First opposed play of Guns of Gettysburg

I got to try out The Guns of Gettysburg in my first opposed play through (in contrast to solitaire playings). I'm pretty sure we made a number of mistakes so I'm not really going to get into details of how it went. I'm more certain we played the reinforcement rules more or less correctly and I thin they definitely create an interesting dynamic. Chances are against replicating the historical arrival schedule but chances are very good at replicating the dynamics of a meeting engagement! I'll note that the Confederates, under my control, were able to win by following a strategy of relentless attacking over the first day and into the next morning, but the number of artillery tokens was getting dangerously low and I can see where this might not work as well against a more experienced Union player. I'm looking forward to trying it again, hopefully against someone who has also studied the rules a bit.

50 years of Gettysburg games -- From Charles Roberts to Bowen Simmons

I haven't had the chance to play Bowen Simmons' new The Guns of Gettysburg against anyone yet, but I did go through a solitaire play through last night.

Like Simmons earlier games, Bonaparte at Marengo and Napleon's Triumph, The Guns of Gettysburg doesn't owe much to the traditional hex-and-counter style of wargame that can trace its lineage back to Charles Roberts original Gettysburg from 1964 (Although that game actually used squares, not hexagons,  it was a grid). It's probably easier for nonwargamers to learn Simmons games because thee is less to unlearn

Still, laying the two games out side by side provides an interesting contrast. The older game was a seminal work in the development of the historical board wargaming hobby. Roberts first design -- Tactics -- was a purely fictional clash between identical armies, which had been the approach of all earlier wargames as well.

50 years of Gettysburg wargames

Roberts' breakthrough was the inspiration of modeling a historical battle. The appeal of fictional military exercises proved limited -- mostly to professional military men seeking training. The appeal of "You In Command" however, proved much more commercially viable and the board wargaming hobby was born.

Roberts' Gettysburg therefore holds an esteemed place in the annals of wargaming -- but, in truth, the game itself has not aged particularly well. While Roberts was blazing a new trail, being a pioneer has many drawbacks. You're mot likely to hack the best path through the woods on your first pass, after all. It's not a very sophisticated design and the terrain analysis, especially, is pretty simplistic. There's not benefit to the roads, for example. Still, it was a start. The Guns of Gettysburg, in contrast, is nothing if not a sophisticated look at the battle, with the map and the terrain analysis a key part of the game design. It's also a very nice looking game.

And now for something completely different .. Wallace's Gettysburg

Martin Wallace's Gettysburg is a special limited edition (1,500 copies) euro-style wargame about America's most famous Civil War battle.

Wallace explicitly denies any simulation intent, but I think he may be too modest, as it's at least as reasonable facsimile of the battle as many games with pretensions of simulation authenticity.

What Wallace's Gettysburg doesn't have is a strict adherence to scale in either units, geography or time. Units are not measured in or called "brigades" for example, although the pieces typically seem to represent 1-2 brigades of infantry for example. Likewise the turns are not measured in "hours," although each cycle of player acts seems to depict something akin to a half hour's worth of action.

In perhaps the most controversial aspect of the game's presentation, the military units are represented with "meeple" style wooden figures vaguely shaped like marching infantrymen, kneeling cavalry troops and cannons. The CSA side is the traditional gray, except for elite infantry which is in black. The Union side is a little more varied, with blue for the regular infantry and artillery, a darker blue for cavalry, one bright red unit for the elite "Iron Brigade" and orange for the lesser quality troops of XIth Corps.

In a very "euro" style touch, casualties are marked with color coded tiny wooden cubes that match the color of the wounded infantry or cavalry unit and there are additional wooden pieces in a variety of shapes for other game functions.

Among those are some larger blocks numbered 2 through 5 in sets of eight in blue and in gray and corresponding gray and blue discs that are used to mark orders (along with some black discs for Union forced passes), These represent the heart of the game system, depicting the command and control problems of a civil war army in a paperless way.

The basic outline of a player's turn is as follows: Placing an available block (numbered 2, 3, 4 or 5) and then placing an order disc with a block, not exceeding the number on that block. (And not necessarily the block just placed.) That disc entitles the player to activate units in the same area as the block, or sometimes adjacent areas and do things with them. After the activity is done, the player can pick up a previously placed block -- and any discs that it has and return them to his stock.

The most common activity is to move one or two units into an adjacent area (up to four of there's a road). If the area is enemy occupied the move is an "assault" which is comprised of a number of steps involving fire and morale checks by both sides. Losses are marked with the various color-coded blocks and if a unit accumulates a sufficient number of those blocks (usually six) it is removed from the board.

