AAR: Fire And Fury: A twelve Round P.A.D. Game.

Rebel, Rebel, you've torn your dress... Oh, wait! Not the David Bowie song!

     It was a Friday that my friend, Danny had me over for a Fire and Fury game for the American Civil War, as well as,a cookout. My wife and his other half were to meet up later in the day. Again, this is another Confederate on Confederate action. Danny has a rather large collection of 15 mm Confederate troops, but none for the Union side. And I, for one, can see why, since the previous people that he would play all had Union armies in the same caliber of size. This has not brought me into buying a bunch of Union troops just yet, since that would equal buying Confederates for my wife or vice versa. Besides, we have not got ourselves any real miniature purchases, since we moved into our house. I digress!
    Of those who are wondering about the P.A.D., it stands for Prolonged Active Death. I heard the term on a recording of British Comedy on a BBC radio show of Led Zepplin live in 1969: A great recording, by the way! I use this term in those games  which everyone has experienced: the long winded game where you are losing due to every conceivable bad roll, but pass morale to experience it even longer than thought possible. It is the P.A.D. that came up with the turn limit in some games. Flames of War comes to mind.  One could simply yield to the option, thus giving him/her a victory, but I like to see it play out. Maybe, I have a slight hope for a better turn of events.
     However, Danny and I's Fire and Fury game did not have to happen that way. In this game, we actually had a lot of infantry as well as cavalry, unlike the last game. The mission we chose was to capture the bridge by turn six with various units in reserve. By turn two, I was clearly holding the objective. By turn five, I have a pretty good looking defensive line. Turn Six, I was in command of the bridge, thus winning! But to the both of us, this is suppose to be a wargame! We barely saw any fighting and still had four hours to spare before our lovely ladies were to arrive. That is when it all came crashing down!
   In the beginning of this game, Danny thought I would have the upper hand, but as established earlier in previous games, I roll horribly against him in our games. And he usually rolls bad. I have seen it countless times. Just not this year! I should have known better than to play it out, when only two units on his side were not rated as "Exceptional." I had mainly "Green" troops. So out of a sort of "Curious George" move, I decided to leave my defensive line and charge. Needless to say, none of this worked. After four turns of heavy fighting, I lost everyone, he lost only six stands and one unit only. But I have to admit, it was fun doing so! It was probably more of a P.A.D. game based off the first six turns. More than half of those turns were just movements. Next time, it will be closer action!

My Rebels.

His Rebels.

Taking the bridge.

My Defensive line with incoming reserves.

Flanking.

Rebel on Rebel action!

Close to the final slaughter. The middle gets pushed six inches over to the left before being destroyed!