Let me begin by saying that it is very easy to imagine and create endless rules for this simple system, but in doing that you are more likely to lose the best part of the game! It is a simple and quick playing game and yields a very authentic feel. When I modify the rules, my basic guideline is, "How can I make this even more authentic and fun, for me?" I attempt to pare away every rule that isn't absolutely necessary.
What this means for Gettysburg: Shall I advance is this:
FoE is reduced to 3/8" and if you move into an FoE you are automatically placed in contact.
3/8" is the thickness of the blocks. 3/8" is almost 200 yds. The original intent of this rule was to prevent the gamey tactic of a defender edging back and being safe, in other words, it was to nerf defense a bit. In reality, more frequently, it prevented the attacker from getting close enough and involved a lot of measuring and re-positioning of attacking units. The opposite of what was intended! 1/3 of an infantry move is almost 1/2 mile, and that is too much. In fairness, this was done because it was a simple and common unit of length in the game. In that same spirit, 3/8" is the next smallest unit of distance that is easy to measure.
Only artillery units can rally every turn, all others can only rally during night turns.
The system originally was for Napoleonic and earlier black powder warfare. By the ACW, rifled muskets had become much deadlier and units were unable to recover as quickly from heavy musketry. The nearly identical size and composition of the two armies at Gettysburg saw decimated armies recovering every turn and this led to low casualty stalemates in my experience. The proof is in the pudding, and numerous play tests have proven the game yields a much more authentic feel.
Night Turn - During the night turn at the end of days 1 and 2, follow these steps:
1. All spent units whose Corps are not exhausted, flip to fresh.
2. One half (rounding down) of all eliminated units are recovered and placed spent on the map within 1/3 of any of their parent Corps units, and not closer to an enemy unit. For this reason, even if a Corps loses all of its units during the day, players should leave the HQ in play.
3. Draw chits and move as per a normal night turn (only artillery rallies).
Victory Conditions - To win, a side must be the sole occupant of both Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, by the end of any day.
Although the intent of each commander was to "Whup the enemy," simple casualties as victory conditions do not yield the right feel. Also, this game frequently sees close casualties, intelligence that would have been beyond the ability of the actual participants to gauge. Ultimately and naturally, the battle revolves around those two elevations. If the Federal troops lose their hold of both those objectives, the battle is pretty much over. This seems a reasonable goal and yields the right feel for the battle.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Day 3 CSA Victory
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| Dawn day 3 |
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| Turn 2 |
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| Turn 3 |
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| After combat on turn 3, the Union has lost both hills and is outnumbered and in worse shape than the CSA. Meade is forced to retreat from the battlefield. Another major loss, and in Northern territory, is too much for Lincoln's presidency. He loses the next election to a peace candidate and the bloody war ends with a recognition of Southern independence. |
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
A very intense Day 2 Gettysburg
Just watch the two armies as the day's combat wheres them down. They start fresh and then get flipped to spent (labels showing) when they suffer damage. Then overnight they recover somewhat. This day was very intense!
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| Dawn day 2 |
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| Turn 1 |
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| Turn 2 |
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| Turn 3 |
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| Turn 4 |
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| Turn 5 |
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| Turn 6 |
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| Turn 7 |
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| Turn 8 |
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| Dawn day 3 |
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Strongest Confederate Gettysburg Day 1 Ever!
Best Day 1 ever! This is a series of pictures taken at the end of the movement phase, before combat resolution. Last photo is at Dawn of day 2.
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| turn 1 |
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| Turn 2 |
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| turn 3 |
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| Turn 4 |
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| Turn 5 |
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| Turn 6 |
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| Turn 7 |
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| Turn 8 |
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| Dawn Day 2 |
Monday, January 14, 2019
Why I choose not to use the Field of Engagement rule
Before I get into this, I want to state right out that the system is so robust that it plays well with or without this rule. It is very important to keep the company's message intact, so I will support and answer any questions about the Field of Engagement (FoE) rules as published by Command Post Games.
The whole reason this rule came about was because people didn't like the idea of moving to attack someone just to have them back up an eighth of an inch and avoid the combat. This does sound reasonable except for the way it actually translates in play.
It actually makes attacking difficult because if you come up a little short you have to back up 1/3 away. It foments a lot of gamey tactics where you move one unit up to contact the enemy and then slide a backed up artillery unit a hair behind it. Then the first unit retreats after the first round of combat, leaving the artillery in place. Essentially, knowing little rules tricks that have nothing to do with period history begins to creep in, and I don't care for that. Also, applying this rule is fiddly and time consuming as you must measure and calculate your intended move, then if you don't make it you have to measure a third back, this drags on game play, and has no historical correlation. If this were correcting a real problem with the simulation it would justify these efforts, but the only thing it corrects is the feeling that it just doesn't feel right. Let me address this next, because I like the way it feels!