There are other activities such as firing artillery at long range, removing disruption markers and other activities.

A period ends when the Union player has exhausted all his discs in a time period. Various housekeeping activities ensure and the stock of order discs is replenished for the next period. Note that discs remain on the board until their associated block is picked up, so there's an important resource-management aspect tot he game system, in another common euro-game touch.

Reinforcements arrive by a set, historical schedule. The burden of attack is on the Confederate side, but they also have more discs. Victory is assessed at the end of each day, with the CSA winning if he controls two "starred" areas marked on the board that roughly correspond to the historical Union "Fishhook" position. The CSA can also win a sort of "sudden death" victory by occupying the Little Round Top area at the end of any period.

Overall the game manages to reflect the overall course of the battle reasonably well -- it feels like Gettysburg. The pressure is clearly on the CSA to push hard in order to win, but the federals, carefully played, can manage to hold on.

The game mechanics are a refreshing change of pace for wargamers, who won't find a lot of overlap with the traditional hex-and-counter model. It may appeal to non-wargamer euro players who like relatively intricate games. Compared to most wargames it's not very intricate, but it's on the high side for the euros I have seen.

It's definitely playable in a single evening -- possibly even match play suitable for a longish evening -- and until The Guns of Gettysburg came out I'd have considered this my primary Gettysburg game for playing on the battle's anniversary. I think I'll still try to get in a game of it on July 1st - 3rd. There's only one "scenario" -- the entire battle -- and the area depicted is limited to the actual battlefield so it's not much use for exploring what-ifs. But it is a suitable commemoration of the battle and it appears to be scrupulously fair to both players with neither side having an obvious edge. Neither side can afford to be lackadaisical in their play, however, and it should be a tense contest throughout.

Overall I recommend this game as a very nice, entertaining Gettysburg wargame that is more game than simulation but still shouldn't offend the sensibility of the historically inclined.

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A good thing it's called Cemetery Hill, because it sure ain't Gettysburg

Starting setup for the Decision Games edition

The Blue & Gray system was a passably authentic depiction of civil war battles at the introductory level that was very popular in the 1970s under SPI and was updated with some changes by Decision Games a couple of decades later.

Originally published as folios and quad games, the system operated under some severe constraints as far as components went, but it really wasn't half bad most of the time and most of the time a judicious use of special rules and set ups would provide something remotely close to the actual event.

The conventional wisdom is that Cemetery Hill represented the weakest entry in the series and in this case the conventional wisdom is correct. Many were surprised when Decision games redid the Blue & Gray quad that the battle they dropped in order to make room for the Bull Run battles  was Antietam instead of Cemetery Hill.

At the root of Cemetery Hill's problems was the ill-advised decision to depict the order of battle at the division scale (or half-division in the case of the Rebels) instead of the brigade level used for every other Blue & Gray game. While this was perhaps an understandable, if incorrect, decision when SPI published it as a folio, kit was a very poor decision when Decision Games re-issued the game in a boxed edition where the same constraints did not apply. Gettysburg was a large battle -- the largest ever fought in North America, actually, and a B&G treatment of it at the brigade level might have been interesting.

Instead we have a clunky division level game with huge combat factors.

Compounding the problem is a peculiar treatment of terrain. Urban combat was very rare in the Civil War, and the few times it did occur, such as at Gettysburg, provided no evidence that defending a town represented much of an advantage. But Cemetery Hill makes the Town of Gettysb urg into an inportant fortress-like defensive position that will always figure in the Union player's plans.

Likewise the game provides triple defense for defenders of Cemetery Hill, Culp's Hill and the Round tops -- an astounding upgrade of some pretty unspectacular elevations a few dozen meters above the surrounding countryside.

Finally, the game starts at a strange time for a Gettysburg game -- around 2 p.m. on July 1st just as Ewell;s corps was about to rout the hapless XI Corps. One suspects that this was done to finesse that the game couldn't really cope with the swirling action of the morning and early afternoon of July 1st as designed.

So what we're left with is a game that fails to develop in an authentically plausible way to depict the Battle of Gettysburg with very little chance of the historic "fishhook" developing or events resembling Longstreet's offensives.

