Virginia creepers

Today, we did an American Civil war skirmish. For the past couple of games, we have been using Breech loader armed Berdan's sharpshooters, which clearly showed the amazing power of magazine fed weapons!

Today, we returned to the vast majority types of the Civil War, men armed with percussion cap rifles.
We decided, for another change, to have 2 identical forces, and make this a game of tactics and luck!

We diced to decide who commanded what, and dice being how they are, Lawrence got Phil as a sub commander, in charge of the Federals, and I got Ian as my second, with the Confederates!

The road junction (the game objective) from the Union approach road.

The Union company arrived first. Phil's men in the lead. 

My half company arrived down 1 fork in the road...

... Ian came down the other. 

 Both sides continued down their roads until Phil's men spotted mine.

 They jumped a fence and tried to outflank me!

 Lawrence's men followed but turned left into a farm. 

I began to marshal my men into a farm by the junction.  

 Ian arrived on my right and decided to defend the junction.

 I fired at the Federals crossing the open, then a second section replaced them while the first section reloaded.

 3 Feds were killed from the first group, only 1 and 3 wounded from the second I hit.

The rest of Phil's men made it to the woods on my left.

Ian began skirmishing down the road.. 

 Several Feds fell.

 The survivors hid in the farm after replying. 

 Only one of Ian's men was killed.

 Some of Lawrence's men left the farm and began to outflank Ian.

 I moved some of my men round the farm I held to protect the threatened flank.

 Ian began shooting at Lawrence's men. 

Despite the range, he hit a few. 

Phil's battered men continued trying to outflank my farm. Their wounded struggling to keep up!

Unseen, they began to form up for an attack on me. 

 Lawrence was engaged with greater numbers of Ian's men.

 A couple of Rebs fell.

They returned fire. 

 The Feds were hit again.

 The fire fight continued.

 The outnumbered Feds held on.

 Lawrence's outflanking force continued moving.

 Ian's men kept losing men, but at a lower rate than their enemies.

Eventually, Phil got into position to swamp my flank unit! 

Only one section attacked, and lost 3 to my one. 

 My men attacked and routed the disrupted Federal section. 

Some of my  other men moved in support of the attacking unit.

Back on Lawrence's flank, his men were losing heavily. 

 Ian's men were still very numerous! 

Ian brought a unit that had been supporting me to play on Lawrence too. 

 Lawrence's figure managed to hold the Feds in place.

A final volley from Ian... 

...made the remaining Feds in the farm flee.

Phil, meanwhile, counter attacked my unit in the wood.

My men pushed their tormentors back but were volleyed by another Union squad. 

As the survivors withdrew, one of my reserve units joined the battle. 

 Ian's men now turned to fight Lawrences outflanking force..

Seeing they were outnumbered, and taking heavier losses than Ian's men..

 The Federals decided to fall back and cede the battle to the Army of North Virginia!

This was a hard, but fun game. 

I think the Union lost because they separated their forces, meaning they mostly ended fighting greater numbers of enemy.

Good dicing always helps though! - and the brave boys of the South had more than their fair share of these!