Salem Church Game #2

After seeing Sedgwick call off his efforts to break through the Confederate line at Salem Church and skedaddle back across the Rappahannock River (see Sedgwick REJECTed at Salem Church), Matt (wargamesinthedungeon) took up the challenge in Game #2 to lead Sedgwick forward into battle.  Game was fought on 20 September.  As a reminder, the battlefield map and opening battle deployments are shown in the battlefield photos below.

Battlefield map 

Initial dispositions

Sedgwick's objective is to break through Rebel positions and move west to flank Lee and relieve Hooker at Chancellorsville.  Does Sedgwick fare better in this clash?  Let's find out.

Sedgwick opens battle with his artillery.
Newton and Brooks bring up guns on the Orange Plank Road.
Wilcox's men at Salem Church take a pounding.
McLaws counters by putting Wofford into motion against the Federal Left.

Bartlett takes fire from Wofford
as Rebels advance through the dense woods.

While one of McLaws' guns rains down on Brown's 1NJ,
Bartlett orders his men forward into an all-out attack.
Rather than see his flank turned as in Game #1,
Bartlett takes the fight to the enemy!

Wofford is driven back into the woods with Bartlett in hot pursuit. 
While Bartlett's pursuit is checked...

Cobb's Legion is destroyed and Wofford is killed!

In the Federal Center and Right,
 Sedgwick orders a general advance as Browne and Shaler
plunge into the woods near Golin run. 
Wheaton is ordered to cover the center.

Pressure mounts on Wofford as
Bartlett's Federal attacks in the woods continue.

Outnumbered by about two-to-one,
the 16GA and Phillip's Legion dissolve in the heavy fighting.
Wofford's Brigade is wrecked!

Bartlett swings his 96PA to the right.
The Rebel Right is turned!

In Kershaw's attacks, the defenders of the farm throw the enemy back
but the remnants of 1NJ are overrun.
Brown brings up reserves to plug the gap.

The gap is plugged and Kershaw is driven off!

With the Rebels back in the woods,
Brown decides not to follow up to pursue into the unknown.

Wheaton brings his brigade up in the center.

Kershaw sends two more regiments forward to Williams' Farm,
while, to the right, Bartlett attacks into the woods against
an already wavering 15SC.

The 15SC is destroyed and the 3SC Battalion is thrown back.

Federal attacks are relentless.
The Rebels are driven back again.

While Brown maintains pressure to the front...

Bartlett continues his rampage against the enemy right.

Another of Kershaw's regiments is destroyed in the fighting.

Now Wheaton brings his brigade into action...

and the enemy is scattered.
Kershaw's Brigade is wavering...

and then breaks!

The entire Rebel Right has collapsed
with Wilcox only clinging on by a thread.
Federal artillery sees to it that Wilcox has had enough!
Wilcox is wrecked!

With three Rebel brigades now wrecked, the Rebels must retire from the field and try to slow Sedgwick's advance down the Orange Plank Road to Lee's flank.

Wow!  A decisive Federal victory for Sedgwick and Matt.  My poor Rebel army was completely manhandled by Sedgwick's XI Corps.  Looking at the detritus of battle, there was hardly any action north of the OPR.  Rather than seeing Bartlett dismantled in total as in Game #1, Matt put Bartlett on the offensive and he never let up!  Wofford was completely mauled by Bartlett and when Brown (and at the end) Wheaton joined in, the battle was decided quickly.

The Butcher's Bill tells the sorry tale for the Confederacy.  Unit losses were more than three-to-one against.  What a bloody game.  Very impressive victory, Matt!  I wonder if I can repay this pounding when we swap sides and take to the field again?  

Butcher's Bill

Great job, Matt, and a really entertaining game!  Game duration was a little over three hours and we played four turns.

Neville's Battle

Despite a steady stream of games and analyses, the painting desk is seeing some activity too.  Some of that activity includes the first WSS French infantry to hit the painting desk.  For today and in a return to increasing the Wars of the Roses numbers, out from the workbench is a 47-figure Battle of Richard Neville, Warwick/Salisbury.

Neville's Battle is arrayed in three battle lines, one each of archers, bill, and MAA.  Figures are Perry Miniatures.  Add one more fighting force to the project!  One more Battle is currently under construction along with a few units from other projects.

