Gaming Longstreet’s Attack

The start of the Longstreet Attacks scenario. The Confederates are to the right (east), the Federals to the left (west). Both sides have already constructed breastworks which was common by this stage of the war. Wood's division is in column ready to move to the north just as Johnson's division of Hood's Corps attacks Brotherton Field. Longstreet and Rosecrans can be seen in the lower right and left corners, respectively. The game prints the various Rebel corps in a different shade of butternut or gray. The Yankee corps are in differing shades of blue. The battle extends beyond the area captured on this map.  This is a BIG game at a regiment scale.

The biggest weakness in the “realism” of board style wargames is that you can see where everybody is on the board. Certain games hide it somewhat but you kind of always know what’s near any given unit of your side. That is an enormous advantage that did not occur historically. Particularly at the time of the Napoleonic Wars or the War Between the States, no one could see the field of battle with the relative certainty as to what the hell was happening.

This fact leads to all sorts of strange military situations that cannot be replicated by wargames in the sense that a player would never make the choice necessary to put themselves in such a crappy situation. But, there are many scenarios of my wargames that set up in a situation that is rather ridiculous and no human player would produce.

In the old Enemy at the Gates (1994) game, the Soviets have literally pushed themselves way too far and are easily decapitated by the ensuing German counterattack. No player would have so extended themselves knowing that large numbers of well-supplied German panzers are nearby. In A Fearful Slaughter (2004) a scenario forms one southern brigade into a complete circle, one regiment facing each direction all the way around because it is in thick woods and has no clue if units around it are friend or foe. On the board you can see this clear as day, of course.

There are tons of examples in history and sometimes the interesting part of it is seeing how the game mechanics handle these extraordinary situations. I have been tinkering with the “Longstreet’s Attack” scenario in This Terrible Sound (2000) using the new Line of Battle (LoB) Series 3.0 Rules published this year.

There are many improvements over the 2.0 version I used in my play of “Gordon’s Attack” a couple of years ago. Two are really fundamental and impact actual game play a lot. As usual with game/series designer Dean Essig, he found a way to do the same stuff more quickly so the player can focus on managing his forces. Due to his untimely death, he never saw the final version he worked on and finished actually printed in a game. So, this is a fresh look at a great and gone wargamer.

Under v2, every combat unit essentially chooses between a Move Activity and a Fire Activity. A Fire Activity permits only half the unit’s MA and then a fire. A Move Activity allows normal movement, charges, formation changes and so forth, but normally no fire. So you make a fairly binary choice before acting.

V3 largely abolishes that distinction and places it, oddly but effectively, into the combat table. Movement and combat become a much more continuous Activity. A unit can move, change formation or facing, then fire, provided it has enough MPs remaining. The amount of movement it has already used affects the quality of its fire.

In effect, v3 simulates how much of the 15-minute turn the unit actually had available to shoot. The more MPs remaining, the stronger the fire. Very little time remaining means degraded fire or no effective fire at all.

This also changes artillery. In v3 artillery can sometimes move, unlimber, and fire in the same Activity if enough MPs remain. The five-hex minimum distance for unlimbering remains, so the guns do not suddenly turn into Sherman tanks with moustaches.

The other major change is also about streamlining gameplay. V3 deliberately makes firefights develop and conclude faster in game time. In his notes, Essig says v2 generally produced reasonable total historical losses, but it often took roughly three times too long to produce them. V3 therefore increases the effective intensity of some fires, particularly through the MPs-remaining modifier and revised Opening Volley values, then adjusts Fluke Stoppage so attacks terminate sooner.

This is important because the change is not primarily “v3 is bloodier.” The intention is closer to “roughly similar eventual losses, achieved in historically shorter engagement times.” The player therefore has less time to fiddle around once an attack begins. Hesitant attacks are more likely to run out of steam.

Essig essentially cut the number of things you have to keep up with and roll for in half. I was amazed how fast this version plays now. I used to have a personal rule that I didn’t play wargames whose turns take longer to play than they actually represent. Essentially, that meant I did not play regimental and tactical games because they take hours to represent something supposedly happening in 15 or 20 minutes. So I typically played games of brigade scale or higher.

Operational Combat Series is another example. Each turn is 3 days time but I can play a turn of even the most complex scenario in two days or less. LoB’s parental series was the Regimental Sub-Series of the Civil War Brigade Series which I played regularly for a dozen years or more. Those games had 30 minute turns but each usually played in less than 20 minutes or so.