This might have been acceptable if the result was at least an interesting game, but here, too, Cemetery Hill falls short. The online game site Hexwar.com provides Win-Loss stats for Cemetery Hill along with other games it offers and those statistics reveal that the game is severely imbalanced in favor of the Union side, with the Blue beating the Gray almost 2-1. Interestingly it doesn't matter whether the game is played with the classic SPI-era rules or the modified Decision Games version (with the "attacker ineffectiveness" rules),

As of late June, 2013, the Union players won 2,002 of the 3,080 games played under the new rules, for a winning percentage of 65%. This is essentially the same as the classic rules, where Union players won 977 of 1,559 games played, or 63%.

The outcome of the game depends enormously on how well the first couple of CSA attacks go against the federal XI Corps. If they go well, then the South can have a shot at victory, but if they go badly, one might as well just start over, with suggests that the better design choice would have been to start the game even later and just give Lee credit for beating Howard.

With a number of new games out depicting the Battle of Gettysburg as its 150th anniversary approaches there's little reason to revisit Cemetery Hill as part of your commemorations. It's very appropriate that it was called Cemetery Hill, because it isn't much of a Battle of Gettysburg game. 

Is it a gamble because there are dice? Lee's Greatest Gamble

Set up for Gettysburg: Lee's Greatest Gamble

The approach of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the appearance of some games explicitly tied to that commemoration such as The Guns of Gettysburg and Gettysburg 150 prompted me to re-look at some of my old collection before I tackled the new stuff.

Interestingly, Gettysburg: Lee's Greatest Gamble pioneered one of the notable mechanics of The Guns of Gettysburg, army postures.

Based on the army's "posture," the ability of units to move and fight are affected to some degree or other. The motivation behind this regimen is to account for the peculiar fact that -- although the battle occurred over three days that July -- nearly all the fighting was concentrated within a few violent hours on each day. Indeed, it's a very notable aspect of the battle, especially on its second and third days. It took most of July 2nd for Longstreet to organize his flank attack and the arrival of nightfall did as much to end its chances of success as the arrival of Union reserves.

Lee's Greatest Gamble was one of the first games that made a serious effort to graphic with that problem and most serious wargames about the battle since then have tried to find some way to model the large periods of inactivity that marked the fight.

In The Guns of Gettysburg the armies choose between Attack, Hold and Withdrawal general orders, which generally have the effects you'd expect from their names. In Lee's Greatest Gamble there are four postures, Attack, Restricted, Passive and Panic which are, perhaps, a little less intuitively named but similarly affect what the player can do. The main difference between the two approaches is that The Guns of Gettysburg game places the army status under player control and gives a player incentives for choosing each while LGG makes it subject to the vagaries of the die. This die-based approach has the advantage of making one of the results "Panic" which provides a possibility of the opposing player taking temporary control of part of the army. This rather neatly accounts for some of the bad battlefield decisions of the actual fight such as Barlow's advance to Barlow's Knoll and Sickle's advance of III Corps.

A drawback of the die-based approach, besides the obvious reduction in player control, is that a bad series of die rolls can prevent the two armies from fighting at all. Errata mitigated it to some extent, but it's still a possibility even after the errata. This is a significant drawback to game with the time investment of LGG and enough to keep me from being willing to make that investment.

I'm not sure whether Bowen Simmons, designer of The Guns of Gettysburg, is familiar with LGG or whether he derived any inspiration from the earlier game, but I think his implementation is superior in concept. As a general rule, I dislike "idiot rules" that force players to do or not do things instead of providing them incentives. It's both more realistic and more satisfying from a player's point of view to give him a reason to delay making an attack than simply banning him from the act. In the actual event there were reasons why thing occurred as they did and while it may not be possible to recapture all those reasons, it's superior to have a reason for things to happen or not happen.

Still, LGG broke some fascinating new ground and it was interesting to look at it again as I pondered whether any old titles needed to be re-evaluated as the 150th anniversary neared.

Has it just been 25 years?! Gettysburg 125th Anniversary Edition reviewed

The 125th anniversary of something isn't usually a big deal, but Avalon Hill decided it was enough of a hook to latch onto for the 1988 update of the venerable Gettysburg title. The resulting Gettysburg 125th Anniversary Edition didn't bear much resemblance to its predecessor -- a good thing as it turns out.

While remaining an introductory level wargame, the 1988 version of Gettysburg introduced a new basic game engine that eventually became known as the "Smithsonian" series, which was applied to a diverse group of titles, most updates of of classic AH titles such as Midway, D-Day and Battle of the Bulge.

The essential element of the "Smithsonian" series was a combat system that eschewed the old CRT for a competitive D10 die roll modified by units strengths and other factors. Based on how much the winner won by, the loser suffered certain results.

