Legendary Union Campaign

[Grimthaur]

The green line is the current strength of your brigade, not moral.

[LAVA]

Seven Pines

Here is my Corps for the Battle:

Here is the set-up to the battle:

When I look at the battlefield the inner Clausewitz in me says "Keep the forces concentrated."  Both wings are really out in the air, especially the right. So the first thing I must do is pull my right wing quickly back towards to the main line and try to move my left back as well but not as much. The right wing is the problem. I will detach skirmishers and try to fill the gaps and give support, while my main body will advance straight forward and try to setup a proper battle line.

 

But the Rebs immediately attack and the farthest right brigade gets routed though my left fairs better. The line begins to shape up as I notice lots of active on my left flank.

I refuse my left flank to keep them from getting heavily engaged and stabilize the situation in the center and right.

My left continues to fall back, giving me the initiative and I attack on the center and right flank, taking the objective at the same time. Now... I could have stopped here and probably should have to conserve forces, but I see an opportunity to inflict casualties on my foe, so I will press forward with the attack.

My poor skirmishers are taking a beating but I believe I have the opportunity to envelop his position so I continue the attack.

Three on 1... my kinda odds. At the far left of the screen I have an isolated brigade and keep routing him backwards.

I finally trap him in the corner and he surrenders. I believe surrenders occur when both condition and morale hit zero. I keep my distance from the woods and the game ends.

With the Battles of Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill coming ... I probably should have conserved my forces.

My Corps after the battle:

Rendezous

My Corps for the battle:

Edit: need to find it and repost. 6 Infantry Brigades of 2,500 men and 2 batteries of artillery.

Battle set-up:

My reinforcements will be coming from the east, so I get ready to form a battle line which they can form on quickly.

My battle line formed flanked by 2 skirmishers and the Rebs taking the objective.

Am attacked from the rear by skirmishers and then the left flank.

Reinforcements arrive from the east and I detach more skirmishers to deal with the problem in my backfield and send the 2 brigades to my right flank.

I dispose of the skirmishers and the Confederate brigade retreats to the bottom left. I am confronted on the right and enter a fire fight.

The are both repulsed and I hold my ground for the victory.

Pretty boring, but I minimize casualties on this one.

My Corps after the battle:

Here is where I stand with my Organization before Gaines Mill:

Two quick battles with not a lot of meat. I'm juggling force building and trying to be ready for 2 major battles in succession. 

Though I have already won Gaines Mill, it was a bit gamey (will post it later)... the real test will be Mulvern Hill. We'll see how that goes... it took be 4 tries at Gaines Mill to win that battle... so... the force may have run its course. 

Cheers!

Edited October 21, 2017 by LAVA

[The Soldier]

Seven Pines!  My favorite battle in all of UGCW.  Not too often you find a wide stretch of open ground to wage war over, where it boils down to maneuver and grit on both sides.  The rebels in that battle really know how to push the flanks effectively.

[LAVA]

Yep, Seven Pines is a real fine battle. Very enjoyable.

I played it twice actually. Both went the same way as I reported, but in the first one I tried to annihilate the reb forces. End result was I had 11,000 losses to his 17,000 as I pursued the Confederates into the woods. Unfortunately, those were too high to allow me a proper buildup for the major battle at Gaines Mill. I'm really scavenging for men and weapons, to be quite honest.

[Grimthaur]

Since you are short on men, what do you think about a skirmisher-heavy build? For me results with 1 Skirmisher-brigade per Division (250 men, equipped with Sharps or Browns) are surprisingly good (im at Kettle Run now). The sniper-rifles may seem expensive but they have been extremely cost-efficient.They need at least the first star but you could ofcourse dissolve an infantry-brigade, that suffered heavy losses, if you get your pool to 0 before. They work expecially good on Gaines Mill

[cairnsy44]

Really enjoy the thread. I am not always able to view video and I like the description from the text and photo format. My attempt at MG level stalls when I get to the Shiloh campaign. I am constantly massively outnumbered and cannot compete, even though what small force I have fights well. I whittle away a huge chunk of their forces, but am left with nothing to achieve the win. The most I can muster are 2 divisions in 2 corps of 4 brigades. So River Crossing, I only have the 8 brigades and while my tactic was on the same line as yours, I just didn't have enough  men to do the job. I can get a draw at best there. And Shiloh? Ha....it's like a Rebel tsunami. They all have 2900 men in their 2 and 3 star brigades. I have 4 with 1500 if I am lucky.

[LAVA]

Thanks Cairnsy,

Fact is, I couldn't go much further on this Legendary campaign and decided to go back and play on MG.

I made a lot of mistakes here... including right from the start when I picked out my General's characteristics. I don't take any recon now, ever; for example. I also learned a lot about army management, being more methodical in my movements and making sure I had good artillery close by to help me out.

I recommend watching the videos of Aetius... especially his Camp videos and how and why he did things. You can check them out here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/aetius9/playlists

[cairnsy44]

Perfect! Thank you!