Although it is subtle, the full power of the chit draw mechanic is amazing. It simulates a very fluid flowing event. It is a non-linear representation of a host of chaotic events. You can't describe the turn in a step by step fashion, only after the turn is complete can you look back and say, "This is what probably happened that led to these units in these positions in these conditions." Frequently, moving last may actually mean you moved first. It simulates a clever commander anticipating his opponent's intentions, basically making him show his hand first. If you're attacking, you usually want to move last, so you can choose exactly where you want the combat to occur. Frequently, on defense you want to move first so that you can recover from spent if necessary, unless you want to move last so you can react to the attacker's moves. Just because you are not rolling for combat does not mean no combat is occurring, far from it! What it does mean is that the attacking unit was not able to attack effectively enough to change the condition of either unit in game terms. Imagine fighting where the opponents are still locked in combat. The turns are arbitrary impulses on the battlefield. If a unit moves to attack and the opponent backs up a hair, it just means that decisive combat did not happen until the following turn.
In my discussions with the other developers over this, I constantly ran into entrenched linear "you move/I move, then we have combat" thinking. Even while acknowledging the simultaneous aspect to the design, it was just too revolutionary to imagine a state of probabilities existing undefined until the end of the turn, and maybe not even then. The game doesn't show you what is happening, it only shows you what happened, and even that can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
This is similar to the way historians look at an array of data and try to create a picture and narrative of what happened. This is, in my opinion, the best part of this game system. By not trying to model exactly what happened, it is able to model more fully what might have happened. No amount of rules can immerse you in the history, in fact, more rules tend to push the players out as they try to describe one tree in a forest. It makes the tree a dull subject, and gives no notion of the forest.
I have regular opponents who prefer to use the FoE rules, so we do. The beauty of this system is that it plays perfectly fine either way!
The whole reason this rule came about was because people didn't like the idea of moving to attack someone just to have them back up an eighth of an inch and avoid the combat. This does sound reasonable except for the way it actually translates in play.
It actually makes attacking difficult because if you come up a little short you have to back up 1/3 away. It foments a lot of gamey tactics where you move one unit up to contact the enemy and then slide a backed up artillery unit a hair behind it. Then the first unit retreats after the first round of combat, leaving the artillery in place. Essentially, knowing little rules tricks that have nothing to do with period history begins to creep in, and I don't care for that. Also, applying this rule is fiddly and time consuming as you must measure and calculate your intended move, then if you don't make it you have to measure a third back, this drags on game play, and has no historical correlation. If this were correcting a real problem with the simulation it would justify these efforts, but the only thing it corrects is the feeling that it just doesn't feel right. Let me address this next, because I like the way it feels!
Although it is subtle, the full power of the chit draw mechanic is amazing. It simulates a very fluid flowing event. It is a non-linear representation of a host of chaotic events. You can't describe the turn in a step by step fashion, only after the turn is complete can you look back and say, "This is what probably happened that led to these units in these positions in these conditions." Frequently, moving last may actually mean you moved first. It simulates a clever commander anticipating his opponent's intentions, basically making him show his hand first. If you're attacking, you usually want to move last, so you can choose exactly where you want the combat to occur. Frequently, on defense you want to move first so that you can recover from spent if necessary, unless you want to move last so you can react to the attacker's moves. Just because you are not rolling for combat does not mean no combat is occurring, far from it! What it does mean is that the attacking unit was not able to attack effectively enough to change the condition of either unit in game terms. Imagine fighting where the opponents are still locked in combat. The turns are arbitrary impulses on the battlefield. If a unit moves to attack and the opponent backs up a hair, it just means that decisive combat did not happen until the following turn.
In my discussions with the other developers over this, I constantly ran into entrenched linear "you move/I move, then we have combat" thinking. Even while acknowledging the simultaneous aspect to the design, it was just too revolutionary to imagine a state of probabilities existing undefined until the end of the turn, and maybe not even then. The game doesn't show you what is happening, it only shows you what happened, and even that can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
This is similar to the way historians look at an array of data and try to create a picture and narrative of what happened. This is, in my opinion, the best part of this game system. By not trying to model exactly what happened, it is able to model more fully what might have happened. No amount of rules can immerse you in the history, in fact, more rules tend to push the players out as they try to describe one tree in a forest. It makes the tree a dull subject, and gives no notion of the forest.
I have regular opponents who prefer to use the FoE rules, so we do. The beauty of this system is that it plays perfectly fine either way!
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