Chancellorsville with Dominion of Blue and Grey

 As I seem to be on a bit of an ACW kick at the moment I thought I'd have a look at Dominion of the Blue and Grey. I've got a ton of Dominion sets of rules which I haven't even looked at yet, but you have to start somewhere. Having read through the rules I picked the Chancellorsville scenario as it didn't have any cavalry (to keep things simple) and we'd played it fairly recently with Neil Thomas ACW.  

Battlefield from the north. This scenario focusses on Lees attack in the north rather than including Fredericksberg too. So we have the Rapahannoc on the left (east), Chancellorsville itself nearest the camera (north) and around it The Wilderness.

Hookers Union army is nearest the camera and defending. They have three infantry units in the front line, the two on the left are 'elite' which gives a combat bonus, presumably to reflect their vastly superior numbers and the one on the right is a normal one. There are two more in reserve. I added a skirmisher base to the Elite units to remind me. irl Hooker outnumbered Lee about 2:1 so I should probably have put more bases out for the Union units. In later games I put the CSA on a shorter frontage instead.

Lee's army has two ordinary infantry units, then Stonewall Jacksons flanking force which is both Elite and Disciplined (Jacksons outflanking manouvre caught Hooker off guard). I added both a skirmisher base and a leader figure to remind me. In reserve are another infantry unit and some artillery. Guns are treated very differently in this set to the others and I'll cover that later.

Both armies also have a pair of leaders - in this set each side can have a General intervene twice during the game to modify a a dice roll by plus or minus one. I'll use the leader figures to remind me and take them off when they are used up. They also have a pair of wagons as each side can attempt to rally two units during the game. Unlike the other sets, rally succeeds on a 4+ but any special attributes are removed. You can only attempt to rally a unit once and units which failed their reliability roll cant be rallied. I rather like that, and I'll use to wagons to keep track of rally attempts and which units have been rallied.

Finally, unlike the other sets, armies are defeated if they only have TWO units remaining and the enemy has more, so they will break faster. Steven argues that in the ACW armies seemed very willing to break off the action to reorganise and fight again another day, possibly due to the space involved. 

There is no preliminary bombardment in these rules, and it uses a dice driven sector activation like the  Blitzkrieg set. 1-3 is left, centre, right and 4+ is attacker choose. The restriction here is that you cant choose a sector in which a battle has already been fought (to represent some of the C2 difficulties in the conflict). Lee rolls a 4 and chooses Jackson to attack as it is the only sector with a CSA advantage.

Like many of the other sets, units fight in sequence, artillery, the infantry etc. Infantry hit on 5+ but Jackson gets +1 for being elite and the Union are on -1 for Jackson being disciplined. So a 3:1 advantage to Jackson. Jackson duly routs the Union right, and unit moves up from reserve immediately. This happens at once before any rally attempts.

The Union also get to choose a sector to fight and pick the centre, they also use of their Generals to take -1 off the the CSA dice. This then becomes a very one sided fight.

The CSA centre is routed and their guns move up from reserve. Artillery are most effective if deployed from reserve with another infantry unit in reserve (support), which they are in this case. Steven argues that they were far more effective defensively than offensively. You can deploy artillery in the front line if you wish, but they are less effective, and unsupported artillery can be overrun very easily by infantry or cavalry. It is these nuances which add flavour to each set but equally mean you need to read them very carefully when switching rules. 

Lee attacks on the right again. They have the biggest advantage here and just to make sure they send one of the Generals to help out.

And routs another Union infantry unit. Unless Hooker does something clever, the Union have lost at this point.

Hooker rallies one of his routed units (shown by the wagon) which moves up into the gap. Now I've just realised I should have done this at the end of the turn prior to victory determination. Oh well, put it down to learning the rules.

The dice decree another combat on the right (rolled a 3) and naturally Jackson is routed! irl he was killed in battle.

That isn't so great for Lee. He has to pull out his last reserve, which of course leaves the guns in the centre unsupported.

The Union also roll a 3 for activation so fighting continues on the right. but neither side gets a hit. They are both saving their Generals for last ditch rally attempts.

At the end of the turn, Lee tries to rebuild his infantry reserve by rallying both routed units. Both attempts fail, despite Lee's personal intervention (he rolled a 1!). These units are now permanently lost and no more rallies can be attempted.

On the next round the dice decree combat in the centre. This has the potential for catastrophe. The artillery needs a 5+ to hit and fires first, but if it misses, the Union infantry will destroy it on anything but a 1 (normally a 3+ but they were elite troops) as it is unsupported. If the guns were still supported they would need a 5 (plus 1) to destroy them. 

Fortunate smiles upon the Confederacy and cannister from the Napoleons sends the Union into confusion  and routs them. Is it game over?

No! Hooker manages to rally his other routed unit and it fills the gap in the centre. It must be those superior Union numbers. That is the last Union leader and wagon used up though.

The Union are forced to fight on the left, despite them having the advantage (being Elite troops), both sides miss.

Straight onto the next turn as there are no more rallies left. The CSA fight in the centre and both sides miss.

The Union roll a 2 and the fighting in the centre continues. This time the Confederate guns hit home and the Union infantry are routed. With no more reserves, Hooker packs up and heads for home. A very, very hard fought Confederate win and surprisingly close to real life.

That was a bit slow as I was getting used to it and I made one obvious mistake, but once again it is quite a different feel to the other period games. Having set it up I ran it for a few more iterations to get the hang of it more. It is difficult choosing when to commit your Generals, it adds a whole extra layer of decision making.

This run was a complete Confederate wipeout! Hooker has all his units left, although one did rally during the battle. Once again Lee failed to rally a single unit.

This one was more of a scrap. Jackson routed in the first exchange of fire and very rapidly the CSA were down to a single line with the Union completely unscathed.

Lee did actually manage to rally one of his units, which was able to support the guns on the right.

But it didn't last and the Confederate left collapsed.

And as the reserves moved up to plug the gap, the unsupported guns were overrun by the Union right. Another Union win.

This run was very bloody from the outset with the Confederate right and Union centre both being routed. Once again the CSA gunners ended up in the front line.

Lee managed to successfully use both rallies which kept the fight going, whereas the Union only managed one and soon the Union were outnumbered.

And finally the Union line collapsed.

In all I ran it half a dozen times with two Confederate and four Union wins, so pretty balanced, and I felt much more on top of it by the end. Like all these period specific sets, there are some very specific aspects to the unit characteristics and turn sequence which you need to get your head around, even if the basic mechanisms are similar. I found this one easier to get to grips with then the Blitzkrieg set, although I deliberately avoided cavalry as they have their own special rules depending on whether they are operating mounted or not. Helpfully the play example in the rules is Gettysburg, which uses both artillery and cavalry units, so gives an indication of how they are supposed to work.

That was good fun and I'm looking forward to fighting some more of these.