Huge ACW Club Game!!!

Here are some photos of the very large ACW Game that we played on Saturday.  Club members Ralph, Bob and Charlie hosted a great game.  The scenario was set in campaign around Fort Donelson in 1863(?).  We used the Regimental Fire and Fury game system with some slight modifications.  The game included some really great terrain, beautifully painted figures and very creative ironclads and riverboat transports.

So, let's see the photos:

The brave Rebel defenders of Fort Donelson!

Dover under "Aerial Spying!"

A Union Division attempts to turn the Rebel right flank.

The entire table looking north over Dover to Fort Donelson - The Cumberland river is on the right.

The last photo should really give you an idea of how large the game was - 6-7 feet wide by about 18 feet long!  Plenty of troops, but no so many that you couldn't maneuver.  The entire side of the table on the right of the photo above represented the Cumberland River.  There were three custom built ironclads (2 Union, 1 Confederate) and a couple of river boats pressed into service as troop transports (1 on each side) on a very inventive rolling stand mechanism.  This allowed them to "steam up and down the river" firing their guns, landing troops and just generally causing all kinds of havoc and tactical problems for the commanders on land.

There was also a re-supply component to the Confederate play where they had to use a train (visible at the bottom of the overall table photo above) or their river boat to re-supply the heavy artillery in Fort Donelson.  The supplies were dropped off in Dover and then moved by wagons to the fort itself.  We did manage to get two wagons worth of supplies to the fort before the supply line was cut and never did have to slacken our fire from the big guns.

The battle was a pretty even affair until the Union managed to dock their transport river boat right near the fort, disembark a brigade of infantry and two heavy mortars and proceed to bombard our brave defenders of states' rights into oblivion!   The gunboats did some pretty significant damage to the fort and to the Confederates trying to hold open the supply route between Dover and Fort Donelson.

Just overall a beautiful game to look at and a very fun game to play in.  The rule set worked really well and while simple in many ways, it plays very close to what one would read a battle being like in the American Civil War.  I hope to play in another one very soon!