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After a long silence, Mark gave me a call Friday night, and we arranged a game for the next day. After some discussion, we decided to do another scenario from Battle Above the Clouds. At first we were looking at something moderate-sized, but ended up going for the one-turn “Crossing Chickamauga Creek” scenario. Since we did a fair amount of catching up before and after the game, this worked out fairly well.

Not only is it one turn, but it takes place in less than one quarter of the northern map, just covering the Confederate attempt to Missionary Ridge near Rossville and interpose themselves between Chattanooga and the bulk of the Union Army. Confederates occupying a section of the Lafayette-Chattanooga road is worth 6 VPs, occupying a parallel road to the south is worth 10, taking Rossville itself is 3 VP, and casualties are also worth a fair amount at this scale (with Confederates being worth more). I ended up with the Confederates, trying to figure out how to dislodge the Union position.

One thing I had forgotten was that the dice that came with BAtC are very uneven (the red die has a strong tendency to roll low and the white one has a strong tendency to roll high—after lunch we switched to other dice). I tended to take the white die for activations, and got to do whatever I wanted for quite a while (though it took quite a while to roll a ‘5’ so that Hood showed up to speed along Bushrod Johnson). I started by moving up Forrest’s cavalry to either side of Wilder’s mounted infantry and tried to one-two punch him out of there.  I had a small flanking bonus, so Davidson attacked with an overall -1 that I hoped would at least force some fatigue onto the defenders, and then Scott (with Forrest) would hit on the other side with an even roll (due to Forrest’s better tactical rating). One or the other should do something.

Instead, I grabbed the red die for the attack, and 6-1 roll ended up with Davidson’s brigade being wiped out, loosing the small flank bonus. I went ahead with the second attack anyway, and rolled poorly for that too, putting Scott at Fatigue 4 while losing another strength point.

3 losses in the hole, and nothing to show for it.

Lots of little maneuvers followed, trying to find a way to get a decent attack. Hood finally showed up, and I sent Johnson forward and across Lambert’s Ford, and his attack finally dislodged Wilder. This was the opening I needed, and immediately parked part of Walker’s Corps on the closer (lower value) road. Things were a little stable at that point, with me not wanting to stick my neck out any further, but trying to figure how to get onto the next road.

Mark sent Whitaker’s brigade forward to extend the line, and I managed to get part of Buckner’s Corps up to him, and defeat him before Mark could send anything else forward. This got me onto the second road, and things kind of petered out at that point, with no good opportunities left.

I had 16 points in objectives, and 2 from one Union manpower loss, but I lost six manpower doing it for 18 VP, and a total of 0 is a Union Substantive Victory. If the beginning hadn’t been quite so bad, it would have been a Minor Victory… for someone, depending on the details.

I’ve played some tiny scenarios from other GCACW games before, but this one turned out to be better than the others. It’s still not a great show of the strengths of the system, but there’s just enough maneuver there to sink your teeth into.