Historically the Union artillery on the ridge duelled with Confederate artillery that was 1000 yards behind the Confederate line, so this is off board, well to the rear. However in his game, zouaves are quite strong, so to have all the component regiments as zouaves would make the Iron Brigade too strong, so only two regiments at most (the lead regiment and then possibly a randomly selected regiment) will get that status. Consequently, in our game, the Union's veteran Iron Brigade would normally be classed as zouaves (yes strange I know). For whatever reason he uses the term zouves to represent elite type units. Units - Neil Thomas ACW rules have 4 classes of units, infantry, artillery, cavalry and zouaves. For their part, the Union are defending with dismounted cavalry, trying to keep the Confederates back - or at least slow them down until Union reinforcements arrive. Holding McPherson Farm and the rail cut (hex E8) will also contribute to victory. Terrain - The essential elements of the scenario are that the Confederates must cross Willoughby Run and attack uphill to take control of McPherson Ridge. The following account is supported by photography that shows the Kallistra hex system for terrain and Kallistra 12mm ACW forces. Everything is held in my Dropbox (thank you Dropbox) account, but you do not need a Dropbox account to access my files - just click past the sign up screen.
There is a resource section at the foot of this post that will direct the reader to the download file that covers all of the scenario elements in this game, including maps, historical background and Orders of Battle. Readers of this blog will know I have a preference for hex terrain and that I have added a couple of house rules to the system to include some limited Morale and Command and Control rules, but things are kept simple in sympathy with the 1HW philosophy.Īlthough I am using hexes, the scenario presented here will be fine played with the 1HW as written, just lay the battlefield out on a 4' x 3' space and keep unit frontages to around four inches or any combination of those two ratios. I am in the process of jacking them up again, but in the meantime, I thought this test bench scenario was a good candidate to see whether I could stretch the One Hour Wargames rules (by Neil Thomas) to cover a larger battle than he proposes in his book. The scenario is resurrected from a project that I did years ago for 1/72nd scale plastics on 5 or 6 inch hexes using my own fast play rules that I was developing at the time, called Two Flags - One Nation. Hopefully the opening attack on McPherson's Ridge (day 1 - Gettysburg) is an ideal scenario to use with these rules as the battlefield is relatively compact and the forces involved are relatively few. Please press the 'read more' tab for the rest of this post. This post is looking at using his system for a home made dedicated scenario and some additional rules to get a slighter bigger game on the table - today we will be looking at McPherson's Ridge, the initial action at Gettysburg 1st July 1863.