Kenosha Civil War Museum & ACW War Gaming Days

 

My two game tables at the Kenosha Civil War Museum event.

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Friday I traveled 30 minutes north of Schloss Fritz to Kenosha, Wisconsin Civil War Museum link, where I set up a smaller version of my Pickett's Charge ACW 54mm wargame. It took me about three hours on Thursday to take down the Antietam game on the home pitch and repack everything for the game show. Then on Friday, it took another three hours to set up the Pickett's Charge game. Needless to say I was completely knackered by Friday night.

Due to the limited number of tables available and a smaller gaming area, I had to reduce the size of the Pickett's Charge game from three parallel tables to only two parallel tables. Both tables measured 16ft long by 5ft wide with a 3ft wide aisle between the tables. I am used to using 6ft wide tables so I wasn't sure how well this might work out. With a smaller table area, I had to reduce the Confederate army down from two divisions to one, using only Pickett's division of three brigades. So I lost one-third of my usual table area and reduced my gaming forces by 50%. There would be room for three players per side rather than five or six players per side.

The Confederate starting position on the Emmitsburg Road table. Cemetery Ridge 
is the table on the other side of the aisle.

The Cemetery Ridge table, where the Union army was deployed, looking
across the aisle to the Emmitsburg Road table.

The Emmitsburg Road with the Codori Farm at the far end of the table.
Pickett's Division of three brigades are deployed in their stepping off position.

To my surprise, the game almost looked better using the two tables and half the number of figures that I used when I ran Pickett's Charge at Little Wars and Historicon in 2024. One of the tables would have the Emmitsburg Road and the Confederates starting position about 20-24 inches from the road. The other table represented Cemetery Ridge and it comprised mostly the Copse of Trees, The Angle and the Bryan Farm. Each side would have three brigades with 3 regiments in the Union brigades and 4 regiments in the Confederate brigades. I increased the number of artillery pieces in the Union army to compensate for having fewer than normal regiments. As an after thought, I added two more regiments to the Union defenders giving them 11 regiments compared 12 regiments for the Confederates.

The game played faster with the elimination of the third Seminary Ridge table. The Confederates no longer had to cross six feet of table width just to get to the Emmitsburg Road table. One Confederate brigade (Kemper) reached the road on Turn 1 and the brigades of Armistead and Garnett reached the road on Turn 2. The Confederates came under Union artillery fire from the get-go and by Turn 3, with most of them crossing the post and rail fences of the road, they were within small arms range. So things were happening at a faster pace than in my previous games.

Corner of the table vignette showing a Union medical field station.

Meade's HQ. Meade, Hancock and Warren discussing the day's events.
Several Iron Brigade soldiers are on guard duty.

A Union artillery battery of two 3-inch ordnance rifles

114th Pennsylvania Zouaves deploy behind breastworks.

Alonzo Cushing's battery of 3-inch rifles deployed in The Angle.

The Codori Farmhouse and barn at the end of the Emmitsburg Road.

We had four players in the game. I assigned three of them to command the three brigades in Pickett's Division. The fourth player commanded half of the Union forces and I commanded the other half.

The players picked up the rules right away and one of them found all of nuances (and loop holes) in my rules. For example, I had been telling players that they are better off standing and firing at the Union soldiers rather than charging home because the defender gets to fire off a volley at the incoming chargers. One of the players brought it to my attention that this shouldn't matter because in the sequence of play, the Union soldiers get to fire at the Confederates before the Confederates get an opportunity to fire back, So they are going to get fired at first regardless of whether they charge or stand and fire. In another instance, one of the Confederate players was going to charge into the flank of my Union regiment. I was certain that I must have gigged the unit getting hit in the flank, but I couldn't find it on my rule sheet. The player found the exact rule which stated "units charged in the flank or rear do not get to fire at the charge."

One rule that I plan to change involves the melee system. The Union soldiers get a melee hit when they roll a 5 or 6 on a D6 whereas the Confederates inflict a hit on a roll of a 4-5-6. This gives the Rebels a clear advantage in melee. I had this rule because I wanted the Confederates to have a chance to maybe sort of win the game, but this difference has proven to be too biased in their favor. (It's probably why it seems that the Confederates have been winning more of these games than they should). Therefore I will change melee hits to a 5 or 6 for both sides to balance things out.

It was a good game. Those sneaky Confederates attacked the Union left flank with two brigades (Kemper and Armistead) and avoided the Copse of Trees sector in the middle. I was commanding the Union brigades on this part of the table and I failed to notice that Armistead's brigade shifted to the right and joined Kemper's brigade in overwhelming the Union left flank by sheer numbers. They managed to get a complete break through of the Union line and cut off the key Baltimore Pike road behind Cemetery Ridge. While the Union right flank fended off Garnett's brigade, and the center at the Copse of Trees was secure by virtue of it not being attacked, it seemed to me that the Confederates had achieved an overwhelming victory on Cemetery Ridge (of course, I had to advise the winning Confederate commanders that the entire Union VI Corps was waiting for them on the other side of the ridge).

I like the way that this game played out and I think that I will continue to use the two table setup instead the three table set up whenever I run Pickett's Charge at a convention. I will also change the melee rule.

I have one more game scheduled tomorrow (Sunday February 23rd) and hopefully enough visitors arrive  so that all six of the games have players to play the game. I had a good time talking to visitors and curiosity seekers all day. A number of people were visiting the museum and were not aware that there were going to be some war games going on. They asked me lots of questions about where the soldier figures came from (I had a list of 5 or 6 companies that sell these plastic figures), the size of the figures (1/32 scale or 54mm), how many figures did I paint and how long did it take me (over 1,000 figures and one year of painting time), did I make all of the terrain (pretty much yes) and where did I find such colorful game mats (Cigar Box Battle Mats). There were also lots of questions about the size of the historical war gaming community in the USA (I gave them some information about HMGS and its satellite regional organizations). Other topics included GI Joe/Action Man size figures and Airfix HO figures (you would be surprised at how many people played with the HO figures in their youth). So all in all, it was a great day for me.

There are plans to hold this show at the museum next year, probably at the same time (last weekend of February) and I will definitely be coming back to host a game. Someone told me that we had about 40 people playing in the games and there were six games available for anyone interested in rolling dice.

After my game was over and all of the figures were put back into place, I had some time to roam around the museum for a look-see. I was in a hurry so tomorrow I hope to spend more time looking at the exhibits in more detail.

NOTICE:

I have lots of pictures of my Antietam game that I solo played this week and I plan to offer up one or two blog posts about that game in the coming week.