Gettysburg 150th Anniversary Game

On June 29th and 30th a group of 14 players gathered at the American Legion hall in Appleton, WI to refight the battle of Gettysburg.  We gathered players from this area of Wisconsin and four players from Minnesota.  We set out to refight Gettysburg at the regimental level using Johnny Reb III for rules, needless to say it was quite an undertaking.  The count that we arrived at was in the neighborhood of 4-6000 figures on a 6' x16' board modeled with terrain to represent the historical battlefield including a scratchbuilt seminary building.  The entire months of May and June were dedicated to getting ready for this (hence the lack of blog activity) including playing practice games of Johnny Reb.

We began by gathering Friday night for a traditional Wisconsin fish fry at the Legion Hall.  The American Legion staff were excellent hosts all weekend and did a great job of seeing to our needs.  We are already thinking about what our next "mega-game" will be.  After service was done, and the hall began to clear we were free to set things up for the game which would begin the next morning.  Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera that night, but my friend Michael did.  You can see pictures of the set up at his blog here: http://www.campaignsinminiature.blogspot.com/2013/06/gettyburg-day-zero.html

Saturday morning we gathered bright and early to begin the conflict.  The table awaited us, quiet, as was the historic Gettysburg on June 30, 1863.

 

Miles away, General Meade works to take command of the Army of the Potomac.  The band plays to rally the spirits of the army on the march.

 

Several of our players knew the battle quite well, so they asked me (as organizer and GM) to mix up the arrival orders and such so that people didn't anticipate things that should have been unexpected.  I let the commanders chosen to be Lee and Meade choose the order of march for their columns and then also messed with the arrival times to throw a few spanners into the works.  From here on I'll let the pictures tell the story.