Fire & Fury ACW 1st Bull Run

Fire and Fury must be my longest continually played set of wargames rules, having played it since 1990 when it first came out and still having the armies I used then (28 years!).

Other sets of ACW rules come and go but, for me, F&F is a firm favourite with it's simplicity, speed and ability to capture the feel of an ACW battle.

Since I no longer work full time I thought it would be good to try a larger than usual battle at the club with an early (3pm) start. Dave kindly agreed to be my Confederate opponent and 1st Bull Run (or 1st Manassas), both the first major battle of the Civil War and one of the smaller ones seemed a good place to start.

Having over the years collected large numbers of figures I sorted out the armies and a huge bag of terrain to set the game up at the club.

This is the map for the scenario, 10am on July 21st 1861:

I had to cut down the table a little as we only had a 6x4 table so the resulting battlefield was slightly reduced but hopefully this would not make much difference:

It certainly used up my entire tree collection and even then there was not really enough trees! The battle begins with Union forces massing to attack on Matthews Hill and a weaker force of  Rebels around Buck Hill:

The Union deployment continues and Burnside advances on the left:

 Burnside's Brigade charges home against the Rebels in the woods:

The charge is repulsed!:

Around 11am the as-yet unnicknamed Jackson arrives on the battlefield:

Around Buck Hill the Rebels have taken losses from musketry and are beginning to be outflanked on both sides as more Union Brigades join the fight:

Sherman's Brigade crosses Farm Ford and prepares to take on Jackson who is heading for Henry Hill:

On Buck Hill the Union forces have driven the Rebels back in disorder:

The Union attack around Buck Hill drives on with Rebel resistance weakening:

The surviving Rebels from Buck Hill flee back to Henry Hill where Jackson is beginning to deploy to defend the hill. Will the Rebels rally behind Jackson and does he resemble a Stonewall?!:

More and more Union Brigades mass around Farm Ford and the Rebel right flank:

On the Union right the assault on Henry Hill begins, the Rebel Brigades are mostly spent and will have to try to rally on Jackson who continues to move up the hill:

More Rebels arrive to support Jackson's right flank and engage the Union forces pressing forwards to Henry Hill:

On the Union right Wilcox and Keyes arrive and rapidly advance up the road to support the attack on Henry Hill. It is around noon:

The disorganised Rebels have rallied on Jackson but have been charged by a Union brigade hoping to sweep away the remnants of the Rebels. If the attack succeeds Jackson will be flanked and is already facing heavy pressure frontally and taking losses from Union musketry:

The Rebels hold though and the Union Brigade is forced back. More Union troops are deploying in support however and the remaining Rebel Brigades are pushed off Henry Hill together with Jackson whose Brigade has taken huge punishment but held out for a long time against heavy odds:

Union forces have cleared the crest line of Henry Hill and victory is in sight, on to Richmond!:

Further Union forces move up to occupy Henry Hill. The Union Brigades that captured it are battered but much better off than the mob of Rebel survivors milling around in the distance. The War will be over by August and the Rebellion crushed!:

It isn't all over yet though as further Rebels arrive on the field in the form of Early's and Smith's Brigades. It is a race to the hill to see who can get there first but the Rebels seem to have the advantage. It is now around 4pm and the battle has been raging for six hours:

Union troops rush forward to engage Early and Smith:

Howard's Brigade manages to reach the hill first! Though out-numbered by Early and Smith the Union artillery which has, so far, played little part in the battle, will be able to support Howard:

Early and Smith charge home on Howard's Brigade. If Howard can hold out the day will go to the Union as it almost 5pm:

Howard's Brigade is pushed back! McDowell rallies them and sends in a counter-attack to try to send the Rebels back off the crestline:

Howard's attack fails and the Rebels hold on:

With that we decided to call it a day. The Union army had almost triumphed and was well ahead on victory points ( to win the battle you had to have a 3:2 superiority in VP which the Union easily had and to hold the crestline of Henry Hill entirely after 5pm). There was no way Dave was going to catch up on the VP and I didn't think I could dislodge Early and Smith with my remaining forces though if we had played on I might have been able to but as it was 8pm (real time!) already I felt the chances of victory were remote.

So in the end probably a winning draw for the Union, they have failed to destroy the Rebels but have inflicted serious losses on them (including capturing Johnston in one of the combats around Henry Hill!) and the war will continue...…

This was probably the largest game I have put on at the club in a long time. It looked great and the rules as ever let us play quickly even though Dave has not had much F&F experience.

This is how the historical battle went from the National Parks Service battlefield site:

"On the morning of July 21, McDowell sent his attack columns in a long march north towards Sudley Springs Ford. This route took the Federals around the Confederate left. To distract the Southerners, McDowell ordered a diversionary attack where the Warrenton Turnpike crossed Bull Run at the Stone Bridge. At 5:30a.m. the deep-throated roar of a 30-pounder Parrott rifle shattered the morning calm, and signaled the start of the battle.

McDowell’s new plan depended on speed and surprise, both difficult with inexperienced troops. Valuable time was lost as the men stumbled through the darkness along narrow roads. Confederate Col. Nathan Evans, commanding at the Stone Bridge, soon realized that the attack on his front was only a diversion. Leaving a small force to hold the bridge, Evans rushed the remainder of his command to Matthews Hill in time to check McDowell’s lead unit. But Evans’ force was too small to hold back the Federals for long.

Soon brigades under Barnard Bee and Francis Bartow marched to Evans’ assistance. But even with these reinforcements, the thin gray line collapsed and Southerners fled in disorder toward Henry Hill. Attempting to rally his men, Bee used Gen. Thomas J. Jackson’s newly arrived brigade as an anchor. Pointing to Jackson, Bee shouted, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!” Generals Johnston and Beauregard then arrived on Henry Hill, where they assisted in rallying shattered brigades and redeploying fresh units that were marching to the point of danger.

About noon, the Federals stopped their advance to reorganize for a new attack. The lull lasted for about an hour, giving the Confederates enough time to reform their lines. Then the fighting resumed, each side trying to force the other off Henry Hill. The battle continued until just after 4p.m., when fresh Southern units crashed into the Union right flank on Chinn Ridge, causing McDowell’s tired and discouraged soldiers to withdraw.

At first the withdrawal was orderly. Screened by the regulars, the three-month volunteers retired across Bull Run, where they found the road to Washington jammed with the carriages of congressmen and others who had driven out to Centreville to watch the fight. Panic now seized many of the soldiers and the retreat became a rout. The Confederates, though bolstered by the arrival of President Jefferson Davis on the field just as the battle was ending, were too disorganized to follow up on their success. Daybreak on July 22 found the defeated Union army back behind the bristling defenses of Washington".

The battle closely followed the real battle even down to the shattered remnants of Bee, Evans and Bartow's Brigades rallying on the Stonewall Brigade and putting up strong resistance despite being spent after defending Buck Hill. In reality the Union army broke and fled towards evening, a fate I managed to avoid probably down to my much greater experience of F&F than Dave.

All in all well worth the effort to set the game up and great fun. Most of the later battles are huge compared to Bull Run and, while I have enough figures for them, transporting them all to the club with enough terrain and playing in an afternoon and evening might be difficult. I'll certainly still want to play F&F though!