Just released over the last couple of weeks (Feb 2023), this went onto the table last night. Playing the first scenario (Beaver Dam Creek) sees a small engagement last just 6 turns long that involves three divisions per side.

The Union are behind the creek, a fairly formidable obstacle for the Confederates to assault across.

On one of the forums, the designer has said that this is a tough one for the Confederates and it is, but never-the-less gives engaging play to both sides.

There are 8 scenarios all together, covering the 4 major engagements of the Seven Days Battles 1862.

I have done a bit of a write-up on the blog if interested. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-seven-days-battles-1862.html 

EDIT - I have played the opening scenario three times now and it is tough for the Confederates, but it remains a compelling scenario as a challenge to get them closer to a win.

Below - The Confederates assault Beaver Creek Dam.

Antietam is the first in a new series of ACW boardgames that has units representing brigades, organised into Divisions and Corps, with a ground scale of 250 yards to the hex and each turn representing one hour of daylight.

The Union attack opened with an assault on the Sunken lane.

This was an excellent defensive position that was to remain contested for much of the day, seeing many casualties inflicted on both sides and both sides had to rotate fresh divisions into the fray.

In an effort to score a quick victory at Dunker Church, Williams (Union) took his division past the Sunken Lane and down onto the church.

Even though he had the numbers, his men were inexperienced and were easily halted and turned back by Jackson’s artillery that had formed up in front of the church.

Later in the afternoon, a more determined effort was made by Smith’s Division, but by this time, Confederate defences had strengthened and by the close of battle, the Union had still not managed to take the church.

With the Union limited to the number of Corps that they can activated each turn, the attack across Burnside Bridge did not happen until quite late in the game.

It is a difficult attack, with only one union unit being able to get across the bridge, before being pinned by the enemy Zone of Control sitting on the heights, which is a great defensive position.

The first assault was quickly repulsed, but this second attack has had a bit more luck, though Manning has just moved down to attack the bridgehead.

The game ended at this point (the 1700 hours turn), so an attack here never fully developed. Perhaps the Union should have acted earlier and sent a division out on an outflanking manoeuvre (it leaves the map and re-enters later on the other side of the creek).

As the game ends, the Union brigades of Dana (red) and Hancock (blue) get close to the Dunker Church position, but not close enough to launch an attack before the game ends.

The Confederates get 10 Victory points for holding the church, while the Union get 25 Victory points if they take it, so it naturally becomes a hotly contested hex in the game.

The action at Burnside bridge can be played out as a stand alone scenario, sitting comfortably in a short evenings play.  

This is a quite tightly framed scenario in which the Union attack across Burnsides Bridge, a real bottleneck of a situation, while they send a couple of divisions off board (downstream) to  find a ford, which will allow them to re-enter the board on the Confederate side of the river, emerging at the woods.

Each such division when leaving the table, rolls on a chart, to see how many turns delay there will be before the Division can find a ford, cross and re-enter the game.

Our game can be described in three parts.

Part 1 - the Union get tied up at the bridge, not being able to dislodge the Confederates on the escarpment in front of them. They send two divisions off board to find the ford. Casualties are fairly even as it is mostly artillery that trades fire.

Part 2 - The Union find the Ford and emerge at the woods on the Confederate right flank, but are held there. The Confederate line starts to lose cohesion as the large Union regiments lay down a lot of fire and the Confederates start taking heavy casualties, causing several units to rout.

Part 3 - the Union break into the area around Burnside Bridge, allowing their two divisions there to get across and get a respectable foothold on the other side, which included getting behind the Confederate troops that were pinning the Union divisions that had earlier re-entered the board. The crossfires inflicted huge damage on the Confederates and they were forced to fall back onto a position at the lateral road.

There was one moment of Confederate satisfaction, when the Union right fell upon the Confederate left. Only to discover that they had advanced straight  onto a concentration of Confederate guns and they were duly thrown back, but this was not enough to save the Confederate position as what can only be described as the taking of horrendous casualties forced them to retire.

At the outset of the game, one might be forgiven to thinking there wouldn’t be much of a game in this, but it turned out to be a corker, a tight contest, with both players fully involved throughout in try to eek out an advantage here and an advantage there, to turn the tide in their favour.

Overall a good scenario for a competitive face to face game that concludes in an evening.

This is the Gaines Mill scenario from the Seven Days Battles module.

Essentially the Union are defending an area that has two bridges behind it and the larger Confederate army over time are able to squeeze the  Union against these bridges.

Victory points come mainly from losses, but there are also some objective hexes on the bridge approaches.

What I found interesting was that realistic prospect of knowing when it is time to abandon a position or even the field. In this game, the Union right was close to becoming unhinged by a Confederate outflanking manoeuvre and the Union recognised the danger a little too late and came close to having part of their army trapped.

On a recent playing of the Beaver Dam Creek / Gaines Mill combined scenario, there was an incident on the table that I thought would transfer well to the figures table - and it did!

For more information and pictures etc, there is a post over on the blog.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/05/beaver-dam-creek-to-gaines-mill-1862.html