CSS Hunley and a 6mm AWI Hex game

Just back from helping my wife chaperone her 8th-grade field trip to Charleston.  Besides our normal itinerary of Ft. Sumter, the USS Yorktown (CV-10), Charles Town Landing, etc. we also visited the CSS Hunley.  I have not been for about 5 years and I am very impressed with the progress that has been made in restoration.  All of the hardened silt has been removed from the interior and it is looking great!  If you are ever in Charleston, SC, it is worth a visit.

I only managed to snap a few pictures, as I was shepherding nine 8th grade boys, but the boat is looking good:

I had a great group this year with some very smart, inquisitive, and well-behaved kids.  Thanks to my wife for bringing me along every year, as it gives me a captive audience to ramble on about history.

We took today as a recovery day, but I did dust off my One-Hour Wargames modifications for the AWI and tried them out on a hex grid.  They worked pretty well, I need to exercise them before.  I have not played them in so long, I am not sure why I changed the sequence from Move and Shoot to Shoot and Move, I might revisit that.

Here is a rough overview of the game.  I used my AWI Southern Campaign Army generator and the Damned Rebels fielded Militia plus some riflemen and the British sported Regulars with a battalion of lights, Hessian Jaegers, and 17th Dragoons.
(Click Photos to enlarge)

Here was the initial deployment:

The British tried to use the Light Bobs to clear the woods on the Patriot left flank with the bayonet, but the riflemen put up a stiff resistance in a bitter struggle that actually lasted most of the game.

The Jaegers dueled with their American counterparts on the other flank and gained the upper hand in the firefight.  The Backcountry riflemen decided to fight another day.  Meanwhile, the Regulars in the center charged up the hill at the main body of Patriot Militia.

With predictable results, the militia could not face the cold steel of the regulars and mostly quit the field. 

All in all a fun little diversion this afternoon.  I need to exercise the rules some more, the hexes certainly sped up play, but I need more games before I know how I feel about using them for linear warfare.

If anyone has any opinions on the Move - Shoot or Shoot - Move sequence, let me know.

Thanks and good gaming!

Birthday Diorama for the best son in law in the world!

Nate loves any Reality TV show that involves looking for treasure or gold.  We especially enjoyed the ridiculous Legend of the Superstition Mountains about a group looking for the Lost Dutchman mine.  The women folk of our little clan just don't get it, but that's why they have not found and treasure yet! (Of course, neither have we.)

So, for his birthday I decided to do a diorama using Bob Much's prospector figure from Pulp Miniatures.

Here is the result on my table right before gluing the cover down on the display case.

And afterward.

If you look carefully, you can see the black hand of the Apache Black Legion warning the prospector off.

That's all for now.  Going to fiddle with my hex based One Hour Wargames AWI mods next, until then, good gaming!