But Essig’s tweaks here are the first I’ve seen ever in terms of genuine speed while totally preserving the authentic flavor of the games. The first few turns of "Longstreet’s Attack!" convinced me of that. The battle does not unfold because a scenario rule says, in effect, “Longstreet gets a big attack bonus now.” It unfolds because dozens of smaller circumstances line up at the same moment. Orders. Formation. Facing. Movement Points. Command delay. Local morale. Which regiment goes first? Which one goes next? Whether the regiment beside it has just watched somebody run away.

It’s the Battle of Chickamauga. The second-bloodiest battle of the war after Gettysburg. The scenario begins at 11:00 a.m. on September 20, 1863, with the Confederates moving first. Historically, the timing could hardly have been worse for the Army of the Cumberland. Rosecrans believed Brannan was moving north to reinforce Thomas and ordered Wood to close the resulting gap. Brannan had not moved. Wood knew it. Carrying out Rosecrans’ order meant pulling his division out of line, marching behind Brannan, and creating the very gap Rosecrans thought he was closing. Wood nevertheless immediately put his troops in motion.

At almost precisely that moment Longstreet’s wing stepped forward. The game’s historical narrative makes the timing explicit: this happened at 11:00, just as Longstreet began his attack, leaving no time to repair the mistake before the Confederates came through.

The scenario orders make this concrete. XIV Corps is defending the Lafayette Road. XX Corps is defending its southern flank. XXI Corps as a whole has no orders, but Wood’s 1/21 Division has a Divisional Goal to move north and attach itself to XIV Corps. Van Cleve’s 3/21 has the same goal. Mendenhall’s artillery is supposed to defend Dyer Field. The Confederate Left Wing is already attacking into this movement.

Under LoB a Move Order requires the affected troops to remain in movement formations, Column for infantry, Limbered for artillery, until the order ends. Column is fast and convenient. It is also a terrible way to meet an enemy attack. Infantry in Column has all-around Rear facing, cannot fire, and cannot Charge. Limbered artillery has the same all-around Rear facing and cannot fire either.

Wood is therefore doing something entirely reasonable within the order he has been given and something potentially disastrous within the tactical situation developing around him. This is the beauty of the command system at work.

The best thing Wood can do is to haul ass with as much of his division as he can that are not locked by the Rebel attack. In column he will be able to move north along the road far faster than the attackers can pursue. In that way only can he save his division and, hopefully for the Federals, regroup them for defense in the later turns.

But the key is, he can’t just do whatever he needs to do according to the situation. He has to either roll initiative or receive and accept different orders. This makes a huge difference in how things play out in every game in this series. Like commanders of the historic time, your troops will take time to respond to both your commands and the unfolding situation. That leads to some surprising momentum swings no matter which LoB game you play. Brilliant stuff!

The first Confederate move shows how thoroughly the system can exploit it without resorting to scenario chrome. Bushrod Johnson’s Provisional Division comes forward. Getting granular, three Confederate clusters reach three exposed Union positions on the first turn. The 17th and 23rd Tennessee reach the 58th Indiana in Column. The 25th and 44th Tennessee reach the 26th Ohio in Column. The 39th North Carolina and 25th Arkansas reach the 8th Indiana Light Artillery while it is Limbered. All three arrive with two movement points remaining. The three Confederate groups have strengths of 6, 7, and 6 respectively. This is important because anything less than 6 SPs firing out of a hex gets a negative modifier on the combat chart.

The conclusion of the charges made by Fulton and part of McNair's brigades. Wood's line is buckling. Cowardly legs markers are plentiful. The remainder of Johnson's division and Hood's corps will now attempt to exploit this success. Meanwhile Wood will attempt to get the rest of his men north to safety as Rosecrans will start firing off orders to try and hold what's left of his line. The Line of Battle Series is the best depiction of Civil War-era command and combat I have ever played.

At first glance this looks like a mediocre opening. They have spent nearly the entire turn getting there. Remaining movement points determine firing time in LoB. With only two MPs left, ordinary Fire Combat takes a -2 DRM. The Union troops are in Column or Limbered, however, which means all-around Rear, and Rear gives the Confederate fire +2. The modifiers cancel before other effects. A raw 7 on the Combat Table would still produce a 1-SP loss.

That was how I first looked at the situation. Move up. Take the reduced shots. Lock Wood in place. Get ready to hurt him on Turn Two. But the Charge rules changed the entire picture.

The Confederate infantry still has MPs remaining. It is adjacent. It is in Line. The Union infantry is in Column and the battery is Limbered. Those Union units cannot fire. They also contribute no firing-capable SPs to the Charge strength comparison. That last detail is brutal.

