Rebel Raiders Replay Part III: 1864 Loose the Fateful Lightning

Rebel Raiders Replay:  1862 Jump Start Part III:  1864 Loose the Fateful Lightning

The Developer & A Naval Historian Team Up Against the Designer in the 1862 Scenario

Parts I and II of the replay describe the initially successful Confederate defense, followed by the sweeping of the seas of all things Gray and “The Nightmare Year” of 1863 in which the South was gutted.  Undaunted, the Rebels counterattacked, thus making Union victory far from certain…

With more ships than it had jobs for them to do, throughout 1864 the Union spent most of its builds on buying extra attacks, thus enabling it to make four assaults a turn. Play of Loose the Fateful Lightning (USN Card 34) added yet an additional attack for EACH remaining turn.  The Union used these well, driving still deeper into the South, and then responding to desperate if successful Rebel counterattacks by regaining for the Union what the South had but briefly taken back.

The game was still hanging in the balance in December 1864, normally the final turn of the game.  With five attacks the Union had to conquer three key cities.  Mark played the General Pierre Toussaint Beauregard (CSN Card 88) card to build a battery in newly recaptured Richmond and also deployed the cream of Confederate leadership: Lee, Jackson and even Longstreet! (CSN Card 79), giving the South a total of six dice to defend the ruins of the capital.   He also got Memphis back.  Now, to win, the Union would have to once again take Richmond and the diminished Memphis as well as the very heavily fortified city of New Orleans.  

Fred and Brandon had drawn If It Takes All Summer (USN Card 36), which gives the Union a chance for a possible 13^th Turn.  That led a debate as to whether to go for the game-winning hat trick or attempt to storm Savannah and Charleston from newly captured Augusta.  They were held by three and two Batteries each, respectively, but possession of those ports would greatly improve the Union’s chances to add an extra game turn through play of that card.

Wary of pinning everything on a single die roll to get that extra turn, however, Fred and Brandon decided to go all-out for the three key Confederate cities in a final offensive surge.  One of those attacks was stymied by the Rebel play of Mud-Bound (CSN Card 59).  Undaunted, with Sherman, Grant and other cards in hand, on to Richmond, Memphis and New Orleans they came….

 Damn Yankees – they won all three fights, winning the game with but one attack still left in hand…

This Day 150 Years Ago in Rebel Raiders' History

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History –

Hours to Remember: 10:30 am, 1 pm, 3 pm….Vicksburg & Gettysburg

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people, and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas,  

July 3, 1863 -  For the South, The Saddest Day

            Historical Events:   

Vicksburg. At 10:30  in the morning, Confederate officers approached the Union lines at Vicksburg under a white flag.  They carried a request from General Pemberton for terms.   Although famed in newspapers as  U.S. “Unconditional Surrender” Grant,  after responding with that famous phrase the Union commander DID grant terms:  Pemberton’s men marched out but after giving their parole were left to go on their way rather than be interred as prisoners of war.    Grant was not necessarily being a gentleman – neither he nor Admiral Porter had any way to transport let alone care for nearly 30,000 Rebel soldiers.

Gettysburg.  At 1 in the afternoon the Army of Northern Virginia began the greatest cannonade yet heard in the Western Hemisphere.  For nearly two hours over 150 guns unleashed their fire upon the Union lines on and behind Cemetery Ridge.  As the barrage lifted, General George Pickett and 15,000 men from three divisions began that epic charge which Faulkner romanced so well in Intruder in the Dust:

 For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox  look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world's roaring rim.

