Tag Archives: history

FIRST BULL RUN, PART I

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I linked up with Alex of “Commission & Regiment” and “Up the Blue” fame to game First Bull Run with my draft ACW rules (themselves a variant of NT’s ACW rules from his “Wargaming: An Introduction” book.). Ive always liked Bull Run due to the huge variation of units that fought there as well as the strange reinforcement schedule that favors the Union in the first half of the battle and then favors the Confederacy in the latter half. Using the scenario from “Forward the Colours” on Wargame Vault, I pieced together a scenario using my 20 x units per side (so brigade strengths are a little fudged).

The resulting game has so far been alot of fun. Much like the armies of both sides coming to grips with “modern” warfare, our recent battle saw us coming to grips with Neil Thomas’ ACW rules, as well as NT’s 19th Century rules – both of which were heavily discussed.

The turns are 20 minutes each. Units are regiments. The Union (Army of Northern Virginia) much seize the crossroads and the multiple portions of Henry House Hill by the end of Turn 23. The Confederates (Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Shenandoah) must prevent them from doing so.

We stopped around Turn 10 – there are still a bunch of Rebel reinforcements and yet ANOTHER Union Brigade scheduled to come on the table. I will let the pictures tell the story from here.

Burnside and Porter’s Brigades fanned out, assaulting Bee’s Brigade and cutting the Warrenton Turnpike (running across the pic). Franklin and Wilcox’s Brigades are coming up to continue the attack up Henry House Hill in the background. Bee is putting up stubborn resistance on his hill and the veteran Louisiana troopers are giving ground grudgingly.

Alex’s attack against Buck Hill is textbook and he forms a beautiful line across the battlefield. More importantly, the full firepower of his formations is being brought to bear and Alex is using the “Full Volley” rule to good effect. Bee eventually loses an Alabama regiment atop Buck Hill while his veterans slowly withdraw from their position

Bee facing combined elements of Burnside, Franklin and Wilcox’s Brigades

The view from the Rebel side looking at Buck Hill and teh Warrenton Turnpike. Henry House Hill is to your right off-camera. Porter’s Brigade has crossed the Warrenton Turnpike in the foreground and is advancing towards the woods while elements of Franklin and Wilcox’s brigade relieve him along the fenceline. Note the Rebels (Bartow’s Brigade) have refused their left flank and are taking what meager cover they can. The Rebels are attempting to stave off the Union Army as best they can while Cocke’s Brigade and Jackson’s Brigade deploy.
Burnside’s 2nd Rhode Island push Bee’s / Evans
Louisiana Troops continue to move out of the woods on the hill. Bee’s men at the bottom to the left continue to make an orderly withdrawal to the fenceline along the Warrenton Turnpike (left). Bee will take up Bartow’s positions, while Bartow shifts left to handle the attack into the woods. The Union troops are right at the Confederates’ doorstep!

Alex’s line continues to strengthen and he continues to move his artillery up with him. Meanwhile, Rebel reinforcements are pouring in from Manassas as Cocke’s Brigade advances through the woods up Henry House Hill and Jackson’s Brigade moves up Henry House Hill moving around the woods. There is lots of combat power massing on Henry House Hill now but the Confederates need time to establish a second line. Alex does not intend to give me time to leisurely set up my defense!

Cocke’s Brigade moves into position by Henry House. They’re tagged to relieve Bartow so he can shift his Brigade along the Warrenton Turnpike Fenceline position. So far the battle is turning out eerily similar to history.
Jackson’s men arrive up the backside of Henry House Hill. They will be instrumental in trying to blunt the Union attack materializing in the woodline to the southwest.
The fight along the Warrenton Turnpike is tough. Heavy shooting from Union muskets and artillery has shredded a number of units from Bee and Bartow’s Brigades. Cocke’s reinforcements are deploying to your left (off camera) and Bartow is trying to shift up in the picture as Alex’s Union sledge-hammer comes down on the Confederate positions.
Confederate Troops of Bee’s Brigade have given up the woods atop Buck Hill as Burnside’s men occupy their old positions. Note the horde of Rebel columns atop Henry House Hill upper-center. You can see Cocke’s Brigade next to the Henry House model moving at speed to support Bartow. Ominously, there is a horde of troops to the upper right attempting an assault on Henry House Hill from the west.
Porter’s Brigade moving through the woods as Jackson’s Brigade moves to deploy to cover the objective (red bead)
1st Minnesota taking cover at a stone wall at the base of Henry House Hill. Alex is fighting to gain a foothold on the south bank of the creek! There was a rebel regiment here a few turns ago who were driven back and fled the field.
Sherman’s Brigade arrives onto the field now, further complicating my plan!
The entire field at the bottom on turn 10 (1230pm roughly). A major attack is setting up from the woods and Sherman’s Brigade has arrived to continue the attack on my right. Jackson and Cocke’s Brigade are deploying to meet them both while Bartow and Bee trade more lives to buy time for the defense of the hill. I still have more reinforcements coming on in the form of JEB Stuart’s Cavalry, Kershaw and Early’s brigades in the afternoon portion of the battle.

