"Civil War Commander" Topic

I just published an overview of these rules at the Rules Directory. See the details here:

link

Sadly, these are one of the worse put together rules sets I've come across, and I don't say that lightly. They read more like a GMs crib notes. Full of acronyms, with asides, parenthetical notes, etc. Even the player aid card is made up largely of small color coded text. They may give a good game but decoding them from the documents provided is a lot of work.

Mark "Extra Crispy" Severin
Owner, Scale Creep Miniatures
ScaleCreep.com
DeepFriedHappyMice.com

I have played the rules 3 times at HMGS-East conventions. Live and in person, with Jim running the game, the rules are very easy to pick up, comprehend, and follow. After a game turn or two, most gamers seemed to be in the flow of the action. I played in his Gettysburg game at Fall-In (which was based loosely on my Johnny Reb 3 scenarios from Enduring Valor: Gettysburg in Miniature), and the system worked.

Obviously I still much prefer JR3, but Civil War Commander is a fun little diversion at conventions.

I have not tried to run a game myself or wade through the rules in detail without the author physically present at the gaming table.

Mark,

you wrote, in your review,

There are three scales of game in CWC. A given game may be at:

* Battalion Level: A base unit is a battalion made up of 3-5 bases
* Regiment Level: A base unit is a regiment of 3-7 bases
* Brigade Level: A base unit is a brigade of 5-9 bases

This, to my mind, is a huge problem, as, in the ACW, the terns (and even the TOE) of both Battalion & Regiment are identical.

In the pre-war Federal Regular army, the regiments were, indeed, divided into battalions which were stationed in different locations. However, the 2nd battalion was quickly stripped away to form a new regiment as the regulars expanded when the war commenced.

Personal letters, articles, and even official reports constantly used the terms "battalion" & "regiment" interchangeably so consistently as to make real distinctions between them almost impossible.

Although a battalion was normally 4-6 companies, those strengths were normally as a result of casualties, not initial organization. For example, the 10th Maine infantry was a regiment of 10 companies. At Cedar Mountain, the unit was so decimated that it was reduced to a 3-company battalion strength, under a major, then under a Captain, and the commissions of the Colonel and Lt Colonel were revoked and they were sent home. The 10th Maine ended up as the HQ guard for the 12th Army Corps. Later, those companies were blended together into the 29th Maine Infantry.

Simply put, however, that one part would keep me from purchasing the rules. If the author can't even grasp the organization of ACW units, then how are we to trust the remainder of the rules, regardless of the editing and writing?

respects,

Mark,

Thanks. I have learned to rely on your reviews, so I'll leave this one for the conventions when someone else is running the game!

@Tkindred:

In defense of the rules, battalions do not operate as separate units really. You may refuse a flank or something like that, but it's not as if you send one battalion to the east woods and another into the cornfield. There is still only a regimental command stand. I think "battalion level" is just more of a name meaning "very small scale" or such.

"very small scale"

Then it should be "company", not battalion. While battalions rarely physically separated from the parent regiment, a company might, occasionally.