Battle of the Crossroads - Garnier Campaign Mod - Single Player

[SiliconMagician]

I have to hand it to Garnier. He sure has made an amazing work of art with his mod. I've been playing his single player campaign for the last few days and it is a truly brutal thing. You often don't know where the enemy is, how big his numbers are, etc and literally anything happens. He turns game into an open world game for two hours! Very impressive.

Anyway, I was so amazed by my last battle I wanted to share a description of the events of the battle.

So. Situation is that there is a Victory Flag a mile or so to my Northwest. I'm on a east/west turnpike already, so I order the boys forward. Go West Young Man! Having learned the hard way how important recon is in SOW.. I sent myself forward to scout the area at the particularly nasty looking cross roads that headed north to the Victory Location. Well as my general rides up he spots at least 2 brigades making their way north towards the Victory Flag.. I checked the map and saw that two friendly divisions heading south towards the VF.. so my plan was to bring up my division, turn left and slam into this yank divisions rear while they were occupied with my friends to the north.

So my general smoked a cigar while he waited for the column catch up, unfortunately for my ever so genius plan to crush an enemy division.. another enemy division came out of the fields to the west of the cross roads, presumably to follow the division that just disappeared down the road in support. I thought, excellent! I just ended up in a prime blocking position! While I hold the crossroads to the south, the single yank division that got by would be crushed in detail. What a wonderful development.

So I quickly deployed my division, artillery and all in the woods surrounding the crossroads and prepared for the fight. Well the Yanks saw me about 300yds out, took a little time to get into formation and moved forward with the determination only a silicon general would show. The carnage was predictable. They charged my woodline several times and were thrown back, though they did manage to get into my far forward deployed regiment and routed them in some nasty hand-to-hand but they didn't go far before I had them back in hand and resting behind the line. Unfortunately for me as I was savouring this fine victory and looking to mop up the last couple regiments still resisting my ownership of these crossroads, yet another Yank brigade showed up from the south marching up the road in fast support. Unfortunately I had deployed most of my reserves to my north in a blocking position in case the Yank division to my North decided to turn around and come to the sound of the guns. Not really a big deal, these are my best troops on the right. They'll hold that yank brigade long enough fro me to bring some reserves over...

Then, the vagaries of war took over. Right where the woodline curved there was the junction of two regiments. The SW corner of the woodline. Anyway, the last two fresh regiments of the division I had just dispatched had crawled to within melee range and charged the last west facing regiment in the line right at the junction. The battle raged for a moment and then I watched in horror as it pulled the south facing regiment next to it into the melee. even as an entire federal brigade was now sprinting across the 250 yards of open ground between their woodline, and my own! The gap opened up and the blue belly regiments went straight for the hole!

I quickly pulled the last few regiments I had in the immediate area and threw them at the gap. Luckily the yanks had been slowed down by one sole regiment that fought like savage animals against numbers twice their size to keep the federals at bay long enough for my last reserves to push in. I column charged two full regiments at the enemy brigade and all along the south perimeter of the woods the battle raged. But I knew it was a lost cause, that entire side had been crushed and it was only a matter of time before the melee units broke and ran and yet ANOTHER federal brigade was coming up the road! So I did the only thing I could. I packed up the 4 regiments that were left, all my generals and the little remaining artillery I had and hightailed it north. I did this because I saw hundreds of blue bellies running for their lives back south from the battle that obviously taken place to my north somewhere.

So I sadly shook my head and pulled out, leaving behind the two regiments that were locked in hand to hand. The rearguard regiment lasted 10 whole minutes of hand to hand against odds so overwhelming. It was real 300 type stuff. Gawd I was proud of those boys.

Well as the last of my artillery is moving up the road, 4 or 5 angry regiments of blue coats are on their heels so I find a small regiment of about a 125 guys left, stick them in the woodline as a rearguard and then fought a nasty rearguard battle in stages a quarter mile or so north to the victory hex. Luckily there was a fully wooded creekline that ran east to west just before the vic flag so I set up a final defense stand there with my last few regiments, pulled the brave rear guar now reduced to 85 men STILL having high morale fell back into the line for a well deserved rest period.

Two regiments of yanks probed my line and a short skirmish broke out but then after losing a few dozen men they turned tail suddenly and headed south. Then, I hear the drums and look to my north and what do I see? The beautiful sight of a full rebel division marching down the road. They turned right and headed off to the east towards the #3 vic location that had turned on and the AI occupied it.

So it was 11:45am and the armies had completely exhuasted themselves and were satisfied to sit on objective hexes and soak up points the last few minutes. I had expected a full on attack by the division to my south, and when I only got probed lightly by a couple regiments, I got curious so I started moving south. I took a moment to survey all the carnage at the cross roads, saddened at all the grey bodies mixed in with the blue in long piles and lines along the south woodline, those brave young digital men gave their lives in glory to save the rest of the division. I continued south a little further to where another crossorads laid a half mile or so south, several hundred yards from a victory location.

Here. a far worse battle than I had fought was just finishing. A rebel division had been forced into a woodline and surrounded and the last couple regiments fought almost to the last man. The division was fully crushed, but the piles of bodies around for hundreds of yards through the woodline spoke of the tale. Any practiced eye could see the course of the battle and how it was fought, the ebb and flow back and forth. It was essentially a big giant pile of grey bodies int he center of the wood with blue bodies scattered for hundreds of yards around it mixed in with grey. The scale of the slaughter made my mouth drop. There had to have been two full yank divisions crushed to leave that many bodies.

So the final score ended 1891. Not quite a major victory, but pretty good. We ended up holding 2 of the 3 victory locations, but at terrible cost. I lost 3/4ths of my forces.

Anyway, this game is so improved over the years that I am in true awe of Norb and the team, good job guys.. Damn good job.