While this worked pretty well in Gettysburg 1988, I didn't care for it as much in the other Smithsonian games, although I ended up buying and playing all of theme before I finally decided I didn't like it.

The only survivor of the bunch in my collection is Gettysburg 1988. The system seems to work reasonably well in this case.

Probably the biggest limitation of the system is that it's prone to more extreme results when there are smaller numbers of units involved. A 1-7 fighting another 1-7 can more easily double the result of its foe than a 10 factor stack fighting a 10-factor stack.

At start positions

Like the original Gettysburg, Gettysburg 1988 depicts the order of battle for both sides at the divisional level for infantry, with cavalry brigades and artillery battalions.  Unlike the older game, all the artillery battalions appear, so the Union has the proper edge in artillery strength. There's more differentiation between the infantry\ divisions than the 1964 game had, which helps the CSA a bit. The CSA player is, however, still vulnerable to bad luck because he has only nine infantry units. Eveyr loss will be keenly felt.

The victory conditions award significant points for holding specific points of geography, so the federal player will have to fight forward. A common problem with Gettysburg games is trying to properly capture the pace of the battle, and like most earlier efforts this version of Gettysburg doesn't grapple with that problem. While the actual battle saw extensive lulls in the action on July 2 and July 3, in Gettysburg 1988 that's not likely to happen and the game will therefore tend to be relatively more bloody than the real thing.

Mitigatuing that a bit is the game's option for starting on July 2 and on July 3, so that even though a full July 1st start game probably won;t see anything like Longstreet's two charges, players can still expereince them with the later start times.

Like many Gettysburg games, the 1988 edition brings the cavalry onto the main battlefield even though they really fought off map. An issue of The General included a map extension that lets players include the eastern cavalry field for those who have it.

Overall the game is a decent little introductory game, but comes off second best to some of the most recent forays that cover the battle with similar playing time but more interesting player decisions. As far as simulation value goes, it's fairly mediocre because of the lack of attention to command control and pacing alluded to.

Gettysburg 1964 -- just a curio now

Starting units Gettysburg 64

The approaching 150th anniversary of the battle has re-kindled my interest in things Gettysburg, especially with the arrival of The Guns of Gettysburg this week, so I thought I'd take a relook at some of the older games, including this granddaddy.

If anything, I think my 2007 review was overly kind, because I see little reason to play this as either a game or as a simulation these days.

There are a lot of problems with the game as a competitive exercise, but the lack of any geographic objectives may the be the biggest one. The victory conditions put the burden of attack on the CSA player, but with no reason to defend the Cemetery Hill area the USA player will generally just hang out in the southern hills which are close to his reinforcement arrival zones and far from the Confederate arrival ones. This leaves the CSA trying to attack a stronger enemy on doubling terrain with any attrition results favoring the Union.

My re-look also revealed a scale mismatch that I think also hinders the game. After comparing the historical deployments with the game it occurred to me that the game's divisional pieces were too small for the map scale. The size of the squares would better match the historical frontages of brigades. This also has the effect of penalizing the CSA divisions. While they are stronger than the US divisions (typically they are 4-2 and the US divisions are 3-2 factor units) this actually understates the differential between the two. Eight of the nine CSA divisions on the field had 4 or 5 brigades, while all the US divisions had just 2 or 3. On the other hands, the odd OB would lead you to believe that the CSA had more artillery present, because it depicts the six corps artillery battalions but ignores the divisional artillery on the CSA side. Meanwhile the Army of the Potomac's corps artillery is ignored and only the five brigades of the artillery reserve show up.

Altogether there's really nothing left from a game play perspective to make this worth hitting the table and it's just a curio now.

Guns of Gettysburg Kickstarter

This is exciting. Kickstarter for Guns of Gettysburg starts Friday! Apparently the plan is to have the games shipped in time for the 150th anniversary this year.

It would be way cool to be able to play Guns of Gettysburg at Gettyburg for the 150th.

Guns of Gettysburg heads for a Kickstart

Evidently the long-awaited Guns of Gettysburg is going to be published by an outfit by the name of Mercury Games instead of under Bowen Simmons' own Simmons Games imprint and it's going to be financed via Kickstarter, probably in January or February.

This is good news for those of us waiting for the game, of course, although on a personal note, it implies that the health problems that have delayed Bowen Simmons from getting the game published (it's apparently been basically finished for more than a year) are not expected to get better any time soon.

