When a friend interested in gaming came over, I decided to stage the Battle of Maryland Heights for him. This scenario is from on of Scott Mingus' upcoming scenario books. I took the Union and my friend Josh took the confederates. We used Johnny Reb 3 is 15mm.What happened in the game reminded a little bit of First Bull Run. The confederates attacked the Union. The high point of the game was when the 1st Maryland in Extended line valiantly through back 2 rebel regiments. On the Union left flank, the 2nd SC and 3rd SC took heavy casualties and soon routed off the board. The confederates took moderate casualties(the 2nd SC and 3rd SC were the only regiments that lost many, though these lost everything) and fell back. I felt that I could take advantage of the situation by doing an all out charge on the rebels. The turning point of the battle was when I rolled snake eyes on the morale check for losing a stand from the defensive volley for the 1st MD. I was shocked, with an hour the 1st MD went from being completely victorious over two rebel regiments to being nothing but a memory. After that, it seemed I never got a break. Ford was killed in the middle of the battle, the 32nd OH took about 60% casualties and withdrew. The 126th NY fell back, intending to pull out of the slaughter. I changed my mind and felt that they might be able to hold long enough, but they were down to 60% strength and could not move forward to the hasty works. The Garibaldi Guard attempted to move forward and stop Barksdale's brigade which had recently routed the 1st MD. The Garibaldi Guard was took 40% casualties and could proceed with the intended charge, so they disengaged. They reformed about 6 inches behind the hasty works and decided to attempt to hold out here. When Dixon Miles arrived on the field, he was facing a disaster. The Union force was about 200 yards behind their starting position and was outnumbered by at least 2 to 1. Kershaw's Brigade charged the 126th NY and Barksdale's Mississippians were charging the 39th NY(the Garibaldi Guard) when we had to quit to go to church. It was considered a tactical Union victory since the rebs had not completely taken over the objective though they definately would have had the game lasted one or two more turns. Looking back, I feel that the charges were a mistake. Had I stayed in the earthworks and let the rebs try to attack me again, I possibly could have held them. As it is, I probably could have won the charges had the 1st MD not ran when they lost a couple of men (they only lost about 1 or 2 figures, it was the first casualty morale check they failed). As it was, my friend Josh seemed to always roll just enough to pass. In consecutive morale checks, he rolled the minimum, and about half of the leader casualty rolls he did ended up with having rolled a 6 and some other number(for rolls with 2 dice). Miles's appearance seemed to cause the Union troops to fight a little bit harder, but the battle was pretty much lost by the time he appeared. Josh was extremely excited about the game and wants to play again. Another player from a demo I hosted at my church's Superbowl party asked if I was going to put a wargame on at the next Superbowl party. I told him I was working on it, and I most likely would. Reprinted with Permission of Mike Demana, Editor of The Herald Back to Table of Contents -- ACW Newsletter # 10 Back to ACW Newsletter List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Marc Shefelton. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com