On the gaming front, Matt is joining in tomorrow for a remote rematch of our earlier Salem Church clash.  I reckon will we swap sides and see if I can at least match Matt's performance.  That is doubtful!  Still waiting to find some time to chronicle that battle along with another Salem Church game with Vol.  Seems I am running so far behind on the BatRep front I may never catch up!

Least-Liked Hobby Aspects: Are Collectors Different?

Do wargamers who are primarily collectors exhibit a different least-liked profile than the general population of Great Wargaming Survey respondents?  This question arose from the previous analysis on what wargamers liked least about the hobby (see The Things We Love to Hate About Wargaming).  Methods and approach can be found in the previous analysis in the link above.  First posed on the Society of Ancients forum by Gavin and then again on Facebook, the question asked, "what do those whose primary interest is collecting find are their barriers to wargaming?"

To identify the population of collectors, I choose only those survey respondents who picked "Collecting the miniatures" as their top choice in the question on what is the best part of the hobby.  Out of the more than 4,000 entries, 512 respondents fell into this sample.  A large enough sample to work with, no doubt.

All Respondents 

As a reminder, the whole survey population showed their least-liked aspects of the hobby fell into four groupings (clusters) as shown in the Figure 1 Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

Figure 1 Clusters

Collectors Only

Looking at the subset of respondents who chose "Collecting the miniatures" as their favorite part of the hobby, the 512 responses produce the following PCA as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Clusters

In both analyses, the same key word tokens rise to the top and four clusters emerge.  The difference is that the four clusters see some group shuffling from the clusters seen in the whole population analysis.  The four clusters and their typologies in the Collectors Only analysis are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Cluster Typology

Access and Time (Find, Time)

In the upper right quadrant, this keyword cluster gathers those respondents not liking the challenges of finding miniatures, opponents, or useful information along with feeling weighed down by the labor and material demands needed to produce armies for gaming.  Perhaps gaming, itself, provides challenges?  Respondents in this group tend to struggle finding hobby things which time pressures compound.  Preparation and painting backlogs can be frustrating.  Notice that "time" migrated from painting/miniatures burden cluster in the overall analysis into the "find" cluster for Collectors Only. 

Social and Culture (People, Competition, Rules_lawyers, Gaming)

In the upper left quadrant, competition and people are closely aligned.  Rules-lawyers, while part of this cluster, produces shows less correlation (shorter vector) that remains closer to the origin.  Respondents in this group seem more dissatisfied by interpersonal friction, overly competitive play, and argumentative rules culture.  Notice that while gaming is included in this cluster, gaming is distinct and somewhat distant from competition and people.  The close proximity to the Dim1 axis suggests that gaming is a common pain point to both Social/Culture and Access/Time clusters.

Burden (Miniatures, Painting)

In the lower right quadrant, the close alignment of miniatures and painting in this cluster highlights the positive association between this pair of keywords.  This distinct material/preparation cluster suggests that respondents in this cluster see assembly and painting, figure quality, and even a massive backlog of unpainted figures as the main source of pain.  It is interesting to note in Figure 2 that there is a direct opposition along Dim1 between Social/Culture dissatisfaction on the left and the Burden dissatisfaction on the right.  In this collector-first group, wargamers who mainly object to competition and gaming culture appear statistically distinct from those mainly troubled by any painting and miniature accumulation burden.

Cost (Cost)

Again, cost arises as an independent factor.  Cost does not align clearly with any one cluster suggesting that financial aspects are common and secondary to all of the groups' least-liked aspects of the hobby.

Summary

Examining this subset of responses suggests that collectors’ least-liked aspects of wargaming fall out into three broad concerns.  The first, sees a difficulty accessing and finding time to pursue the hobby.  The second, sees the burden of painting and owning miniatures.  The third, focuses on dissatisfaction with competitive or socially challenging gaming culture.  Cost is recognized as a complaint but appears less decisive than the other three components. 