Some people don't like the new cover, shown above, preferring the old one, at right. I don't have a strong opinion. I think the old one is a little more period evoking and classy, but it was really geared towards the existing fan base. Kickstarter means exposing the project to a larger audience that is unfamiliar with Simmons' groundbreaking earlier work with Bonaparte at Marengo and Napoleon's Triumph and therefore the cover will have to "sell" the game more than it did before.

On the other hand, I think this means that the initial print run for the game will be much larger than what we saw for BaM and NT.

The game, itself, is the sort of groundbreaking, paradigm shattering work we've come to expect from Simmons. The basic fact about Simmons is that unlike nearly every other wargame designer out there, he doesn't work off one of the existing wargame models, whether hex-based or area-based, whether CRT or bucket of dice, whether counters or figures, etc. He starts from first principles of terrain, order of battle and combat effects and designs a system from the ground up, as it were. So far this has resulted in a couple of elegant and outstanding games that are often pretty hard for the traditional hex-and-CRT-familiar wargamer to wrap his head around. Once you do, however, you're well rewarded. Both games really make you think as a player, intensely and deeply. Guns of Gettysburg looks to be much the same. Can't wait.

Solitairing In Magnificent Style

Rebel brigades make a final rush for the Copse of Trees

Reviewing a solitaire wargame has special pitfalls. Oh, it's easier in one sense, because you don't have to find an opponent, but overall I think it's a challenge. Wargames are complex and subtle beasts by nature, and I can't tell you how many times I've played a game -- often for quite some time -- and found out I had been playing a rule incorrectly, missing a critical modifier or accidentally forgetting some key unit in the order of battle. Having an opponent sitting across the table who has a vested interest im making sure you don't miss anything that helps his side is a big help.

So with the caveat that I tried to play In Magnificent Style very, very correctly, it's always possible I missed something.

Solitaire wargames have tended to follow two basic models. One is the scripted adventure model of either/or paragraphs or other narrative tools that guide the player through a menu of choices. The classic example of this approach is Ambush!. The other approach is to create a framework where the player tries to accomplish some goal while stuff happens to him, generally using some sort of randomization mechanic. The classic example of this is B-17. In Magnificent Style is basically from this second approach, although a clever random events chit pull system give s it a little bot of the flavor of the paragraph system. This second approach works best when the player represents a side that had few courses of action available to it. In B-17 the player controls a single bomber that is part of a much larger formation of bombers. The player has no choice as to the target the tactics or the timing.

In Magnificent Style examines earlier example of a situation where there was plenty of valor, but few choices -- Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.  The Rebels taking part also had no choice as to the target, the tactics or the timing. The game is meant to be the first i n a similar series of games to be called Death or Glory! that will depict other doomed assaults.

The components are excellent. The most notable are the counters, which are my first exposure to the new laser-cut (as opposed to the traditional die-cut) technique. They are thicker than what you typically find with die cut counters and the precision of the cut is stunning. I wouldn't be surprised to see this become the new industry standard. There's no need to trip or clip counters with these babies. They fall out easily and cleanly and the laser cutting allows for naturally rounded corners.

The counters include the nine brigades, several dozen markers and double-sided event chits. there are even a couple of tiny dice in their own little holder on the counter sheet.

The 11" by 17" map is on light card stock and in full color. Also in full color are a player auid sheet and a copiously illustrated 20 -page rule book.

The player's objective to to get the nine brigades involved in the charge across the killing ground and capture the Union positions on Cemetery Ridge.

The key mechanic is a "push-your-luck" system where, in turn, the player activates one of the brigades and rolls two dice, cross indexing the rolls on  a "Movement Events Results table. So  a roll on the black die of "2" and on the white die of "3" is read as a "2-3" (not totaled as a "5") and referenced on the chart. The most common result is "Advance" which allows the brigade to move forward one square and then activate again. Other results include Determined Advance, On to Washington and C'mon Boys which allow advances with enhancements and negative results such as Light Fire, Heavy Fire and even Rout! which involve losing strength or ground.

The Push-Your-Luck element comes into play because each time the player activates a brigade instead of rolling on the table, he can elect to "Regroup" which moves the brigade Rally Point forward and therefore mitigates many of the negative effects on the table.

Many of the results also have the player drawing a chit and applying either the Blue side (helping the Union) or the Gray side (helping the player). Some Blue chits, for example, cause extra hits on the rebel brgades, add obstacles or make generals casualties. The gray chits similarly give the Rebels temproary protections, cause losses to the Union side or allow rerolls.

