Refactoring My Brain

The best defense is a good offense. At least that's what the Big Stone Gap's High School coach used to say, before he got put in charge of the town's militia. Knoxville has sent a relatively small contingent (600 men, 750 horse) against Big Stone Gap, who is only defended by a militia of 200. While Mr. Wargaming played this out as a siege, using two different sets of rules, I wanted to see what advantage could be found in the mountainous terrain, and how that would translate to the table.  Dark Hollow is an extremely narrow passage through the mountain with only enough room for a road and a river. However, there is a small bend in the river where it widens just enough for our militia boys to throw up some hasty works and deploy in a firing line. This scenario is essentially a simplistic "tower defense", where you shoot down endless waves of oncoming of enemies. With no room to maneuver, the only real question to answer here is whose morale will hold out longer. In...

Last time we looked at the setup for this battle, which rules I was using, and the selection of a battlefield. Without further ado, it's time to see what happens. By way of reminder, here is the disposition of the troops at 10:00 am. Kingsville goes first. Initial Deployment Turn 1 (10:00 to 10:30) Both troops continue maneuvering into position. I don't have skirmish stands (either infantry or cavalry) painted up yet, so I'm using the blue poker chips to represent skirmish detachments (you'll see the original unit stands off to the top left side of the table). Here the Greeneville Rifles have begun sending detachments to take the wooded hill, and the Rogersville Light Dragoons have broken down completely into skirmishers to pass through the woods unimpeded. The Knoxville commander, accompanied by the White Pine and Dandridge line regiments surveys the battlefield from the top of a windmill on a hilltop. End of turn 1 Turn 2 (10:30 to 11:00) The cavalry charge by the 1s...

Introduction I'm dusting off this antique blogspot to publish some wargame reports for Mr. Wargaming's collaborative solo wargame campaign experiment: The Sneedville War . You can learn more about it over at his blog, and more importantly on his youtube channel . In short, the forces of Kingsport are keen on taking the town of Sneedville from the forces of Knoxville. Full disclosure: my sympathies lie with Kingsport, but of course I will do my best to game each side fairly and intelligently. The first two battles of the war are now ready to game. These are the Battle of Morristown, and the Siege of Big Stone Gap. After marching into Bean Station, Roger's Division (these forces are really too small to call "armies") has turned south to cross the bridge to Morristown. They are opposed by Knoxville's Division of the East, which is marching North to meet them. The forces are similar in power, but Roger's has the only artillery, and slightly more infantry -- i...