Gettysburg Refight - Bloody Big Battles

So yesterday we tried out the not quite finished game board to see how everything worked; Bob and Rick took the side of the Union with myself and Haim trying to win the war as the Confederates.

The view looking south over Gettysburg towards Cemetery Ridge with, as yet, no soldiers in sight.

And then into the Round Tops and Devil's Den.  The wooded areas are not yet finished and a collection of hand made and bog brush trees adorn the chocolate brown areas where they will go.

The first day opened with Buford riding hard to the south to deny the Confederates deployment zones and Steinwehr deploying to cover Seminary Ridge, an aggressive opening gambit that went sour fast for the boys in blue as it resulted in 4 Confederate divisions swatting the German Corps with contempt and catching the reserves in column; only a flank charge by Buford's horse boys was able to keep the Rebs out of Gettysburg and allow a much needed respite to call up the reserves.

Day 2 dawned with the Union deciding that the Peach Orchard was the place to be while the Confederate battle plan coalesced around an assault up Cemetery Ridge from the vicinity of the Seminary while Longstreet sought to assault north through Devil's Den into the Orchard, bypassing the formidable Round Tops.

(Longstreet advances on the Peach Orchard)

(View from Little Round Top across to Seminary Ridge)

(Union troops watch the assault on Gettysburg)

A savage battle erupted around Plum Run with Union troops on the Round Tops pouring fire into the flank of the advancing Confederates but the Peach Orchard finally fell when batteries of the Army Reserve were able to bring fire into the defenders rear.  Meanwhile the Main Confederate force became fixated with taking the town as a prelude to assaulting the Cemetery but the Union failed to penalise this due to a staff error neglecting to bring forward whole corps of reserves, something that was to prove fatal to the Union cause.

Finally the Confederates were able to mount a sustained and unrelenting assault against Cemetery Hill and Ridge and as the second day ended the Union were in full retreat getting inextricably mixed up with their belated reserves so once day three dawned they were in no position to recapture the high ground and after a half hearted attempt to shake themselves out finally called the attempt off and began to compose their excuses for the Washington Post and to work out who was to blame for the disaster that had befallen the North's cause.

The final view from the defenders of Little Round Top as the Union army disintegrates.

Overall it was a great game with plenty of manoeuvre and desperate hand to hand struggles and now makes one win all; both sides are eager for a rematch and the next outing will be a reversal of sides with hopefully one more game before Warfare.  Next step is to finish off the wooded areas and neaten up some of the roads and other terrain pieces but all should be done in plenty of time for the show.

Creating Gettysburg for use with Bloody Big Battles and to take to Warfare 2017 in Reading in November

We've often put on participation games at shows before but this year decided to have a go at creating a whole battlefield for a demonstration game that, hopefully, people will enjoy looking at and like to join in.  The game is designed to fight all 3 days in 4 to 5 hours on a 6' x 4' table with units representing whole divisions, as such there is a compromise between figure and ground scale that meant having contours that are aesthetically more extreme than on the real battlefield, which I've visited a couple of times.

What follows, if I can get the hang of this is a series of pictures showing the evolution of the board.

First step was to get 6 sheets of 4' x 2' of 1" Styrofoam and lay out the base layer to ensure it fit.

Next, the contours had to be marked out and cut using a hot wire cutter:

And then the slopes carved using more hot wire tools and sharp knives (please ignore the red contour lines....); the figures are Pendraken 10mm being used to make sure they could stand on the slopes without sliding:

Next step was to mark and carve the rivers and mark the roads, these latter not being carved but marked to make sure they didn't go anywhere silly with the slopes:

The view above is looking down from the round tops towards Gettysburg in the distance.  The whole lot was then covered in plaster cloth to give it a good hard surface that could take paint.

Next the roads were all marked out with 12mm masking tape and a good solid coat of green and brown paint laid down before moving on to a liberal covering of flock:

 Next the masking tape was removed to reveal the roads and then on to the finishing touches:

The roads were flocked with a good brown and the rivers painted brown with blue and the bottom (not realistic I know but it looks nice) with Woodland Scenic water effect then poured in:

Unfortunately I forgot to take any more pictures of the intervening stages and I've not fully finished but the above gives an idea of the effect as we look into Gettysburg; we fought the battle today on the nearly finished board and I'll put up pictures of that to give a better view.