No, this is not the battle of Cropredy Ridge of June 1644... this is Cropredy Bridge of 1862, when General Tony Figlia's forces of the Confederacy faced off with those of the Union, headed by General Simon, the Lion of the North.
The Rebel Figlians consisted of 4 brigades plus guns, a total of 13 regiments. The Union force of the Lion was composed of 10 regiments, formed into 3 brigades, plus guns.
For this battle, I placed on the table my 35mm (approximately) army of single-mounted figures, wherein each regiment had 5 figures in it. The Confederates, therefore, with their 13 regiments, had 5 x 13, or 65 figures, plus a couple of artillery crewmen and officers. A nice-size force for one man to handle.
The map indicates there are three bridges on the field; of these, the all-important objective was defined to be Cropredy Bridge.
The field was fairly wooded, and troops moving through rough terrain were held back on occasion because of the rough terrain ruling that each unit passing through this type of terrain had a 70 percent chance, each turn, of zipping through with- no penalty whatsoever, whereas, if the unit failed its dice throw, it stood immobile for the remainder of the turn.
In discussing this ploy with other gamers, it turns out that no one is neutral... they either love it or hate it. "Nonsensical!" "Stupid!" "Illogical!" are some of the accusations leveled against it. But other voices (my own being loudest amongst them, of course) are heard to shout "Superb!" "Ergonomically sound!" and "Nutritionally satisfying!"
For this game, there was a slight twist to the rough terrain ploy. The rivers were crossable under the 70 percent rule, but even if a unit successfully made it to the other side, it would lose "Cohesion Points" (CP) as it waded across.
This made the three bridges all the more valuable. I have played in, and set up, many tactical battles in which rivers are completely impassable except for available bridges. For the most part, because the bridges then become choke points, the games themselves degenerated into rather boring affairs in which both sides simply massed their forces and pounded away at each other at these choke points, trying to force the opposition back so that a unit or two could make its way across a bridge.
For this reason, very few of the scenarios I now set up have uncrossable rivers. Both sides are forced to consider the fact that the enemy can ford its way across at any point along the river bank.
In our scenario, all forces started off the table; the arrows on the map indicate the entry points of the sides. As commander of the outnumbered Union troops, my decision was not to cross the Elbe River, but to play very defensively, and as my units filed on the field, I set them up along the river bank.
There was one exception, however. On East Ridge, on the far side of the Elbe, I had one outlying unit, the 91st North Dakota Regiment, known as the Dakota Diggers, in their rifle pits, guarding my right flank. The 91st was fairly isolated both physically and, in a sense, mentally. The physical problem is evident from a study of the map, but the psychological problem stemmed from the assignment of Cohesion Points (CP).
Each unit was given a number of CP, ranging from 50 to 60 points. The Dakota Diggers' initial CP allotment was 50 CP. When a unit was fired upon, lost CP, and took a morale test, the Morale Level of the unit was defined to be:
- Morale Level = (2 x Current CP) - (Distance to Brigade Officer)
The factor (2 x Current CP) says that the Diggers' initial Morale Level started out at (2 x 50), or 100 percent, which, at first glance, looks pretty good. But when a unit was fired upon, and each hit resulted in a loss of CP, the 100 percent level rapidly decreased.
For example, when the Diggers' suffered their third hit, their initial CP total of 50 was decreased by (3 x 5), to 35, and with the Diggers' Brigade officer sitting on the other side of the river, some 12 inches away, the Diggers' Morale Level became:
- Morale Level = (2 x 35) - 12, or 58 percent.
'Twas no wonder that it wasn't long before the 91st, pride of North Dakota, continually under fire, failed a morale test (losing even more CP) and the Diggers and their trenching tools left the rifle pits and retreated to the safety of the other side of the river, next to their Brigade Commander.
What was interesting was that, one turn before, seeing the 91st in trouble, I had sent another unit, the 131st Regiment, across the Dnieper to reinforce the Diggers, and so, when the 91st was forced to fall back, this left the 131st in an equally isolated position. Yes, it's hard to keep up with the fortunes of war.
The firing procedures looked at the number of volleys fired by a unit at a given target, and the number of men (figures) firing. For each unit firing at a given target, one would multiply the number of volleys, V, by the number of men, N, and then add all these VxN products (called Fire Points) to a percentage dice throw.
On its firing phase, a unit could issue 3 volleys, which means that each 5-man regiment could add (3 volleys x 5 men) or 15 Fire Points to the total. If 2 regiments fired, for example, each adding its 15 points, the Fire Point total to be added to the dice throw would be 30 points.
