""Advance the Colors" Civil War miniatures rules" Topic

I got a stapled copy of these rules Years ago, friends and I use to play the rules and liked them a lot back in the 90s (1 to 1 scale, you play companies up to a regiment per side). I have since found them again and was going to try them with friends/ fam now. Does anyone know where they went? Did they ever get published? What changes did they make from the very first?

Thanks in advance for any information on these rules.

Warlord

These were published in 1990 by Brian R. Scherzer and were available for purchase through The Zouave magazine. Brian was the original editor for The Zouave and was the head of The ACW Society (sometimes referred to as The ACW Wargaming Society IIRC). Brian also published a set of campaign rules with a map for playing a campaign game set in 1863 in the Shenandoah Valley. He later published a second map for use with these campaign rules and this one was of the Peninsula east of Richmond. These all went poof! when Brian ceased publishing The Zouave in the early 1990's.

I played a few company level games using Advance the Colors and the only thing I recall was developing a fondness for specific officers or NCOs in the company and hoping a bullet wouldn't find them in a fight.

Thanks for the info.

Are the rules availiable anywhere now? The Officiers and NCOs added a lot of charm to the rules and was a swaying point for us back in those days – lots of fun.

Can you tell me how the Officers and NCOs worked please. It does sound interesting, and it is a period I am just starting out in.

Thanks

Dan

Hey Dan;

A lot of this is off memory so let's see if I can explain this…

You command a regiment.

The rules let you form random generated companies; there are various options that you choose. Each option you decide on is based on the time and place of the engagement, if it is late in the war and so on. You roll on dice to see how many combat effectives you have and moral type (from Green on up to Elites, there are other options but they are scenario based). Once you determine this then you roll to see which company officers are present. You roll for your Regimental officers first (Colonel, LT. Colonel, Major, Adjutant, Sgt. Major) then each company you roll for their officers ( Captain, 1st Lt., 2nd Lt., 1st Sergeant). This is based on the fact that the regiment has already seen combat and that there may be missing officers in the unit.

Once you determine the strength of the units, then you roll for each officers moral "Skill level" (this is his ability to give and have orders carried out, how his men view him and so on). His skill level affects his units performance in combat, moral and so on. The commanding officer is the one who has the rank in the unit so you can have a Captain with a skill level of 2 but a 2nd Lt. with a skill level of 5! Because the Captain out ranks the LT. it is his skill you use for the unit. When we played we have had situations where a unit would advance take heavy fire, the unit begins to waver under the Captains command, he get shot and taken out of action and the LT. with a skill of 5 rally's the unit and takes it to victory! The Lt even though he was a lower rank was a batter commander.

Because of the random nature of generating units and command, the games were always different, my buddy rolled a confederate cavalry unit at full strength then rolled and they were elites, rolled and had ALL of his command present and then rolled for all of his officers who were low to average except he rolled his commanding officer and he was the highest you could get! Imagine how I felt when those Rebs came across the field at my infantry, on the first volley I fired they hit his commanding officer and he was killed. The Confederate players were not happy about that as the Union players cheered. The commanding officers make all the difference in the world.

Firing and such is all done off researched percentages which the writer explains as you go through the rules, it is quick and decisive.

The rules explain it better then I do, and I only had a pre-rules copy and would love to get a copy of the rules that were released.

Hope that explained it a bit better.

Warlord

I think the rules can be obtained from HistoricalMiniatures.com. Double check as I'm working from memory here.

There was a rule mechanic where you determined the number of hits on the unit, then rolled for confirmation to see if the hits produced actual casualties. Each individual hit could be a no effect, a light wound (continue fighting), a serious wound (the figure is down), or a killed result. What I liked about it was that the original number of hits was used to determine modifiers to the morale rolls, not the effectiveness of the hits. The volume of accurate fire was important, not the casualties it inflicted. You could take ten hits on a 40 man company and suffer only one or two light woulds, but still be effected by a morale modifer because you had taken hits equal to 25% of your strength.

John the Greater – where do I look on that site? poked around but did not see anything.

Tachikoma – I think it is somting like that – sounds about right, I really liked the rule system when we played years ago so looking forward to giving it a go again soon.

If it was O.K. I could make copies and send them to others if they payed for postage, but I dont know where the rules stand at the moment and do not want to if it is not O.K.

These were handed out to us at when we played years ago for free.

Warlord

where do I look on that site

link

I hope this helps.

Friends,

The rules were published by Brian in the 1980's. When he ceased publication of the Zouave magazine he sold his remaining stock to us. We also have the rights to reprint. We have a sale of the original print run going on now and when these are gone it may be a while before we reprint them.

Dave B.
Stone Mountain Miniatures, Inc.
HistoricalMiniatures.com

These rules sound way cool! I just ordered two copies! Thanks Warlord for posting this thread, and to Dave at Stone Mountain for handling my order so quickly.

I am up for this,ty!
.

I'm going to get a copy also, would like to see where he ended up with them. Thank you StoneMtnMinis for the information.

Warlord