The clusters in Figure 3 generally mirror the clusters in the original PCA which examined the whole population.  Having similarity between clusters lends weight to stability of these data.  Seeing migration of some keywords among clusters is especially interesting.  For the collectors' subset, gaming becomes less of a driving issue in any one cluster.  That inference makes sense if your focus is on collecting rather than on gaming.  In Collectors Only analysis, gaming appears a common thread to both Access/Time and Social/Culture clusters.  Rather than finding "people" in the Access/Time cluster as in the broad population study, "people" migrates to the Social/Culture cluster.  Seems people are no longer sought out but to be avoided!  The strongest contrast is between respondents bothered by the hobby’s social/competitive environment and those bothered by its material, preparatory, and practical demands.  How does the hobby lessen these two extreme pain points?

While the Collectors Only group has much in common with the broader hobby results which attempt to qualify the least-liked aspects of wargaming, there are a few subtle but important differences.  If you consider yourself primarily a collector, does your experience align with others who put collecting miniatures first?

Sedgwick REJECTed at Salem Church

In a reminder to just how far I have fallen behind in duties to write and post battle reports, the calendar shows that the following game was played on 14 September with five of Postie's Rejects.  Gaming in September has picked up after a more relaxed summer and I am behind the curve already.

Armies arrayed for battle.

Anyway, the game on the 14th featured five Rejects taking their seats at the remote table to refight the 1863 Battle of Salem Church.  Lee (three brigades of McLaws' Division of Kershaw, Semmes, and Wofford) and Dan (McLaw, himself, Wilcox and Mahone's Brigades) would command elements of the Rebel Army while Richard (Sedgwick, Russell and Wheaton's Brigades), Steve (Newton's Division of Shaler and Browne), and Ray (Brooks' Division of Brown and Bartlett's Brigades) would take the helm of Sedgwick's Federal XI Corps.  After two weeks and three more Salem Church battles in the books since then, let's see how much of this battle I recall.

The Rebels await the attack they know is coming.

With the Rebel Army lined up in a mostly north-to-south line passing through Salem Church on the Orange Plank Road, the Federals waste no time in bringing the fight to the enemy.

Rebel army is poised to respond to the attacks.

Brown launches a frontal assault against the Rebels
hunkered down in the dense woods.

One of Wilcox's regiments is driven out of the woods
 and Rebel guns are overrun.
Payback is a B*** and Brown is stopped by canister.

The attack at Salem Church stalls.

Russell leads an attack against the enemy in from of Perry Farm.

The Rebels are thrown back into the farmstead but before

that attack can be carried out...

Bartlett attacks Wofford on the Federal Left.

Despite some success,
 Kershaw's large Brigade is stirred into action.

Kershaw advances from his defensive positions
to put Bartlett under pressure.

Bartlett looks vastly outnumbered!

In fact, he is!
His brigade is thrown back with heavy casualties.

Bartlett is spent.

Seeing another stalled attack, Sedwick looks elsewhere.
Federals are reinforcing success north of the Orange Plank Road.

Russell and Browne coordinate attacks
 against the Rebel held Perry Farm.

Attacks on the right grind down gaining little ground.

With Bartlett wrecked and attacks against Salem Church and Perry Farm going nowhere, Sedgwick orders his Corps to disengage and head north to cross the Rappahannock before that escape route is severed.  This fight is over, but Sedgwick lives to fight another day as he moves to join Hooker.

Butcher's Bill

The Butcher's Bill shows a relatively low number of destroyed regiments in both armies, but first impressions are deceiving.  Brook's Division has suffered the brunt of the heavy fighting.  Bartlett's Brigade is wrecked and Browne's Brigade is teetering on being wrecked, itself.  For the Confederates, Wofford's Brigade is wrecked from the tussle with Bartlett, but the Federal Left has collapsed. 

Congratulations to Dan and Lee for fighting back the Federal hordes!  Still, with the relatively light casualties across both armies, I reckon that the fighting could have continued.  Sedgwick (Richard) assessed that continued fighting here against Reels in the woods would only precipitate wrecking his entire Corps.  Given that he still had an escape route available before that door was slammed shut, Sedgwick opted to disengage and move north across the Rappahannock.

This battle only saw two game turns played.  That was a lot of fighting and decision making contained in only two turns.

Thank you, Gentlemen for an engaging session!  The Rebels are 1-0, thus far, at Salem Church.  Is this a fight the Federals can win?  Stay tuned...