Southern Front Wargaming Convention

 

 

  Southern Front 2021 has come and past! This is one of the smaller conventions that Kalissa and I try to attend. As silly as it sounds, this convention tends to be one of the harder conventions to get to, despite being only and hour and a half drive. Yes, this is held in Raleigh, NC, which in pretty close to us. However, the amount of events that interrupt this convention of the years was amazing. Most of them were hurricanes, so this one is the third on we have been to after knowing about it for ten years. We were have to be there!

    I like to think of Southern Front as the spiked punch bowl of historical wargaming. It is small with around about 60 to 80 people, but it is blessed with some grand historical gaming. It was about 90% historical games with some (I think) heavy hitters of the hobby in eastern U.S. There were a lot these guys I see running games at other major conventions, own miniature companies or write rules. I find it really cool to ask rules question to the writers themselves. Though, we only showed up for the Saturday part of the show. I was told I missed out of some awesome games on Friday. It was pretty full for a Friday. Saturday had a lot going on. I only shot a few photos and forgot most of the evenings games. I regret that, since there were some interesting medieval games going on. Anyway, here was what I took.

AAR: Fire & Fury: Part Two of Viniard Field

     After two weeks, it was back to continue the fight at Viniard Field at our friend, Danny's house. It was the hopes that this time would not be followed up with ridiculously bad rolling for the Confederates played by yours truly and Eddie. However, Eddie was not able to make it, so my wife, Kalissa stepped in his stead. That brought some extra hope, since Kalissa rolls much better than most people. However, I believe the damage was already done.
      With Union reinforcements coming in around the same time as some of the Confederates, it really was not a tide turner for the Rebels. Two of the regiments where quickly repulsed. The original Rebel force was still dealing with stiff resistance from the first force. I found that I still could not touch them. By the time the Union troops decided to withdraw, they had lost a total of four stand of infantry versus the twelve stands. Only one charge went in for the Confederates, but it was repulsed.
      We decided to give up on the whole game, since there were no forces that were "Fresh" for the Confederates when 99% of the Union forces were. They also outnumbered us five to one by this point. The Confederates did have reinforcements, but they were going to show up right where the original attack started. Of course, this was after another full round of more Union reinforcements were to arrive. Tim was running them and even said that there was no reason to fight my wife's forces, since he lost nearly no one. He was just going to send the whole reinforcement strait to my side across the table. And rightly so! Our reinforcements show up two turns after his. The Confederates did not win this battle originally. However, we have been told that the first Union blocking force usually does not survive the whole game. I am always great at breaking scenarios!
   

AAR: Fire And Fury: Viniard Field

     It has been a minute since a good posting. That is at least for this month. Despite playing several games, I was interrupted with an emergency trip to Florida. Normally, you do not get to hear that often. However, before Kalissa and I left, we got to get some American Civil Gaming on during the Saturday before we left. We went over to Danny's house to play the Viniard Field scenario out of Fire And Fury. This is the same Fire and Fury that made it into an article involving Donald Trump. I did not know he wargamed! You would have to look at the article and read it for yourself. It would be rather awesome to see political leaders duke it out on a historical wargaming platform! Here was the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jay-mccarthy/fire-and-fury_b_17707716.html.

Trump: "You need to roll a ten to win on a D-10, North Korea!"

     Anyway, the forces were divided against the four of us. Danny and Tim would play as the Union forces. Eddie, a newcomer, and myself would be the Confederates. The scenario starts out with defensive fire in the woods after Union forces stumbled across the Rebels. The actions seemed stacked against the Confederates. We have to beat them out of the woods, and then, capture a road through two other lines of defense and reinforcements. We also get reinforcements at different times. However, the difficulty increased with the combination of bad rolls between the two of us and Danny's stellar rolling. I mean, he was on fire with awesome rolls! Since we only made it to a halfway point, I am hoping to bring some die rolling magic for the completion. Otherwise, this is not going to end well. Here was the game so far!

AAR: ACW Fire and Fury: Port Republic:

 Things are coming together for my Historicon Project. However, it seems to cost a lot of time away from actual gaming. Well, today was the day to change that at Danny's house!  Danny, Tim, and I playing a ACW game of Fire and Fury for the Battle of Port Republic. We have not played a lot with these set of rules, but have concluded a few things. One, the game did not have anywhere near the same historical out come. The Confederate that Danny and I were playing lost so badly it wasn't even funny. 41 stands died before we gave up by turn 8 to 7 stands killed on the Union side only killed on turn 7. Somethings that we learned where: 1. Two feet extra for a scenario makes a difference. 2. Making everything rough ground when it was not, does not help advancing Confederates. 3. Forgetting of board artillery is not helpful. 4. Tim's dice are flat out evil! The Most Important: 5. Always have my wife read these scenarios in advance to reduce some of the other problems. At the end of the day, Danny and I were proud to have kill anything! Here are some of the game shots! Enjoy!