Gettysburg Day 3 "Picketts Charge"

This  was  the final game of the day, and we were joined by four guys who were interested in trying out the game. Once again we quickly changed the scenery to fight the third day of Gettysburg and the infamous "Pickets charge". Although in the actual battle there were actually more Confederate divisions than Picketts who made the assault, Our standard game is played  on a 4ft by 6ft table with 3 Brigades a side, so we just used Pickett's division against the Union 2nd Corp 2nd Division under  their commander, Gibbon. 

Kiefer, Vincente and Francois were playing the Confederate Brigade commanders and Angel, Luis and myself were the Union Brigade commanders. Usually in the two player game the Division commander is important because he has  to attempt to activate his Brigade commanders. But not wanting players to be sitting around doing nothing if they fail their activation tests, I decided to do away with this  rule.

After a few turns  of the Confederate artillery bombarding the Union positions the Confederate forces on the Union left flank advance quickly over the open ground in column formation.

The Confederate centre and  right flank brigade (Garnets) advance more slowly due to the many fences and begin to take more casaulties.

A Confederate Regiment gets too close to the Union line before deploying and begins to fire. The other Union Regiment countercharges over the wall and routs another Reb unit. 

Due to having to explain the rules and having a great time, unfotunately I didn't take that many

photos. But basically my brigade on the left actually did quite well and managed to repulse the Confederate attack and actually start to counterattack down the hill.

The Union right flank under Angel  who was protecting the Union line of communication started to slowly crumble although right at the end he managed to to repulse an attack that would have mean't the capture of the line of communication and disaster for the whole of the Union army.

Kiefer explaining the skirmish rule to his Confederate comrades, Vincente and Francois

Most important was the Union centre under the leadership of Luis. His right flank was routed but they managed  to rally and repulse the Confederate attack, however the Confederate objective,  the copse of trees was thinly defended with no Union reserves directly behind it. On the last turn the Confederate took the  position and with no Union regiments able to counterattack the Confederates won the day. This made the overall  score 2 - 1 to the Rebs and winning the Battle of Gettysburg, making Kiefer a very happy chappy.
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   Our four new friends said they had a great time and really enjoyed the rules and want to play again, so it was well worth all the hard work, and all those late nights making those bloody fences!