The Player has five turns to complete the charge, so there's constant tension between deciding whether to continue the advance, risking losses and setbacks or stop and consolidate your ground.

I found the game pretty challenging in my first five plays, managing a couple of draws while losing three times. Like many games of its ilks, it's hard to say whether there's really a winning strategy to follow. It's difficult to strike a balance between advancing and  consolidating. Being too aggressive seems guaranteed to wreck a brigade, but being too cautious will see the attack running out of time. The six brigades of Pickett and Trimble's divisions have 10 squares to cover, so the average pace of the advance has to be at least 2 squares per turn. Pettigrew has even further to go, needing to cover 11 squares. Complicating things is the fact that the Emmitsburg Road and Union lines each need to be crossed and each represents an "obstacle" that can only be crossed on 13 of the 36 possible rolls. When you consider that 11 of the 36 possible rolls are negative results the scale of the challenge becomes clear. It appears to me that, on average, the Rebel brigades need to try to advance 3-4 squares each turn. before stopping.

Overall I think the game succeeds in its aim. It's an entertaining solitaire exercise that is challenging enough to bear repeated playings and creates a lot of in-game drama and narrative. I found the rules extremely clear and well-written -- a must for a solitaire game -- and reasonably historical. I don't think it would count as a simulation -- the Rebel charge has  a chance to succeed, after all -- but it is definitely a wargame. One thing i don't like about a solitaire game is if it starts to feel like a puzzle -- something with a solution. In Magnificent Style doesn't have a solution. There aren't really any tactics to employ. Like Pickett, the player has just one role -- decide whether to push forward or stop and dress ranks.

A couple of interesting Civil War blogs

The Civil War 150th has naturally prompted a relook at some aspects of the war. Two blogs that I have found fascinating are Civil War Memory, which is devoted to the whole "black confederate" mythology and the new Grand Army Blog, which looks ta the postwar experiences of Union vetrans and especially the Grand Army of the Republic veterans organization.

One thing that strikes me about the latter blog, is how pervasive the effects of what we would now recognize as PTSD were among the veterans of that war. It's evident that the same problems of homelessness, unemployment and chronic medial problems that we see in veterans from modern conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan were pretty commonplace after the Civil War -- although with much less public sympathy, medical understanding or official help. Just one more thing that armchair strategists and beltway pundits who blithely advocate bombs and bullets as solutions should consider. As this post entitled Haunted by Gettysburg illustrates, often the casualties are not tallied until many years after the battle.

150th anniversary of the Civil War

Well, it's not exactly the 150th anniversary of the war itself, we're a few months away from the start of the bloodshed, but 150 years ago this week the election of Abraham Lincoln marked the events that proximately led to the outbreak of the war.

There are already a number of interesting sites marking the various 150s coming up, although this one is already establishing itself as one of the best.

Of all the wars associated with the hobby of board wargaming, none, perhaps, is more closely linked to the hobby than the American Civil War. It was the approaching centennial of that war that inspired the father of wargaming, Charles Roberts, to take the ground-breaking system he had used in his hypothetical first effort, Tactics, and apply it to a historical situation -- in this case the Battle of Gettysburg.

The sales success of that title (deeply flawed as the game was) that really launched Avalon Hill and the wargame hobby. It's always been true that history-based wargames have been much more popular than fictional ones. Gettysburg was followed by a whole series of historical wargames by AH, including several on the Civil War.

So it's deeply fitting that Hasbro is re-releasing a 150th Anniversary edition of Battle Cry this month, which could, maybe, introduce some new players to the joys of history-based board wargaming.

Martin Wallace's Gettysburg Take 3 and Take 4

Mid-game, courtesy of Glen Cote. The Union line is taking shape along the Fishhook, with key positions already fortified.

Courtesy of Glen Cote I got in my third and fourth games of Martin Wallace's Gettysburg.

First off, let me say that it's an enjoyable system to play. Not too fiddly, reasonably intuitive, full of dramatic flourishes.

One fairly amusing episode reminded me of the famous (or infamous) "Guard Militia" that made frequent appearances in my old gaming group from 20 years ago. We had a running joke in our group about the "Guard Militia" because it invariably seemed like our elite units underperformed in battle (Panther tanks brewing up, critical hits sinking battleships, Imperial Guard routs, etc.) while some unpromising "low-quality" unit would be the hero of the day, hence the "Guard" Militia.

