Show Report: Gettysburg Gaming Day

Some time last year Cpt.Shandy, of The Raft fame,  proposed a general American Civil War gaming day. Well, in Mid-April 2018 the idea actually materialized in a lovely Gettysburg Gaming Day at WoW/Keepers club Vienna.

The general idea was to depict the battle of Gettysburg on several tables, each running different sets of rules, levels of play and often scale of figures.

In the following I'll share some thoughts and pictures of games of the day with you.

Virago and I presented our favourite set of rules when it comes to ACW wargaming - Longstreet by Sam Mustafa. We played the attack of Maj.Gen. Early's division against the Union's XI Corps in the north of Gettysburg in the afternoon of July 1st 1863.

I took the role of the Confederate commander, leading my 28mm Perry minis into battle against Virago's Union force. The Confederates were quite a bit more numerous. Union units were larger, and had some artillery to back them up. Confederate reinforcements were to pop up later (along with some guns of their own).

photo by Virago

photo by Virago

The game went well for the Confederates, not the least because of abysmal dice rolling on my opponent's part. In the end the outskirts of Gettysburg were taken by the overwhelming numbers of the Confederate force. Longstreet is a great set of rules. Fluent, good period feel, outcomes make sense.

One of the very cool surprises of the day was the Altar of Freedom table featuring 6mm figures and depicting ...well, the whole bloody battle! 

How great is 6mm?? Very much so indeed. It just looks cool, it looks like a proper battle, and it's very convenient to handle. Love me some 6mm figures and battles.

Photo by Cpt.Shandy

I also heard very good things about the Altar of Freedom rules.

Photo by Cpt.Shandy

You can't have an ACW game anywhere in Austria without the Tabletop Wien West guys popping up and demo Kugelhagel.

As always interest in their Kugelhagel tables was great throughout the day.

...and what a pretty table.

photo by Virago

This time they didn't just bring TWO Kugelhagel demo tables..

...but also Battlecry, a Commands&Colors variant for the American Civil War.

Photo by Cpt.Shandy

 Nikfu and James set up a very nice demo table for Pickett's Charge by David CR Brown.

Very interesting set of rules; I bought the rulebook a few weeks ago and had a read into it. Still having a bit of a hard time envisioning how this plays on the table, but it looks like it's got a lot of potential. Very much looking forward to playing this one some day.

Last but not least we got the table of Cpt.Shandy himself - of course demoing the brilliant Sharp Practice.

The game depicted one of the many skirmishes for Bliss Farm, which changed hands several times over the course of the three days of the battle.

The barn is scratch-built

 

Overall the day was a big success. Everybody had a good time, including the visitors. Good games were had. A great day out with people sharing one's interests and putting a lot of work into getting good looking and well playing games on the tables.

It's great having these days on which we can just get together and do some niche stuff. ACW is pretty popular as a period around Vienna. It's illusory to get them ALL together on tone table under one set of rules, but the approach Cpt.Shandy took with his idea of showing the diversity within this period alone is a very clever one. I could see something like this done for a lot of different periods and settings. 

So thanks to everybody who showed up, put up tables or at the very least the time, and thanks to Cpt.Shandy especially for getting the ball rolling.