[ATTACH]5709[/ATTACH]
I'm not sure why, but even though I had it set to all out attack, Lyons retreated on day one. I had enough ammo to fight every day, and at the above rate of attrition could have won by day 15. I guess Athena cares for its troops more than me. )
100/100
222/156
4740/4485
500/?
I disbanded the HQ to add its guns to the attack which cost me 21 VPs.
Charleston was captured by CSA.
Final thoughts: I badly muffed match one as CSA by underestimating my opponent and going offensive in an attempt to break his supply. Neither of the attempts succeeded. Watie retreated before battle at Lexington, and for some reason even though I won at Rolla, the depot was in Union hands at the end of the turn with the element that had gotten mauled sitting there dug-in level 4. I suspect it was because I did a drive-by attack where my forces kept moving rather than stop at the region and the militiaI had sent to occupy the depot failed its forced march. In reflection I would have been better served in sending Watie to that depot as Indians apparently can't capture a city unless there is a proper amount of their sides military control already present so Lexington was pointless In any regards, a failure.
I then began a full retreat back towards the strategic points but lost track of the main USA force. Seeing that one of the regions he could have been in due to low detection was within range of lightly defended Ft Smith, I was forced to blow its depot. As it turned out, he was actually at Springfield. Still, this sealed my fate as I couldn't get supply wagons to Ft Smith in time to avoid starvation as they had been bumbling around up by Charleston. He moved in on my crumbling force around early January and easily steamrolled them.. then began to starve as well. Luckily I recaptured the city on the last turn or his point lead would have been insurmountable. Again in reflection, I probably would have been better served not blowing the depot at all - even if he had captured it it would have only provided half supply, and he would have eventually starved, anyways.
Knowing I was down big, as the USA I pushed hard for Ft Smith with the MO cav bde and actually captured it initially, but was told the turn was invalid due to the wrong orders being used... and then my comp died. It all kind of sucked.
Attempt number two to capture a strategic objective failed when gunboats forced Lyons to abort a naval attack on Little Rock against inferior CSA forces. It was then just hope an epidemic broke on him instead of me, and try and find a way around his gunboats.
I used some deception by renaming some of my units and using cav screens to decrease my profile. My goal was to make him think I was going Little Rock and draw the GBs there. All a moot point when the river froze and I don't think he bit since he sent three elements up to capture Charleston on the final turn.
Overall, a very well done scenario by the designers once you understand how the VP system worked. I think we all were kind of feeling our way along in the first match.
Congrats to John. Good luck in the second round.