Lessons Learned So Far

I am enjoying the rules but there are some kinks to work out still. The saves provided in my previous download version were much too generous, prolonging the game more than was necessary and so the saves have been reduced to 6 and 5 in cover (being dug-in allows a save 1 better than the terrain). The retreat rules brought up some questions such as what happens when a unit retreats through another unit that itself had 3 hits on it – if that unit loses a base, does it have to test to retreat now? I do like the retreat rules as units were driven off frequently from shooting, but came back just as frequently.

Additionally, Alex suggested that since units consist of 3 bases (vrs 4 in the NT rules) I should play the units with 3 bases (meaning they are done at 12 hits). Much to ponder there. We have not been physically removing any of the bases but rather using red dice as counters to track base loss and casualty figures as individual hits).

Otherwise, I think the game has certainly kept the spirit of NT’s ACW rules alive and well (buliding upon them with more chrome) I have really been enjoying the game so far and watching Alex’s attacks materialize brings about a sense of excitement and dread 🙂

If I can more intelligently deploy Cocke and Jackson’s brigade, perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to say “THERE STANDS JACKSON LIKE A STONE WALL! RALLY BEHIND THE VIRGINIANS!” but so far my deployment has been a bit foppish.

Future Plans

Concluding Bull Run may bring about the end of “ACW Month” (April) but since it’s still May and I’m still painting ACW stuff and playing ACW games, I’m not sure “ACW Month” will actually conclude… It has been immensely satisfying getting my 15mm ACW troopers on the table for some hard campaigning especially after repainting and rebasing so many of the troops.

They needed to stretch their legs out and it has been too long since an ACW game graced my table! So I kind of fouled up the schedule taking way too long to get ACW stuff onto the table and I completely missed May which was supposed to be 10mm Fantasy and 15mm Vietnam stuff. But since ACW has been on the table, the boys have fought in some tough brawls (including a 1st Manassas scenario fought with Ken using Valour & Fortitude and a bunch of test NT ACW games using the One Hour Wargame scenarios)

All this being said, it’s almost June and D-Day beckons! I plan on playing Bolt Action with Andy and his 20mm 101st Airborne and possibly more Kursk action using Bolt Action, preparing to reap a “bitter harvest” in July for Kursk month. Still have about 20 US paratroopers to finish painting and some German howitzers.

I’ve also been reminded that it’s going to be America’s 250th birthday soon, and so I should probably get an AWI game in. To be honest, that was not part of the 2026 agenda, but it just seems like the right thing to do 😀

Stay tuned!

TO THE RESCUE! Small Dunn-Kempf Game (RAW)

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I was finally able to get a small game of Dunn-Kempf on the table using my 1/285 Cold War microarmor and the results did not disappoint! The scenario was taken from the GDW Board Game “Team Yankee” and features a platoon of Soviet T-72s and BMP-1s attempting to overrun a small, West German village which is held by 2 x sections of Cavalry Scouts in Bradley fighting vehicles. 2 x M1 Abrams tanks are racing to rescue them from the clutches of the evil empire.

The village bordering on a small river is sheltering 2 x US Cavalry scout sections. The Soviets will approach from the secondary road in the upper-center of the pic. The US M60’s will approach from your left along the highway. ( I forgot to add the bridge in this picture)

I took a little artistic license with the OOB and since we’re playing DK, I used M113 APCs as the Bradleys and M60 Main Battle Tanks instead of M1 Abrams.

Before you dive in, the following WWIII battle report is probably best paired with the old “Steel Panthers 2 – Modern Battles” soundtrack…

TO THE RESCUE

“The remnants of a US recon company are desperately fighting for survival against a Soviet advance guard. Just as all seems lost, US tanks come charging to the rescue!”

Turn 1

Just movement. The DK scales are very tight (1″ = 50m) and movement is not very generous with vehicles on a road moving 6 inches (300m) and infantry moving 2 inches off road and 3 inches on. Vehicles moving cross country get 4 inches of movement. Not sure the Soviets will even reach the village by Turn 8!

Soviet armor and infantry moving towards the village! They’ve started out of sight of any US missiles or other weapons. There is a US squad with a Dragon ATGM launcher in that tan building with a M113 APC waiting in the street.

