The Miracle of Big Stone Gap

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 Volley & Bayonet, Militia count as Poorly Trained, meaning they don't maneuver very well (which isn't a problem in this case). They are also permanently Disordered, which means (1) they cannot gain the benefit of going stationary, (2) a single failed morale test will rout them, and (3) all their targets get a saving throw with 50% odds against their hits. Not good. On the other hand, Knoxville's infantry is approaching in March Order (they can only melee, and only with one dice), and against Hasty Works (their targets also get 50% saving throws). Not good for either side.

This is such a small fight, I'm going to switch to the next smallest level of scale: Wing Scale, where 1 SP = 80 men and a turn is 15 minutes. The 600 attacking infantry ends up having 8 SP divided between two units, while the 200 defenders have 3 SP. The cavalry don't really come into this, as the narrow march columns are too long for them to participate. With most of my good terrain being used in the Battle of Morristown, here's how this looks on the table. All the brown hills along the sides are impassible. The white markers denote march column.

Turn 1

Kingsport fires at the approaching Knoxvillians, and inflicts a casualty.

Knoxville's forward infantry unit charges the hasty works in march order and both sides pass their morale test. However, Knoxville fails to inflict any casualties. Instead they suffer a second hit and fall back in disorder. They pass through the second unit behind them, which also disorders them.

Turn 2

Kingsport holds with no other action (the second unit is not within musket range yet).

Knoxville brings their first unit of troops back into order again, and charges the works with the second unit (who is now in front). Once again both sides pass their morale test, and once again, Kingsport inflicts casualties, while Knoxville does not. The second unit also falls back again, re-disordering the first.

Turn 3

Kingsport continues to HODL! the line.

Knoxville tries one more charge. Both sides pass their morale test, but both sides are too tired to inflict significant casualties, and Knoxville falls back in disorder yet again. At this point, three waves of failed charges over the course of 45 minutes have left Knoxville's troops in disarray, with nearly a fifth of them dead or severely wounded. Their commander decides to call off the charge and pull back -- at least for today.

Casualties

  • Knoxville: 113 infantry (487 remaining)
  • Kingsport: negligible losses

Final Thoughts

The dice were really on fire for Kingsport tonight. They never once failed a morale test, and they passed the one saving throw they had to make, while Knoxville only passed one of their saving throws. The militia boys are calling it the Miracle of Big Stone Gap. Huzzah!

It's highly unlikely the same results would play out on a second day, but I don't think I'll play that out here and now.

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