Inaugural Challenge FoF AAR

[Kingmaker]

HiHi

Reb Turn 1.

Setting up for War.

The 1st job I do as President of the CSA is to sort out the Military units to suit my preferences, when I first started playing FoF I found the container system a bit awkward to get to grips with, so now on my 1st turn I go round my nation and rename and flag up my armed forces, this, while time consuming, I find helps with identification and personalises my Forces.

Here is an overview of the Staring Military Containers setup, Fed Fleets are very faint anchors in the sea zones.



And here a screenshot of the Eastern Theatre.



After I have renamed and flagged up ANV. (an exapmle not form this game)



So as I don’t forget, 2nd job is always the 2 Confederate Blockade runners, these are vital to Rebs as they will bring in sorely needed resources, to start with I never send them out after anything with a danger level over 30%, the longer they are successful the stronger they become, in this case I was quite lucky and had 2 good targets within range, so Carolina Pride was sent after 30 Iron at 80% chance of success/30% chance of damage, Georgia Peach (for the curious, yes she is named for Gram Parsons, unhistorical I know but ... ) was dispatched to hopefully retrieve 40 money at 70%/20%.

Next Braggs Pensacola Div I set to Siege Ft Pickens by encirclement, its 2 Florida brigades are reinforced by Alabama line bgds and Garrison troops from the Mobile river area 2 of which have muskets supplied to them (that uses up the Reb gun stock) and I buy 1 of those the Medical attribute to lessen the risk of serious disease to all units in the Divisional container, arming and attributes have to be done before moving to Pensacola as there are enemy units there and that stops those actions, if all the bgds do actually join Bragg he will have a full Div of 6 bgds (the Reb maximum).

As Reb controlled Ft Henry is in neutral Kentucky space, in order not to antagonise that state I redeploy the Garrison to the Cumberland river area and Disband Ft Henry (which way Kentucky goes, Reb or Fed and when, can have a massive impact on the game).

Movement

Starting in the far West I move Van Dorns newly renamed (as are all containers except Prices ‘Missouri State Guard’) Texas Div (1 line bgd, 1 Garrison bgd from Austin) towards the Railhead at Monroe where it can be deployed either North towards Memphis and filled out with Independent bgds there, or South to New Orleans if an Amphibious landing takes place (a sometimes AI tactic)
In the lower Mississippi river area Twiggs Louisiana division is augmented with 2 Garrison bgds and moves into the city of New Orleans (where practical I put troops into either a City or Fort container as it saves on supply costs) 1 other garrison is sent down river to help man the defences at Ft St Philip

[note, some of these garrisons are from Forts that have more than 1 garrison assigned, some from Forts I intend to Disband and some from Cities deep in the heart of the Confederacy, that said, I rarely leave State capitols un-garrisoned, as capture of State capitals looses the resources of the whole State]

Further up the Mississippi around Memphis and the West, I order Prices Missouri Guard (2 Cav & 2 Inf bgds from Osage to the Ozarks to shield against any incursion by Lyons Div in Black river and to cover the movement of McCullocks Arkansas div (2 Inf bgds, this was formally ‘the Army of the West’, that name has been reassigned to Polks army around Memphis) to make sure McCullock doesn’t enter Ozarks first I move Price there then press the ‘S’ key that means McCullock acts as support for Price moving to Ozark and he will not go in till Price is there, I then move McCullock south to White river where 2 Inf bgds moved up from the Little Rock area will be added to his Arkansas div.

[It’s alright folks I ain’t gonna do this amount of detail for the whole of the Confederate War machine this has just been to give some idea of what goes down.]

Some Tennessee bgds are moved from the Cumberland Gap to reinforce Polks army and Island No 10, leaving 3 bgds in Ft Donelson and 1 bgd in Nashville. From Alabama and the heartlands of the Confederacy spare Ft and City garrisons are shifted North East towards Virginia And North West towards Chattanooga/Knoxville I try to leapfrog the units so as during the course of their movement they move from Ft/City to Ft/City, again to save on supply costs, eg Raleighs grs will move to Petersburg ready to join ANV next turn while Wilmingtons grs moves to Raleigh, and so on back down the line.

In my experience 99% of the time there is a battle in Fredricksburg this is true playing either the AI or Human opposition I think it must be designed into the game with a tiny percentage chance of battle being avoided etc. So with this in mind I will again attempt (probably futile, never done it yet) to reinforce Beauregards ANV, to this end I Force march Johnstons 1st Corps from the Shenandoah Vally to Fredericksburg and move Magruders Peninsular div by Rail from the James river to same

Here is a sceenshot of how I hope ANV will look with reinforcements come the battle.



[note the movements you give your units show as done on the map before you ‘End Turn’ but that in no-way guarantees they will be where you sent them come next turn, for eg bad initiative rolls or weather may delay or stop completely your planned movement ]

To be continued.

As I now have battle files in my inbox (typical, they all come together like London buses!) I will stop here for the moment and do builds etc latter/tomorrow.

All the Best
Peter