My first online Portable Wargame: The Battle of Hill Crossroads

Earlier this week I took part in my very first online Portable Wargame. It was organised by Gary Sheffield, and he provided the scenario, ORBATs etc., as well as the expertise. (I suspect that he might say that he was not an expert in this sort of thing, but as he had more experience than me, that made him an expert in my eyes!)

---

THE BATTLE OF HILL CROSSROADS, 1ST APRIL 1863
THE SCENARIO
Northern Mississippi, 1st April 1863. The Union Army under Ulysses S. Grant and the Confederate Army of John C. Pemberton are manoeuvring for position. Both have realised the strategic importance of Hill Crossroads, and have sent advance guards to capture the area. The two sides collide in a classic encounter battle ...

The map of the battlefield

Deployment

• The Union (USA) force deploys first, up to 3 grid squares from the northern table edge (the roads runs north to south and east to west, and the hill is in north west part of battlefield)
• The Confederate (CSA) force deploys second, up to 3 grid squares from the southern table edge.

Game length and Turn Order

• The scenario lasts for max 15 game turns. The USA player goes first in each turn.

Victory Conditions

• Victory is achieved by the side controlling both the hill and the crossroads at the end of the battle.

---

PRIOR PREPARATION
As anyone who has had dealings with the UK military will know, they work on what is known as the 7P principle*. Before the battle started, I drew up a Record Sheet for both sides on which I could record each side's moves each turn. The blank Record Sheets looked like this:

I wrote the initial deployment positions for both sides on the Record Sheets, but in the heat of tabletop battle, I only managed to keep mine (the USA side) up to date during the game. This is a pity, as it would have helped afterwards to retrace how the battle developed ... and where I went wrong!

I also printed out a 14 x 14 grid on pieces of green card. I glued these together to form my battlefield.

Each square on the grid was allocated a letter & number coordinate so that we could track each other's units ... and as the battle showed, this was a vital ingredient in its success!

I also made up unit counter for both sides.

---

THE ORBATS AND INITIAL DEPLOYMENT

The ORBATs
Union Army (Major-General Ambrosia Sideburn)

• 1st Brigade (Colonel Chamberlain L. Joshua)
• 1st New York Zouaves (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 2nd New York Zouaves (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 3rd New York Infantry (Poor, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 4th Maine Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 5th Maine Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 6th Rhode Island Infantry (Poor, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 2nd Brigade (Colonel Elisha Rhodes Hunt)
• 7th Sharpshooter (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 8th Iowa Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 9th Iowa Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 10th Iowa Infantry (Poor, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 11th Minnesota Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 12th Minnesota Infantry (Poor, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• Cavalry
• 1st US Cavalry (Average, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 2nd US Cavalry (Average, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 3rd US Cavalry (Average, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• Artillery
• 1st Artillery (Average, 2SP)

Confederate Army (Major-General Scraxton Scragg)

• 1st Brigade (Colonel K.F.C. Sanders)
• 1st Louisiana Tigers Zouaves (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 2nd Louisiana Tigers Zouaves (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 3rd Kentucky Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 4th Alabama Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 5th Alabama Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• 2nd Brigade (Colonel the Reverend Leonidas P. Kolk)
• 6th Mississippi Infantry (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 7th Mississippi Infantry (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 8th Mississippi Militia (Poor, Musket Armed, 3SP)
• 9th Mississippi Militia (Poor, Musket Armed, 3SP)
• 10th Arkansas Infantry (Elite, Rifle Armed, 5SP)
• 11th Arkansas Infantry (Average, Rifle Armed, 4SP)
• Cavalry
• 1st Mississippi Cavalry (Elite, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• 2nd Mississippi Cavalry (Elite, Rifle Armed, 3SP)
• Artillery
• 1st Arkansas Artillery (Average, 2SP)
• 2nd Mississippi Artillery (Average, 2SP)

Initial Deployment
The following extracts from the Record Sheets show each side's initial deployment.

When seen on the two respective tabletops (mine and then Gary's), the deployments looked like this:

It was at this point that I realised that I had placed the east to west road in the wrong place. It took a matter of seconds to correct this error, as will be seen in following photographs.

Gary's collection of American Civil War figures in action on his tabletop.

---

THE TECHNOLOGY
In order to communicate with each other, Gary and I used Skype. This allowed us to see each other, talk to each other in real time, and to see what was happening at the other end ... so to speak.

The connection did go a bit flaky at times, but whenever the connection was lost, we arranged that Gary would contact me rather than me try to contact him in order to avoid needless 'the user you are trying to contact is busy' messages.

---

THE BATTLE
Rather than try to give a blow-by-blow narrative of the battle, I will use the Record Sheet to show what my units did along with photographs that both of us took during the battle.

The Union Army's Record Sheet

The Union Army's plan
My plan was to seize the hill with half of my infantry and to menace the crossroads with my cavalry and the rest of my infantry. I hope to lure the Confederates into attacking the hill, where I hoped to destroy them piecemeal.

Turn 1

The positions on my tabletop. (The road has yet to be moved to its correct location.)

The equivalent positions on Gary's tabletop.

Turn 2

The positions on my tabletop.

The equivalent positions on Gary's tabletop.

Turn 3

The positions on my tabletop.

Turn 4

The positions on my tabletop.

The equivalent positions on Gary's tabletop.

Turn 5

The positions on my tabletop. (I tried an overhead shot of the battlefield to see if the results were better ... but they were not.

The equivalent positions on Gary's tabletop.

Turn 6

The positions on my tabletop.

Turn 7

The positions on my tabletop.