In this case it was an impromptu counterattack by a single "inferior" Union infantry unit which managed to eliminate four (admittedly damaged) confederate units including one elite over the course of two assaults. While I wouldn't call it a game changer (the CSA offensive was stalling already) it definitely closed down CSA options in that side of the field and pretty much forced Glen into the forlorn hope frontal assaults against Cemetery Hill he alluded to in his Facebook summary.

After four games I'm beginning to feel like I'm wrapping my head around the game system. Like Bowen Simmons' games, Martin Wallace's games are really different from traditional hex-and-counter wargames. After some 40 years of playing hex-and-counter games I have to I'd pretty comfortable picking up almost any of them, new or old, without feeling completely at sea over what to do.

The Simmons and Wallace approaches are nice change of pace. It's a real break from the same-old, same-old. Can't wait to play again.

In the mail today, Gettysburg by Martin Wallace

I wanted to get this before this weekend's anniversary of the battle and. sure enough, it showed up today in the mail around the same time that Heth's men were skirmishing with federal cavalry outside Gettysburg.

With luck I'll get to try it out at least once before the sun sets on the third day anniversary.

My initial, out of the box impression is that it's much like his earlier Waterloo game, although perhaps a tad simpler.

I find Wallace's designs intriguing because, much like Bowen Simmons' games, they owe very little to the mainstream wargame hobby's conventions.

Running with the pack

Some specialization is probably unavoidable for wargamers, given the huge number of games published and the vast extent of potential topics. And I do have my fair share of relatively obscure interests such as the Spanish-American War and the battle history of the M3 Stuart tank.

But I have to admit that I do tend to run with the pack as far as my major interests in both wargaming and military history go. I have multiple games on many of the classic themes that have captured the interests of wargamers since the early days of Avalon Hill such as the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, North Africa, the American Revolution, Midway and World War I aces.

And nowhere am I probably more of a pack runner than on the topics of Gettysburg and Waterloo. I am somewhat of a Civil War buff, but Gettysburg looms extra large in my collection of games and books even considering that. And I'm really not much of a Napoleonic fan at all -- I don't have much at all on that era.

So I even surprised myself a bit when I heard that Martin Wallace's new Gettysburg game was out and my first reaction was "Damn! And I don't even have it on preorder!"

My interest (and I'm obviously far from alone) in these two battles is hard to explain. While undoubtedly the most famous battles of their respective wars -- well-known even to the general public -- they can't be considered the most important battles of their time. And while exceptionally hard-fought, neither battle was a story of great generalship or maneuver.

But they do have drama and controversy galore and I'll admit a strange fascination with both. If I ever won the lottery I'd like nothing better than to recreate the Battle of Gettysburg from the point of view of several Gettysburg games, sort of a "series replay" between Meade and Lee, using their own words to describe the action.

I currently have the original Avalon Hill Gettysburg and the Smithsonian version. I ave SPI's quad Cemetery Hill and Columbia's block game Gettysburg: Badges of Courage. I have the hyper detailed This Hallowed Ground and the very abstract Dixie: Gettysburg. Undoubtedly the collection will soon include both Martin Wallace's Gettysburg as well as Bowen Simmons', Guns at Gettysburg.

My interest in Waterloo is just a tad less intense than Gettysburg, but it's still clearly there with more than a half-dozen games on the battle itself and a few about the whole Hundred days as well.

I don't know if it's a bad thing to run with the pack, but it's interesting to see how many variations on the theme are possible. My tastes and interests are wide, but I think it's good to have a few areas where you can plumb the depths as well.

New design entry for Guns of Gettysburg

As always, a fascinating read.

http://www.simmonsgames.com/products/Gettysburg/diary/Entry16December2009.html

As I was saying ...

Bowen Simmons' latest design entry demonstrates that his Gettysburg game will definitely not be rehashing the same ground as his Napoleonic designs.

This Gettysburg game has me salivating

Bowen Simmons has a series of "design entries" at his Web site on his new Gettysburg game, and it's looking intriguing.

Here's a sample:

Check out the entry here

What I think is fascinating about Simmons as a designer is his ability to break with his own past. Most game designers who develop successful mechanics use them over and over again in their new designs, to the point that those techniques can become synonomous with their names. I think everyone knows what to expect in a Richard Borg, Larry Harris or Jim Dunnigan design.

Simmons, on the other hand, isn't afraid to start from first principles each time. This can be a little confusing, because the one constant is his devotion to the "look" first pioneered in Bonaparte at Marengo. But anyone who mistook its surface resemblance with BaM for how Napoleon's Triumph would play were in for a surprise. I think many BaM players found that NT was a lot more different than they expected.

