The Battle of Mardon. Part One. Setting up the table and combatants.

Those of you who read my last posting, will recognise the photograph below. It is of the of the four squares, chosen by the Confederates to be the scene of the battle, after the columns had moved around on the map. I took all the major terrain features shown, and transferred them to my tabletop.

Here is what I came up with. The river runs along the bottom right quadrant and then peters out. There is a small wood bottom left and I added a small farmstead in this quadrant. The road runs across the board from east to west. The upper right quadrant has two hills and the upper left, though blank on the campaign map, I made it lightly wooded.

The elevation of the hills is clearer in this shot from ground level, south of the road.

The small farmstead looking north.

Looking north east from to edge of the wood towards the two hills.

The table looking east to west. The two objectives on the table will be the hill top bottom right, and the farmhouse top left.

Looking north west from beside the road.

Union 4th Corp. comprising two divisions. Only 1st Division on the right, will actually be on the table at the start of the battle. 2nd Division will arrive as reinforcements at some point.

The Confederate Corps, also consists of two divisions, they of course will both be on the table from the very beginning of the battle.

Confederate 1st Division is deployed in the light woods in the upper left quadrant, the point they occupied on the campaign map.

Confederate 2nd Division is arrayed on the two hills. Both artillery batteries on top of the hills, supported by infantry.

The cannon and three brigades of infantry from this division are deployed facing north. This is because the Confederate Corps commander has received word that a Union force is fast approaching from that direction.

Union 1st Division is deployed at the farm. Four brigades of infantry stretched out along the road behind a split log fence. A brigade of cavalry protect their exposed flank.

The whole table and deployments. The Union player is vastly outnumbered at the moment, the division opposite him, is about equal in size, but a larger division is perched on the two hills, one of which is an objective. Reinforcements, could arrive as early as turn five, but more likely, around turns ten to twenty. The Union commander has decided to hold the objective he currently has, being the farmstead, and hope the Union 2nd Division arrives quickly and can hopefully take the objective on the hill.

The Union Corps commander is hoping this division can not only hold the rebels in front of them, but also draw more of the enemy off the hills, this would greatly help the approaching Union 2nd Division.

The Confederate player, safe in the knowledge that he is ahead by 2 VP's, need only defend the objective on the hill to win the game. However, it is not often that such an opportunity, to destroy a full Union division, presents itself and he is an aggressive commander. He considers two batteries of artillery and three brigades of infantry in an excellent defensive position, more than adequate to defend the objective from enemy attacks arriving from the north. He intends to assist his weaker divisions assault on the farm by committing two brigades of infantry as well as two brigades of cavalry from the hills. He intends to destroy the Union division at the farm, long before any help can arrive.