Other people's Portable Wargame battle reports: American Civil War ... in 2mm-scale!

Martin Smith recently added a short battle report to the PORTABLE WARGAME page on Facebook, and he has given me permission to quote from it and to use some of his photographs.

Battle of Evansville Crossroads was set during the American Civil War and was fought using figures from Martin's 2mm-scale armies. He used a 'standard' 8 x 8 squared grid (i.e. a chessboard) as his battlefield ...

... and the Late Nineteenth Century rules from THE PORTABLE WARGAME. He chose to fight the battle using the ‘Two Kills’ option and the ‘Going Solo’ card driven activation system.

The forces involved were:

• Union
• 1 x Commander (General Mike Welland)
• 6 x Infantry regiments with muskets
• 1 x Zouave regiment with rifles
• 1 x smoothbore artillery battery
• (SP 18, Exhaustion Point 9)

• Confederates
• 1 x Commander (General Joe Chappell)
• 6 x Infantry regiments with muskets
• 1 x cavalry regiment with carbines
• 1 x smoothbore artillery battery
• (SP 18, Exhaustion Point 9)

The battle report can be read in full on Facebook, so I will not repeat it here. However, Martin did pose a question that is worth repeating, as is my answer.

Question: How do you rule on moving into/through town squares/Built-up Areas? e.g. are they treated much like woods, with movement reduced to one grid square per activation? Do you permit road bonus moves through them (if a road passes through). (And if a road goes through a wood, is the wood restriction still used?)

Answer: I've not written a specific rule regarding roads passing through Built-up Areas and woods BUT my suggestion is that if a unit is moving along a road, it trumps any the effect of moving through a Built-up Area or wood. However, unless the unit is moving along the road, the Built-up Area or wood will affect the unit's movement. This is to stop units moving through a Built-up Area or wood that has a road running through it and claiming the bonus for the road even though the road isn't being used.

---

Please note that the photographs featured above are © Martin Smith.