After adding the unit Fire Point totals to the dice throw to get a final total, the result was referenced to the following chart:
| Final Total | Effect |
|---|---|
| . | No effect |
| 33 | ---------------------------------------- |
| . | Target unit loses 5 CP |
| 66 | ---------------------------------------- |
| . | Target unit loses 10 CP |
| 100 | ---------------------------------------- |
| . | Target unit loses 15 CP |
Note that with a high enough dice toss, so that the final total was over 100, the target crossed off 15 CP, putting quite a dent in the unit's make-up. Note also that it required a pretty low dice toss to get a final total under 33, so that most of the time, the target incurred at least a 5 CP loss.
Figlia's Confederates chose to mass their forces at two points... one at Cropredy Bridge, and the other at the confluence of the Elbe and Rhine rivers, i.e., at their juncture.
In similar fashion, supporting units of both sides were brought in. The Confederates had four units in all, and I had three.
Both sides totaled the CP of all units in combat. My units had been pretty well shot up, and so I came out with a total of 92 points, while the Figlians had 160.
Now that we had both calculated the sum total of all of our CP combat points, we each took our total and divided it into two parts:
- (a). The first part was used to determine which side held the position. This "hold the position" portion was added to a percentage dice throw, and the high total won the position, while the other side fell back.
(b). The remaining portion of the CP combat point total was used to kill the enemy. Every 10 points yielded a 10sided Hit Die, and a toss of 1,2,3,4,5 on the Hit Die knocked off 5 CP on the opposing unit's CP allocation.
In the melee, for example, my 92 combat points were completely swamped by the 160 points of the opposition, and so, under Part (a) above, I devoted none of the 92 to holding the position.
All of my 92 points went toward Hit Dice under Part (b)... I received 9 Hit Dice and a 20 percent chance of a tenth.
In other words, since I felt it was impossible for me to devote enough points to hold the position, I concentrated all my points on killing the enemy. The Southerners were, by definition, going to drive my men back, but it would cost them.
Tony devoted 100 of his CP combat points to holding the position, and the remaining 60 to Hit Dice.
In terms of the mechanics, therefore, when we determined who would win the position, I added nothing to my percentage dice throw, while Tony added 100.
Out of my Hit Dice rolls, I scored some 6 hits on the Southerners, each resulting in a 5 CP loss; Tony had to allocate the total 30 CP loss amongst his regiments.
I, on the other hand, came out in not-too-bad shape; Tony scored only 2 hits on my force with his 2 Hit Dice, hence, although I fell back, I divided only a 10 CP loss amongst my regiments.
The above was the situation at Cropredy Bridge, and the same thing happened in the attack when the Rebels crossed the waters at the junction of the two rivers. The Southern CP combat points far outnumbered my own, and again I fell back, inflicting severe losses on the enemy while retreating.
At this point, therefore, the Southerners had crossed the river at two places, had taken Cropredy Bridge, and the situation Didn't look good for we Yankees.
But now the Confederate commander made the mistake of asking for too much, too soon. The brigade that had won Cropredy Bridge had been shot up, first while advancing to the river line, and then in the combat itself. Instead of simply holding the bridge with the brigade, and bringing up reinforcements to continue the attack, Tony attacked with the weakened units.
Tony's thought was that my units, too, were down in strength and because he had a 4-regiment brigade, and I had only a 3-regiment brigade, he might be able to push me over the brink.
Not so. He attacked, unfortunately, one of my fresher brigades, and when we totaled our CP combat points, he came out with 85 points, and I emerged with 136 points.
Of my 136, I devoted 116 to "hold the position", and only 20 to obtain two Hit dice. I forget what his allocations were, but my 116 points plus my percentage dice throw easily exceeded his total... back went his brigade across the river and Cropredy Bridge was mine again.
While this was going on, I counter-attacked his other force which had gotten on my side of the river. Another Yankee success story, and the Confederates were driven off Union territory.
This was a first cut at this rules set; I rather liked the idea of the Cohesion Point CP tally. Note that the CP's played a part in both morale tests and in melee/combat.
Regimental CP's rapidly disintegrated in the fire and combat procedures. Originally, since I was uncertain as to exactly how fast a unit's strength would diminish, I had wanted to replenish a certain amount of CP's each turn, but when we tried this, we discovered we were "over-replenishing", i.e., regiments were too easily brought back to their initial CP levels.
And so the final configuration provided for a single replenishment phase for each side during the battle. A number of CP's were diced for (either 20, 25, or 30), and these could be distributed to the regiments on the field. Once this was done, however, the regiments were on their own... no more CP's were available.
This was the situation Tony faced in our battle; he had distributed his initial - and only - allotment of additional CP's, and these proved sufficient enough to launch the first attack.
When his brigades were beaten back, they were too far gone to permit him to attack again, and so the Union could claim a victory.
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© Copyright 1995 Wally Simon
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