The first Soviet turn is spent completely in movement (targets in a town are spotted at 3″ and so the Russians can only move until they are fired upon). And fire upon them the Americans do! The US Squad in the townhouse opens fire with their Dragon Anti Tank missile at 500 meters.

53 is a hit! The US squad needed a “26” (a 2 or higher on the red (tens) die). Does the impact knock out the T-62?
It does! A T-62 is burning on the road. Ivan knows there are troops in that building now.

The American M60s trundle down the road at 6″ per turn. They’re still quite a ways away from influencing this battle. The Russians will get their revenge on these American cowboys!

Turn 2

That’s better. You cant have a Cold War scenario without a bridge!

The Soviets unload with T-62 firing the AA machine gun at the tan building with the second tank in the column. Note how the tanks are snaking around the burning lead tank.

The column snakes around teh knocked out, burning T-62. A smililar scene is repeating itself across West Germany this morning!
The American infantry squad in the tan townhouse is suppressed while the other infantry squad moves into the church.

Turn 3

The Soviets continue to unload into the town now, intent on knocking out the American cavalry sections defending.

The Soviets unload on the church and knock out a US squad! .
Revenge for their fallen buddies in the church as the US send another dragon missile flying down the road hitting, but not killing, a second T-62 at 500 meters.

Turn 4

The Soviets pick up the pace now and move the BMP infantry fighting vehicles off the road to get more firepower to their front. They need to destroy or suppress those gunners to make this movement to the town easier. The American M60s creep closer to the battle area. The Americans spray .50 caliber machine gun fire at the BMP in an attempt to suppress it but the fire is not accurate.

The Soviets execute the Battle Drill they’ve rehearsed dozens of times and with a single word, the vehicles begin to deploy into the assault. Successful shooting is able to suppress the American squad in the townhouse now.

Turn 5

The Soviets, seeing the fire from the M113 in the town, open fire and knock it out with an HE round. More fire keeps the US cavalry scouts suppressed!

Turn 6

The Soviet BMPs surge toward the town to try and capture it and just in the nick of time, the Cavalry shows up! 2 x M60 tanks appear from the woods along the highway north of the town!

BMPs go for broke as the turn limit is approaching!
The American M60 tanks add weight to the fight! An unforseen and unpleasant development that the Soviet commander could have gone without! The M60s fire right from teh march, both hitting and knocking out targets.
Scratch 2 x BMPs as the American gunners find their targets. I did not know what to do with the dismounts when their transport is destroyed so I dismounted them, suppressed.

Turn 7

The Soviets go for broke and surge a T-62 and BMP along the river towards the church. If they can get a dismount section into the church they can actually still win this fight!

Good shooting from Ivan knocks out an M60. The American commander is still nervous! Note the M113 in the background that swung around last turn to engage the infantry dismounts who lost their ride. His fire goes wild and misses the Russians in the open.
American shooting knocks out another T-62 along the road. Note the BMP next to him on the left sneaking around to try and get to the church. In Dunn Kempf, it takes an entire move to mount or dismount and so the Soviets will not be able to win this game in 8 moves. In fact, it was probably unfair to have the game only go 8 moves.

By the end of Turn 8, the final BMP is destroyed by the single remaining American M60 and the squad in the townhouse. This was a tough fight and it felt brutal. Most weapons have a good chance of getting an effect on the target (even if they can’t kill it) and suppressed tanks fire at a disadvantage and suppressed infantry can’t fire at all. Fire and maneuver is rewarded and the old saying rings true: “if it can be seen, it can be hit. if it can be hit, it can be killed”. Nowhere is this more apparent than the modern battlefield.

Issues Encountered

During play a few things stood out to me.

Range & Rounding.The range blocks in the game are in increasing increments (50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, etc) so it is inevitable that you will have to round numbers up or down. There is no guidance for this at all that I could find, so I’ll have to think about this one a little bit.

Dismounts. As mentioned above, there was no guidance given about the fate of dismounts when their transport is knocked out. Are they simply knocked out with it? Do they have a chance to save themselves? I ended up dismounting them, suppressed.

Line of Sight. Always a sticky subject – there is not much given on LOS so you really do have to identify the effects of terrain and how LOS works prior to starting play. There is a highly restrictive (or highly realistic?) observation table that tells you what you can see at a given distance. So if the intent is to make LOS hard on the firer, I’ll have to take that into consideration.

