ACW Fire and Fury - Petersburg

Figures: 15mm from several manufacturers.

Rules: Fire and Fury

These rules are a club favorite, they enable you to fight large battles in a short time . They are no longer in print, a real shame as they are really fun to play.
Basing: Four figures are on 1"x1" square bases, 6 to 10 bases make up a brigade. Two to three brigades make up a division. I only wish I had a copy of these rules. They can be used for any horse and musket period.
To move each brigade the player must roll a D10 to see if the brigade moves and the distance it can cover. Units wheel up to 45 degrees with a maximum move rate of 12" for infantry. 18" for cavalry and 8" for artillery. Leaders are rated from poor to excellent and can effect movement and melee rolls. If a unit is in disorder it has a different movement chart, but can rally as part of its movement.
Fire combat is based on the number of stands and the distance involved. Artillery has a devastating canister shot of 10 points, when combined with infantry it is very lethal.

Game Report5 Union players against 3 Confederate players

The Confederates were to hold the Union forces off and prevent them from reaching the town. To start off with the Confederates had 2 infantry brigades with 1 artillery piece in a redoubt and 2 Cavalry brigades with 1 horse artillery piece deploying freely. The Union was to randomly enter on 3 roads from the opposite roads. As you can see there was a lot of ground for the defenders to cover .



The defenders get a defensive bonus, fire combat rolls at a -2 against the redoubt, in melee the defenders get a "favorable ground" modifier. It seemed a logical choice to place the infantry as the Confederates would be out numbered. If they could weather the Union storm there would be hope.



Here come the "Blue bellies"marching in column on a road toward the prepared defensive positions. It would take a couple of turns to reach small arms fire so the Union troops would be in column as long as possible.


More and more Union troops in the advance. The confederates were hoping the Union troops would bottle neck by entering more troops on a single road but it did not happen. The Confederate horse artillery would fire off a few long range shots in hopes of slowing down the enemy. They cause some disorder but it was little effect.
Finally the Confederate reinforcements arrive. AP Hill starts to enter, hopefully he is not too late. The rebels need to reinforce their left flank and establish defensive positions in their center and right flank. The Confederate units are smaller but are better quality.


Union cavalry are excellent troops when dismounted, they are advancing on the rebels taking a few casualties along the way. As they got closer they were greatly reduced in strength.
The rebels get help on the left flank, the red marker is used to show low ammo. The Union troops are preparing for an advance followed by an assault. The white marker is used to show disordered units. Eventually these troops would make a desperate attempt to attack the Union troops by coming out of the defenses.


Here is a close up of the Union troops massing in the center for an assault. I wanted to show the detail of these excellent figures painted by Alan and Jim C. It looks like hand to hand combat will be the preferred offensive strategy.
Confederate forces arrive to match the Yanks in the center.
Here is a birds eye, the Union is on the left, Confederates on the right.
Her is the Union advance from their view of things. You can see the Division Commander is controlling his 2 brigades and artillery. The guns must be deployed to soften the defenses. The unit on the left is in line, the one on the right is in column. The column formation gives you a +1 to your movement roll.
More columns of troops advance on the Union left, there is no shortage of troops for the North. Those Yanks breed like cockroaches, or they could be newly arrived from foreign lands. Welcome to America, here is your rifle , now head south.
A mistake made be the Confederates is that we did not deploy a brigade in support of another. The Union moves in force. Fire combat and melee in the center. The Confederate player (my son) rolled poorly, the Union decimated the center of the line in the opening stages of the battle.Confederate cavalry moves to attack the center with the aid of infantry. The Union troops were repulsed , but with out loss.... a common theme. The South just couldn't roll well at the critical moment in the center of the line.The Confederates pull a risky maneuver by assaulting artillery on their right flank, as you can see the south is in a pickle. The North's guns were causing havoc, so they had to be dealt with. The first battery fell, a break through charge took out a second battery. After that the infantry was left unsupported against overwhelming odds.Wave after wave of Union troops assault the center. The South could not hold on much longer. Confederates are disordered, the Union advance moves steadily forward . AP Hill is giving orders to hold, the Union die rolls really did the south in. If you roll poorly you can't pull off a win no matter what quality you troops are. The Union juggernaut rolls forward, the Confederate right flank ceases to exist and the game was called.

Recap: The game lasted just over 3 hours. A Union victory was the final result. A blessing and a curse our club has is that we play different rules every game, so I constantly make rookie mistakes when playing.... but we have an endless variety of periods and battles so no complaints from me.