Chaplin Hills scenario–lull before the battle

Two days ago I was so proud of myself – ready with everything, all I needed to do was to deploy the troops on the table on the day of the battle. How hard could it be, right?

Well… Murphy was listening to my thoughts and decided to laugh in my face until morning of the battle. That would some two hours ago.

As soon as I deployed Confederate battery on their right flank, I realized that something was off with terrain setup. The battery was totally out of range, or more precisely, the hill it was deployed on was some 20cm too far back in relation with remaining terrain features. It was actually easy to explain and I had a feeling this would be an issue; my tiles are 30 x 30 cm, but the terrain map in this particular scenario is somewhat wierdly compressed in ‘depth’. Alright, time emergency adjustment – make necessary adjustments by moving some stuff forward. Problem – my tiles are still 30 x 30 cm, I needed to move stuff forward only 20 cm. Solution – demark Confederate map border with piece of red thread. Sometimes you really need to keep it simple.

Next issue appeared while deploying Union troops. As it turns out, I misread orders of battles and 4th Kentucky mixed battery turned into an infantry regiment! Problem – somewhat to my surprise, I didn’t have enough Union artillery bases for deployment of yet another 3 gun battery. Solution – scavenge couple of guns from other batteries, H. and L. will have to keep number of pieces in each battery in their heads!

Note to self – paint more Union artillery!

And so, here we are, now ready for battle for real! In case you wonder why only the Union army gets some close up attention in the pictures, the explanation is simple – see where the soffa is located.