Modifiers. The modifiers sneak up on you and they’re easy to forget or easily missed – even with the QRS. I found myself forgetting to apply them sometimes so I had to go back and re-roll some of the To-Hit rolls. There are quite a few modifiers that go into the To-Hit roll and are dependent on the firing unit’s status (moved? not moved? suppressed?) and the target’s status (moved? not moved?) and that is alot to apply. I’d almost like to make this a 2D6 game with a mean to-hit score, and a to-kill score based solely off the percentage required, then expressed to the closest 2D6 equivalent. I’m envisioning a handful of modifiers that keep it within the spirit of the rules here by moving the target up or down (not the dice roll). (As an important aside, 2D10 as percentage dice would probably be the most accurate way to do this, but I can’t stand using D10s! As a thought exercise, I already have the percentages for the To Hit / To Kill rolls from the tables worked out and I could just play those within the results of a 2D6 roll, instead of the strange 16-66 method used in DK.)

Movement & Play Sequence. The play sequence is rigid and deliberate. This isn’t a problem really, but being used to more free-flowing games like Battlegroup: NORTHAG where a player can pick the order of operations, I kind of like having just a little more flexibility. That said, this play sequence just *works* with fire enabling suppression which gives you a bit more confidence moving across open ground when the enemy is present.

Templates. I didnt play this game with the templates provided in teh book (the scenario didn’t call for indirect fire) but I will be soon. If I play another GDW Team Yankee scenario, then there is most certainly a number of salvos of IDF that I’ll have as either the Soviets or the Americans. I’d like to get artillery support dialed in and figure out how to call for, track and eventually adjust fires. This is where an umpire helps tremendously. The real DK requires players to develop a fure support plan complete with pre registered target points and on call support elements. If I’m going to play a larger game of DK, I’ll need to get the artillery system worked out.

Final Thoughts

This was a great game! Lots of excitement and it moved fast (except for the agonizingly slow movement rates). The game is certainly written to be as specific (not abstract) as possible and very much plays like a military simulation (think JANUS or something you’d encounter at the Battle Sim Center). I hope I’ve successfully demonstrated that it has tremendous potential as a stand-alone wargame with whatever forces you choose. The sequence of play is gold, and would also work for a WWII wargame as well.

I would like to play this same scenario with my old Battlegroup: REFORGER or the current Battlegroup: NORTHAG rules to see how they play in comparison. Unfortunately NORTHAG doesn’t scale *down* so well and so I may have to dust off REFORGER and give it a go but as a thought exercise this was incredibly fun to get some Cold War kit on the table and blow up some stuff 🙂

Also – I want to build up more Cold War terrain – this terrain looks great so I need to finish more roads, more modern buildings, billboards and industrial areas for use in even bigger battles.

Napoleonics Month Coming to a Close!

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It was a lucrative month in terms of historical wargaming. I was able to play a large refight of the battle of Eylau, along with a few “pick up” games of “Valour & Fortitude” with my 10mm Napoleonic figures. I plan on posting some photos from the Eylau game and a battle-report from the V&F game soon.

According to my 2026 Wargaming Schedule, next month (March, 2026) is “Cold War” month and I am going to run some experiments with the US Army’s old “Dunn-Kempf” rules and see if I can bring them ever-so-gently into the 21st century with some standardization and streamlining. I may post some ramblings about that soon and a Quick Reference Sheet for future games. March will culminate in a large “Fulda Gap” styled battle with the old US Army H or J-Series MTOE (Modified Table of Organization and Equipment).

Here are some pictures from recent games:

The Emperor at Eylau
Old Bennigsen.
Heavy Combat!!
Soult and Augereau’s attack go in! Davout’s Corps is in the right-middle of the pic, still a long ways from Serpallen!
Russian and French units trade volleys across the snowy landscape!
Murat’s Cavalry go up the slope! Just like in the real battle, the French infantry corps’ exhaust themselves against the stalwart Russians. Murat’s hard-charging cavalry are desperately needed to punch through the Russian lines and secure victory!

So while I’ve been playing mostly Napoleonic games this month, I’ve also been continuing on with re-building my 20mm force once my son expressed interest in playing “Bolt Action”. Since Santa got my son his first pack of 1/72 scale toy soldiers this past Christmas (Italeri American Paratroopers) and 20mm was my first-ever scale going back to when I was 12, I decided we would play BA in 20mm / 1/72 scale and I’ve started building a German PanzerGrenadier platoon next to Andy’s 101st Airborne troopers. Here are some pictures so far of the progress:

I really like the way these Italeri troops came out! Only about 30 more to do!
Armourfast M4A3 sherman. I used a large paint-brush bristle for the whip-aerial and chopped up an MG34 to look like a .50 caliber machine gun!
German HMG Team before finishing their basing. Also Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant for the German PanzerGrenadier platoon are above.
My 9 year old son painting US M1 steel helmets

Anyways that is all for now. Stay tuned as a Battle Report is coming soon. I may also post a Napoleonic Scenario (Lindenau, 1813) for Valour and Fortitude next.

-DF