Built Up Areas
Our gaming club ran our first game of Guns at Gettysburg this past weekend and we enjoyed the rules very much. We played the Battle of Bean's Station Tennessee from December 1862. Since we all live about 45 minutes away from the battlefield we thought it might make for an interesting start to gaming with GaG. Our battle did bring up a few questions... Are skirmish troops who enter a built up area (a farmstead) still considered skirmishers? Are troops in built up areas (a farmstead) considered formed or unformed for melee purposes. We have likely overlooked the answer somewhere in the book but any help would be appreciated. Thanks, James Knoxville, TN

Good questions. 1) If a unit of skirmishers enters a building ,they are no longer "skirmishing". I think they are behaving as a small unit and can attempt to hold the position , try to melee etc. Not sure on the actual rules , but I think that's how we have played it before. 2) They count as formed , but don't get any formation modifiers , like column etc. After melee they count as unformed. DB will have clearer answers. Have you got a scenario for Bean's Station ? How long was your game?

We used what information we could find about Bean's Station and heavily modified the scenario to fit our small collections. The majority of our infantry units had 20 figures each. The CSA had 3 Brigades of Infantry with 3 Regiments in each Brigade. The CSA had 1 Brigade of Cavalry of 1 understrength Regiment. The CSA had 1 Battery of 2 Sections of 12lb Napoleons. The USA had 3 Brigades of Infantry with 3 Regiments in 2 Brigades and 4 Regiments in the remaining Brigade. The USA had 1 Brigade of Cavalry of 1 Regiment. The USA had 1 Battery of 2 sections of 12lb Napoleons. The sides were nearly even in strength and command abilities. However, the Federals did have an infantry unit with 30+ figures that proved very effective! :shock: We had 6 players involved and we were all new to GaG. The game lasted about 4 hours with the Confederates eventually hurling the Federals back from Bean's Station. If you subtract our "discussion" time regarding troops in built up areas (a headache in most games) then the game played out in 3 to 3.5 hours.

j, Are skirmish troops who enter a built up area (a farmstead) still considered skirmishers? A - Technically yes, they are still classed as skimishing thus can not hold BUA's. However you may well wish to be flexible with this ruling and allow skimishers to consoldiate a BUA section, but I would suggest that they pass their recall roll first in order to form up into close order. Are troops in built up areas (a farmstead) considered formed or unformed for melee purposes. A - Troops in BUA's are considered formed prior to melee. DB