A unit in Column has all-around Rear facing, so the defender gets +2 Rear on the morale check. The Charge differential gives another +2. Then the Union regiment adds its printed morale DRM. A regiment with B morale would therefore check at +5 before anything else: +1 for B morale, +2 Rear, +2 Charge. A C regiment would be at +6. The Morale Table produces Shaken at a modified 10 or 11, Disorganized (DG) at 12 through 14, and Rout at 15 or higher.

That still does not mean Wood’s regiments automatically Rout. In fact, barring a bad roll, most probably will not. This was another useful correction to my original intuition. A fresh B or C regiment can take a pretty ugly morale modifier and still wind up Shaken or DG rather than Routed. The opening is more likely to produce local retreats, disorder, losses and gaps than a row of Routed counters.

Getting granular, the 25th and 44th Tennessee should Charge the 26th Ohio first. If the 26th Ohio gives way, its former hex gets a Cowardly Legs marker. That hex is adjacent to both of the other Union targets, the 58th Indiana and the 8th Indiana Light Artillery. Their later Morale Checks now become one point worse. The first Charge has changed the next two before they even happen. The sequence becomes 25th and 44th Tennessee against the 26th Ohio, then the 17th and 23rd Tennessee against the 58th Indiana, then the 39th North Carolina and 25th Arkansas against the 8th Indiana Light. If the middle regiment holds, nothing spreads. If it retreats, the neighboring troops have just watched the center disappear and their own morale calculations immediately become worse. That is exactly what Cowardly Legs represents. Friendly units adjacent to the vacated hex apply +1 to their Morale Checks.

Wood’s regiments are marching in Column and several are packed into the same general movement corridor. A retreating regiment can therefore run directly into another Union stack behind it. LoB calls this a Collision. The stationary stack has three choices. It can Displace one hex, Join the retreat, or allow the retreating troops to Pass Through. None of these is particularly attractive. A Displacing stack immediately worsens its morale state by one level. A Joining stack takes the worse morale state of the two stacks and continues retreating with it. A Pass Through can be worse still. If either stack contains at least four SPs, take the worse morale state of the two, reduce it another level, and apply that morale state to both stacks.

That means a Union regiment which has never been fired on, never been charged, and never even been the target of a Confederate attack can suddenly become Shaken or DG because another regiment comes crashing through it. A Shaken regiment retreating through a fresh five or six SP regiment can leave both stacks DG. No additional Confederate attack is required. No extra morale roll is required. The retreat itself has become the attack. This is where the opening can become a morale epidemic.

One regiment gives way under a Charge. It leaves Cowardly Legs behind, making the units on either side more vulnerable. It retreats through the marching column behind it and disorders troops who were never attacked. One of the neighboring units then fails its own Morale Check because of the Cowardly Legs modifier and retreats as well. That retreat may create another Collision farther back. Another formation gets pushed aside or dragged into the retreat. Additive Morale keeps accumulating the damage. Shaken can become DG. DG can become Routed. The original Confederate attack may have involved only three local target hexes, yet the morale effects can begin spreading through a much larger section of Wood’s division.

The design is remarkably elegant because the chaos is divided among several small mechanics. Cowardly Legs spreads the effect laterally. Collisions spread it backward through the retreat path. Additive Morale makes repeated shocks accumulate. EZOCs constrain where units can escape. Formation determines who can fire, who can Charge, and who counts in the Charge strength comparison. Every rule has a limited local purpose. Put them together in the geometry of Wood’s marching division and they can reproduce something much larger: a spreading loss of cohesion in which units begin retreating even though the Confederates never attacked them directly.

See? A morale epidemic. The panic does not jump magically across the map. It moves from regiment to regiment through contact. One unit runs. Another sees the gap. Another gets physically fouled by the retreat. Another takes its morale check with the odds now slightly worse. Another retreats. The effect propagates.

And this is all happening while the Confederate player is making dozens of comparable decisions elsewhere on the battlefield. Which regiment goes first. Which target should be Charged. Where a Cowardly Legs marker would fall. What retreat path a failed defender will probably take. Whether that retreat is likely to collide with troops behind it. Whether you finish a shaken enemy or push through the opening. The larger historical collapse emerges from those decisions one regiment at a time.

Now multiply that across the map and you get some idea of the actual experience of playing the game. Longstreet’s Left Wing has an operational mission. Johnson cannot spend the afternoon happily exterminating Wood regiment by regiment while the rest of the attack waits. The Confederate objective is much larger, involving the Lafayette Road, Dyer Field, the Widow Glenn area, and the destruction or displacement of the Union center. Historically the breakthrough widened almost immediately. Wood and Van Cleve were caught in it (as is certainly plausible in this scenario), Sheridan’s division was mauled, Brannan’s exposed flank was swept, and much of the Union right went streaming toward Chattanooga.