            Game Connection:   While Gettysburg does not appear on the map for Rebel Raiders, the Confederate invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania is represented by the Lee Moves North card (CSN Card 77).  Vicksburg is on the map, and as noted in the July 1 post on this blog, many of the ships and generals and weapons take took part in that epic siege are represented by cards.  The loss of Vicksburg costs the Confederacy dear in Rebel Raiders, especially if Memphis and New Orleans have also fallen, as that triggers major victory point losses for the South at that instant, and during the supply phase of each subsequent turn.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - CSS Robert E. Lee

The Ships of Rebel Raiders   -  CSS  Robert E. Lee

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

 CSS  Robert E. Lee (CSN Card 69)  began her career as a blockade runner in  the fal of 1862.  For nearly a year the schooner-rigged, iron-hulled, oscillating-engine, double-stack paddle-steamer ran in and out of North Carolina’s inlets and harbors to bring in war materials and other desperately needed supplies.

Built in England as the merchant ship Giraffe, unlike most blockade runners which were either owned by private individuals or commissioned by the states, the Robert E. Lee was part of the regular navy – hence the CSS before its name.   Among the more important of its 21 voyages was a trip to Halifax to deliver cotton and a number of key passengers, including 20 naval officers destined to serve aboard other blockade runners and raiders.  Her frequent runs, however, were between Bermuda and Wilmington.

Naval officer Lt. Richard H. Gayle took command in May 1863 and eluded capture several times, but on November 9, 1863 his ship was finally run down off the North Carolina shore by a pair of Union warships:  USS Iron Age and USS James Adger.  The Navy took her as a prize, armed and rechristened her USS Fort Donelson and put her into service on the blockade.

Triple-Posting:  Flag Day, This Day in History and Replay Turn 9

Happy Flag Day! 
and
 This Day 150 Years Ago in Rebel Raiders' History: Lee and Longstreet Cross the Potomac

Historical Event:  On June 14, 1863, Lee and Longstreet crossed the Potomac into Maryland, a fateful step that in just over two weeks would bring them to the fields of Gettysburg.

Game Connection:    General Robert E. Lee appears on two cards:  Bobby Lee (Card 60) and Lee Moves North (77); Longstreet has his own card (Card 79).   Bobby Lee allows the South to re-roll dice in combat, while Longstreet adds a die.  In 1861-63 The Lee Moves North card prevents the Union from making attacks near Richmond for the turn (reflecting their need to respond at Antietam and Gettysburg); in 1864 it merely costs the Union an attack pawn (which accounts for Grant sending a corps to Washington to confront Jubal Early).

Rebel Raiders Replay  (Turn 9 –December 1863)

Designer Mark McLaughlin as CSA; Naval Historian Brandon Musler as USA

When we last left off, the North had driven Southeast from Nashville, taking first Chattanooga and then Kennesaw Mountain, putting the Union adjacent to Atlanta.

The Few Just Keep Getting Fewer – Until There Are None

Eight Blockade Runners go down this turn!  Eight!  That lamentably for the South is EVERY Blockade Runner they had on the map!

Here is how they were lost:

-USS Unadilla (Card 17) catches one coming out of Mobile.  One Blockade Runner gets past the gunboats on the Blockade Station outside Pensacola only to be caught in the Gulf by USS Housatonic (Card 27).  The USS Powhattan (Card 21) picks off another, one loaded with 2 VP cargo, outside Charleston.  Runners are also caught going in or coming out of Tallahassee, Key West, Wilmington, and New Bern.  An eighth is also caught, but by this time Mark is not even bothering to write down where – it is just too sad.

The two Raiders at sea, as if things were not bad enough, manage to snag but a single VP among them.

Brandon is beside himself with glee, and two friends who stopped by to watch the game for a bit, tell him he can no longer complain about not rolling high enough on his dice.

The Southern VP total is so depleted that if not for the play of Lively Little Trade (Card 57) it would be down to zero. 

The South builds Batteries in Atlanta and Vicksburg, places the Ironclad built last turn in Memphis, buys a Raider and Four Blockade Runners and, just to show the South WILL rise again plays Card 63 – CSS Alabama!

(The famous Raider is depicted in full color on the cover of the game, and was along with CSS Shenandoah (depicted on Card 64) one of the most successful of all of the Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.

To be continued....