The end of the battle
At this point things seriously began to go wrong. The Union side's loss of SPs was taking it closer and closer to its exhaustion point, and it had already lost two infantry units (8th and 9th Iowa Infantry Regiments), its artillery (1st US Artillery), and a subordinate commander (Colonel Joshua), whereas the Confederates had only lost two infantry units (3rd Kentucky and 5th Alabama Infantry Regiments) and a subordinate commander (Colonel Sanders). I therefore conceded the battle, and we both adjudged it to be a marginal Confederate victory.

The positions on Gary's tabletop at the end of the battle.

The positions on Gary's tabletop at the end of the battle shown from a different point of view .

---

LESSONS LEARNED
Gary and I had a short discussion after the battle about what we had learned from it.

First and foremost, it had been great fun, and we decided to fight another battle (possibly not an American Civil War one) in the near future.

Secondly, using a common grid with agreed coordinates made it easy to track the movement of the various units during the game. We also agree that trying to do that same with a hexagonal grid would not have been as easy, and would probably have led to confusion during the cut and thrust of a tabletop battle.

Thirdly, good and reliable communications is important before, during, and after the battle. Gary set up the scenario and sent a copy to me (along with his American Civil War variant of the PORTABLE WARGAME rules) in plenty of time for me to reproduce everything that I needed. We agreed to use Skype to talk to each other during the battle, and that he would throw the dice for both of us and adjudicate the outcomes. (We both kept a track of the SP losses, and at several points during the battle we checked each others tally.) Gary also took the initiative whenever the technology went wonky. (We had several instances of 'freezing' [i.e. the picture would freeze, and voice communication would be lost], which was usually followed by a loss of connection. When this occurred, Gary re-established the connection by Skyping me.)

Fourthly, the PORTABLE WARGAME rules lend themselves to fighting tabletop battles with a remote opponent. They are quick and simple to use, and because no measurement is involved, there were no disputes about things such as weapon ranges, how far units X or Y could move etc.

Finally, we discussed Gary's changes to the rules. The two main differences that Gary made to the original PORTABLE WARGAME rules were:

• To introduce the 'Rebel Yell' factor into Close Combat. This came into play when three Confederate units in a contiguous line were attacking Union units. The 'Rebel Yell' gave the Confederates an additional +1 on their D6 die scores, and in my opinion, it added an interesting element to the battle.
• To introduce some simple morale rules that came into play when a unit was about to initiate Close Combat with an enemy unit. Depending upon the quality and current SP of the unit initiating the Close Combat, it might be reluctant to actually engage in combat. Gary's morale rules determined whether or not it would. Now, I'm not a great lover of morale rules, but in this instance, I could see the point of including them. They did not drastically slow play down or affect the outcome, and only came into play a few times. Furthermore, when they did come into play, it was only already weakened units that were reluctant to engage, and this seemed to feel right in the context of the American Civil War.

(We also discussed a 'Foot Cavalry' rule that Gary had been considering adding to the rules. This would enable certain Confederate infantry units to move further in certain circumstances, rather like Native Infantry and Cavalry can in the original PORTABLE WARGAME rules. I agreed that this might be an interesting variant, just as long as players did not expect to field entire Confederate armies drawn from Stonewall Jackson's 'foot cavalry'!)

---

A FINAL WORD OR TWO
I really enjoyed taking part in this tabletop battle. The much larger grid (the 14 x 14 grid we used as opposed to my original 8 x 8 was 300% larger!) gave us more room to manoeuvre, and showed that the rules can be used to fight tabletop battles involving significant numbers of units.

It proved (yet again) that the basic core of the rules can be adapted to fight specific conflicts without loosing their simplicity, and that you do not need a table groaning under the weight of a thousand plus beautifully painted figures to have a fun and enjoyable time fighting a wargame. A good opponent is much more important ... and in Gary, I could not have wished for a better one!

---

* The 7Ps are : Proper Prior Preparation Prevents P*ss Poor Performance

---

Please note that the photographs featured above are © Bob Cordery and Gary Sheffield.

---

AN ADDENDUM BY GARY SHEFFIELD
Thanks for a great write up, Bob, and for your kind comments. I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Just to add a few more points:

1. A handful of Confederate units were musket- (as opposed to rifle-) armed. These were the ones with a star token – you might be able to see these on some of the photos. This was to reflect the general Union advantage in terms of production of technology, and also to try balance out the Confederate advantage of the Rebel Yell rule.
2. In the event there wasn’t very much cavalry action. Perhaps this reflects that I gave cavalry a distinct disadvantage when attacking rifle-armed infantry, to try to reflect the realities of the ACW. In previous games, cavalry have been used to get forward and then dismount and open fire. Sometimes that has been quite effective.
3. Normally my PW games are played on a green mat which I have drawn a grid. For this game I improvised a mat out of Christmas wrapping paper, which conveniently has a grid printed on the back. I did was enlarge the squares, which made life much easier, although it did make the terrain look as though the armies were fighting through a snowstorm.
4. Normally I would have a lot more terrain features; at a minimum squares of brown and green material, partly for aesthetic reasons, but in some cases (such as ploughed fields) terrain would have an impact on movement and cover. For this game, to keep things simple I only went for the roads and the hill.
5. The figures are a mixture of 25mm from 30 odd years ago and some modern Perry plastics. I haven’t done very much American Civil War gaming until quite recently. About 20 years ago somebody gave me a small collection of 25s, some very slender, others more chunky, and they sat in a box for a very long time. I dug them out perhaps five years ago when I was playing trying out the ‘One Hour Wargame’ rules. I didn’t really like these, although the scenarios are great (the one we played was from this book) but when I discovered PW two years ago my Civil War figures came into their own. I have supplemented them with Perrys, and eventually will replace the more manky 25mm toys altogether.