Likewise, I expect to see the design entries for Guns at Gettysbrug revealing something very different from either of the Napoloenic games.

Guns of Gettysburg is looking very interesting

Check out Bowen Simmons' new design entry

Review: Gettysburg: Lee's Greatest Gamble

When there have been a dozen or so games on the exact same topic you need to have something new to say about it if you expect to get any attention. Designer Chris Perello's Gettysburg: Lee's Greatest Gamble does take a new look at the often-simulated 1863 Civil War battle.

The issue game in Command Magazine No. 17, LGG physically is the usual high standard expected of XTR in 1992. It has a useful Mark Simonitch map and 1/2-inch counters make a return after several issues of the magazine that had the 5/8-inch counters. The counters use full-color icons of soldiers and cannon with the federal troops on light blue and the confederates in butternut.Units are brigades, each hex represents 1/5-mile and turns represent about 90 minutes during the daytime and four hours at night.

Unusually for a Command Magazine game LGG does not use some variation of the standard wargame mechanics but instead uses a novel game system. Infantry and cavalry units are rated for their ability to survive losses, a combat rating and a morale rating. Artillery units also have morale, but also are rated for range, offensive support and defensive support.

The turn sequence is straightforward, with a command control phase, movement phase and combat phase for each player, with the Confederates moving first.

Every good wargame design focuses on certain key elements of the event that the designer wants to highlight. In LGG Perello looks at three elements of the battle in a new way compared to previous designs.

First are the victory conditions. There are no victory points for holding Cemetery Hill or Little Round Top or other sites. The objective for both armies is to destroy its opponent. The only other way to score points is for Lee's army to exit the army trains off the edge of the map. This prevents the Union from simply sitting on some hill top and letting the rebels march on by. The map also extends further east than is typical for Gettysburg games, including the Low Dutch Road area that saw a cavalry action on July 3. Both players therefore have considerable freedom to experiment with different maneuvers and if fighting tends to develop around places such as Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top and Culp's Hill it's not because the designer forces it, but it's because these locations are "good ground," as Gen. Buford put it in the movie Gettysburg.

The second departure from the usual is the combat system. While there are a lot of modifiers and special rules, the essential feature of the combat system is duels between brigades. In Perello's view there was no way under the tactics of the time for superior numbers to be directly applied to an attack. Instead superior numbers meant there were fresh troops to try again, but each actual fight was a brigade on brigade struggle. An optional (but recommended) rule for counterattacks helps recreate the back-and-forth nature of Civil War firefights.

Rather than using combat factors alone, the system looks at morale as equally important. Larger brigades are less likely to be eliminated, but no more likely to hold a position or take one.

Finally, LGG looks at the pacing of the combat. One of the most common problems in wargames is unreal pace of operations. Because cardboard counters do not get tired, confused or frightened too much tends to happen too fast. Although the battle stretched over three days, Perello points out the actual fighting occurred over just a few hours of that time. In particular, most of the second and third days were quiet time. Perello simulates this by having each army in one of four levels of command control, based on a die roll. At the highest, and most difficult to achieve "attack" state, units can move and attack without restriction. In "restricted" state units cannot move next to enemy units unless there is already a friendly unit adjacent to that enemy. This allows existing attacks to continue but effectively prevents a new one from starting. When the army is in a "passive" state units are not allowed to move next to enemy units at all, although units already adjacent may still attack. Finally, in a "panic" state, in addition to not being allowed to move next to enemy units some units may be controlled by the opposing player! (Think of it as the Sickles rule).

Altogether LGG is enough different that it's worth trying, even if you have other Gettysburg titles.

With 18 pages of rules and a number of novel concepts this qualifies as a complex game, even by wargame standards, unusually so for a magazine wargame.

Despite its complexity and considerable number of turns (12 per day, with three days of battle and a portion of a fourth day possible) the game is still playable in one long sitting. Due to the command control rules many turns will pass with little activity.

Like most Gettysburg games setup time is minimal, as most units start off map. Organizing the reinforcements should take about 20 minutes if the counters are sorted.

Recommendations

(Yes) For Wargamers: An interesting take on the Battle of Gettysburg. Some of the same game concept reappear in a more elaborate form in Fateful Lightning.

(No) For Collectors: Nothing remarkable.

(No) For Euro gamers: Game play is intricate and detailed, even by war game standards, with some novel concepts on top of that.