Athens, Missouri - August 5th,1861

This is the skirmish I've been working on!


Battle of Athens



Shortly before 5:00 on the morning of August 5, 1861 word came to Athens that rebel forces were about to attack. Captain David Moore and his 300+ men of the 1st Northeast Missouri Home Guard were about to do battle with pro-secessionist Martin Green and his estimated two thousand man Missouri State Guard.

Greatly outnumbered and surrounded on three sides, the Union Home Guard fought off the poorly trained State Guard and after two hours of battle had won the day. The secessionist threat in northeast Missouri had been squashed.

What is known as the Battle of Athens in Missouri also spilled over across the Des Moines River into Croton, Iowa.
This battle of militia units resulted in an important victory for the Union. The Croton depot was fired upon by the
Confederate artillery and a Keokuk militia unit fired at the Confederates from the Iowa side.


Force composition & battlefield layout are largely based on the map below & satellite images of the battlefield today.
I also had the opportunity to tour this site about a year ago thus giving the inspiration for this scenario.




Athens has the distinction of being the northernmost battle west of the Mississippi River & the only point where the fighting actually crossed into the state of Iowa.






I'm still working out special rules & balance for this scenario. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks!

The Problem with such "close" setups are, the starting player have an advantage
(because battles, maintain melees are deadly).

The scenario need for sure a few special scenario rules,
otherwise it will be a very short game

And because of the "Sections" of the game, there can be another problem with the command cards


I know, it should be a "Skirmish" game, but maybe it´s better, to "scale up" this scenario with the number of units and spread the setup over whole gameboard.

You make some great points! I would be very interested in seeing your scaling up of the map/units.

Thanks for your input!