ACW batrep - Battle of the Academy

The Initial setup

 Last weekend some of the Rejects got together for an ACW game using Fire and Fury rules. Me and Ian were the Union, and John and Surg were the dirty Rebs!!!
It was a hard fought battle, possibly the game was one and lost on the first throw of the dice???

My command move on the table in column.

Myself and Ian's challenge was to defeat the forces of evil, John and Surg's Confederate force and try and take the Rebel Academy as a great piece of Propaganda for our war effort.

The Academy

My left wing was out in the open, but facing them on the road were 4 units of Reb Cavalry. They were also in column, but move a hell of a lot faster then my troops.

Ian's command on the other hand were on the wrong side of the river, which meant he'd have to get across  the bridge to play a part in the game, BUT although he had a lot of units the 4 in the front were Green units, which if you've played Fire and Fury, you'll know that's not good!!

We lost the first move which enabled Surg to get a unit to the bridge before Ian. 

An early battle winning opportunity lost perhaps???

As my and Ian's Commanders were on opposite sides of the river we were unable to talk or even make a pre-battle plan. I knew I had to get some if not all of my troops over to the bridge to aid Ian's crossing. this turned out to be a lot harder than we both thought. While the evil twins were allowed to converse freely as they were attached from the start of the game.

John moved his Cavalry round to my flank, forcing me to deploy rather sooner than I wanted too.

Surg's troops continue to enter the table, all heading for the bridge.

In a bit of a puzzling move, John moved 2 regts of Cavalry towards the centre of the table??

So I unlimbered my 2 artillery pieces, to give the Rebs cavalry a few shots!!

Ian was having a real bad day at the dice, while Surg wasn't!!

Surg moved a unit to try and challenge my forward movement.

Taking advantage of John's movement I shot both infantry and artillery at long range, knocking 

off a stand from each unit.

The Rebs didn't like taking the casualties, so I fired again, both units received a yellow marker, denoting them as "Not Fresh" anymore.

It just wasn't happening for us on the bridge....If only we'd won the first move!!!

I carried on moving my right flank troops up to the bridge.

In a daring move Ian, managed to get a unit across the river, but it was in such a state, he just tried to get it out of the way, before it retreated back over the bridge and disordered all of his troops!!

I charged and smashed one of John's unit's of cavalry that he'd just dis-mounted, they were

 destroyed to the man.

Now it was Surg's turn to charge!! His dice rolling was crippling!!!

Luckily he failed to charge, Ian's Green unit in the flank!

I carried on my movement to the centre of the battlefield and the Academy.

It was looking bad.............

Our Union reinforcements turn up, unfortunately for us they were only 2 units of cavalry, while the Rebs received 5 units of Reb infantry!!! We thought it looked dodgy before?? How wrong we were!!!

Luckily for the Rebs, they were trying to flank us with their cavalry, when our reinforcements came on. So were in the right place at the right time.

Me and Surg squared each other up!

By now Ian was getting quite sick of Surg and his lucky dice rolls!!! 

Git!

I dismounted a unit of cavalry, with just average dice I should see off the threat from the Reb Cavalry?

We were never going to get over the river, Surg threw well again in melee and Ian was thrown back 

over the bridge. The game was nearly up....

Our last and only hope was for me to defeat Surg on the hill and follow up towards the bridge...

I outnumbered him 2:1, but the dice gods bit us on the arse again!

I threw a modest 4 to Surg's 10!!!

We threw in the towl without even working out the result!!!!

Fire and Fury strikes again!!!