The game does not guarantee that result. It simulates the mechanics of it all. In that way, like all great wargames, it gives you insights just reading about it or staring at maps cannot.

Move Orders require movement formation. Even aborting a Move Order does not instantly create a combat mission. Under the v3 rules, aborting a Move Order means stop in place, remain in Column, and await new orders. That is exactly the wrong thing Wood wants tactically right now, but it is also a fairly good representation of why a command system exists in the first place. Orders are supposed to constrain decisions. Otherwise the player is not Rosecrans, Wood, Longstreet or Johnson. He is God with tweezers.

Changing formation or facing while adjacent to the enemy can trigger an Opening Volley. So even where Wood can legally change his posture, doing so under the noses of Confederate regiments may cost him. Opening Volleys are not a general Defensive Fire Phase. They occur only when specific local triggers happen. Changing formation or facing while adjacent is one. Moving adjacent and then refusing or being unable to fire is another. Announcing a Charge is another.

The inactive player therefore has to watch the active player constantly. There is no safe mental period where “now I sit back while you move.” The other side may hand you a shot because he changed formation in front of you, moved into the wrong hex, attempted a Charge, or fired after moving. The game stays conversational in that sense. Every move is potentially saying something to the enemy.

The first turn also shows one of the major changes in how I think Charges should be used. I have been conditioned by many games to think of a Charge as the final dramatic act after a firefight. Sometimes it is. LoB explicitly warns against waiting until every planet has aligned before charging. The mechanism represents a crisis decision. There are moments when continuing to exchange fire gives the enemy time to recover, reinforce, or simply get lucky. The Charge compresses the decision into a morale confrontation.

Here the crisis already exists before a firefight develops. Wood is in Column. The targets cannot fire. Johnson has six or seven SP bearing down on units that count as zero firing SP in the Charge comparison. Waiting until Turn Two to stand beside them and trade volleys would almost be polite.

So Johnson should Charge. That produces a much more violent first fifteen minutes than my original reading, though still not necessarily the mass rout people might expect from knowing the history. A successful Charge normally costs the Union target an SP. Then comes the morale roll. One regiment may hold. Another may go Shaken and fall back one hex. Another may go DG and retreat three. Cowardly Legs can worsen the next check. A bad roll may Rout somebody. The exact pattern changes each game.

By the Union half of Turn One, Wood may already have a division in pieces. Some regiments are continuing north. Some have been forced backward. Some remain locked beside Confederate infantry. Some may have changed morale state. The battery may be gone from its original position. Cowardly Legs markers vanish in the Rally Phase, so the local panic effect is immediate rather than permanent. The next turn begins with a new tactical picture.

Then Turn Two arrives and any Confederate units that did not successfully break through on Turn One are now standing very close to Wood with a fresh movement allowance. If they fire without moving, their fire is much stronger than those two-MP shots we originally considered. If the Union regiment is still in Column, it remains all-around Rear. If it is Shaken or DG, subsequent morale results can combine through Additive Morale. A regiment that merely bent on Turn One can break on Turn Two.

Van Cleve is moving north too. His infantry begins in Column under its own Divisional Goal. That means Johnson is not simply breaking through a static defense. He is colliding with pieces of the Union army that are themselves trying to move across the developing battlefield. The historical chaos appears naturally. Units are not always where commanders think they are. Orders written ten minutes ago may already be obsolete. A division in perfect marching order becomes a terrible combat formation if somebody comes through the woods at exactly the wrong moment.

Incredibly, this is all happening in front of Rosecrans’s eyes. He can issue corrective orders, but orders do not teleport. Command Rolls, delivery time, acceptance and reissue all consume turns. The delivery system measures distance at one turn per 12 MPs, rounded up, with at least one turn for distance, and Army Commander Awareness adds additional time. A commander can realize there is a disaster and still be several game turns away from making the army behave differently.

What a pleasure it is to see these improvements at work! Through almost 40 years of designs, Dean Essig proved many times over that he could take a great wargaming system and make it even better, historically and simultaneously more playable. It is beautiful to behold and I appreciate the ability to support his games for that length of time. I am sorry he is gone. He has given me so much entertainment and insight over the past several decades.

“Longstreet Attacks” was the creation of Essig’s close friend Dean Powell, who developed many of the games for Dean’s earlier series. Powell, a talented historian, gave us the multi-volume, definitive account of the Battle of Chickamauga a few years ago. This Terrible Sound (alongside Barren Victory (1991) Powell’s brigade-level depiction of the battle) is likely the most realistic depiction of the battle we are ever going to get, made even better now by the LoB v3 rules.

Longstreet launched his attack 163 years ago today.