Bonnie Blue Flag rules played - The Wheatfield

Game at Stephens today (last for few weeks as he is off on holiday to England) and he choose ACW period with set of rules called Bonnie Blue Flag which we have never tried before (think he bought them at Warfare last year).

These are marketed as a fast play set with units as Regiments.

Scenario was based on a Guns of Gettysburg version of  'The Wheatfield' using Stephens excellent 15mm kit and troops (mostly Peter Pig).

Used standard sized units (5 bases) for ease although rules allow varied sized Regiments (4-12 bases) but no matter number of stands used units are rated for 3 Attrition Levels ie 6 for Veterans, 5 Experienced or 4 Raw.

System has interesting sequence of play (followed alternately by players) with Officers moving first then Charges, Skirmishers and other Moves followed by shooting by Artillery, then Skirmishing, then Musketry and a Melee phase.

I really liked how Skirmishers are handled being able to be deploy or recall at will but only taking 1 hit to get rid of them or forcing them back by advancing on them and their shooting is not too powerful.

Oddly they cannot be ignored by artillery (no shooting through to parent unit) but this is fine in practice and overall Skirmisher just worked.

Movement is a set distance with variable move of 1-2 D6 with usual deductions for terrain and is done per unit (no group moves).   

Shooting and Melee are conducted by causing a Morale Check on enemy which use a percentage dice system for passing or failing with units suffering Attrition hits and possibly falling back and maybe not being able to fire at next opportunity. 

Advancing troops seem slightly less vulnerable to being fired at than stationary chaps but with caveat that if you move over half you don't fire.

Officers give Morale bonuses to units in Command when shot at or when attached to a unit in Melee and can recover Attrition hits on units by using their own pool of Attrition (4-5) but are mostly invulnerable (only lost if attached to a unit destroyed by melee).

Rules are bit vague in several areas (and not much in way of support that we could find) but these issues were pretty easy to rule upon in practice.

All in all a fun set that should be quicker to play than our favoured Regt Fire and Fury (really its only downside is game length imho).