed to activate for 4 turns in a row, completely unblooded.

This would actually be historically accurate, because at the real battle, Iverson had been drunk off his ass and performed worse than he should have due to his inebriation.

Chris' side of the table on our right flank however was going very well, he had beaten back his opponent, kept most of his regiments relatively intact, and was now making charges against the Union center.

As we approached the end of the game, I had actually made significant progress towards the objective and nearly caused a Union brigade to rout, I also launched a few charges that caused several Union regiments to fall back but it was too little too late. By the end of the game the Union had moved back into defensive position around the knoll, I had failed to capture it, and we called it a Union victory.

It was a very close game and I think maybe given a turn or 2 more we had a small chance of winning, but we'll never know...

Anyways, I'll have a lot to blog about this month. Our next game will be the Peninsular War's Battle of Albuera (we were supposed to do the WW2 Warsaw Uprising but unfortunately the GM had to cancel) in 3 weeks, Pacificon will take place on August 30th, where I'll be running more Vietnam wargames using Charlie Don't Surf, and next Saturday will be the August SBGC meeting, where I was supposed to play The Battle of Helm's Deep using AD&D Battlesystem, but the GM for that also had to cancel so I guess I'll just show up and see what game I manage to get into. Until than, folks!