Texas Brigade Leader for Longstreet

So key piece of game in Longstreet is the Brigade leader your Player Character if you will.  While you don't need a figure to represent him, yeah Right! who is going pass on painting their general/self in miniature! You do need to have an idea of who he is and this leads to one of the most intriguing  aspects of the game, the biography card.

John Bell Hood the First Historic leader of the Texas Brigade

In Longstreet not all Brigade commanders are created equal (they are created balance which is not the same thing) each starts the game with one or two Biography cards each of which provide some advantage either on the battlefield or in the campaign phase between battles.  Each also provides a "Hook" for creating a back story for your character giving you the opportunity to mix some role-playing in with your war gaming.

In my case I picked two cards, depending on how the rest of my group goes I may drop one of them if we decide to only have one each, Mexican War Veteran and The Scout.

 So here we have the brief history of Adam Bonaparte Carriere commander of the Texas Brigade.  The future general and confederate war hero was born to a once prominent but now poor Creole family in October of 1823.  His father left the family behind to join in the Texas War of Independence and died defending the Alamo(as part of the New Orleans Grays).  Adam's mother was able to parley this hero's death into an appointment at West Point.

Jerome Bonaparte Robertson who followed Hood in command of the Texas Brigade and partly inspired my character.

The future general's graduated in the middle of his class and was assigned to the 8th US infantry serving along side Longstreet and Pickett.  He was brevetted to captain just before the end of the war but reverted to the rank of Lieutenant after it's conclusion.

The Mexican War Hero card gives me the ability to give a unit 2 extra dice in combat in both attack and defense.

After the war he served in several US cavalry regiments at a variety of frontier posts gaining some minor notoriety for some travel logs of his exploration and exploits he submitted to papers back east. He was again promoted to Captain in 1857.

The Scout provides me with the ability for one unit per turn to Skirmish at a range of 8 base widths instead of the normal 6.  In addition I have immunity to the Poor Survey card.  

Finding him self posted to Texas at the time of it Succession the US Army captain resigned his commission and  offered his services to the state his father had martyred himself for.   Thus he came to command a brigade of three regiments of infantry for the state of Texas soon dispatched east to defend the Confederacy.