"First Bull Run - On To Richmond questions" Topic

I'm dusting off my old copy of "On to Richmond", thinking about using it to play First Bull Run.

My first ideas are rating all the Union division COs as poltroons, or at best cautious to represent the poor state of staff work this early. Rate all the troops as green, except for some Union artillery and perhaps Jackson's brigade. My idea for Jackson is to have him on the field as an aggressive CO who can ony influence his brigade. Having such a dedicated CO may obviate the need for the regular rating.

The problem is that the Confederates don't have a division structure at this battle. All they have are two officers, Beauregard and Johnston. I figure rate them both as cautious and allow them to influence any nearby brigade regardless of which Confederate army it belongs to.

But since OTR has divisions activated by cards, the lack of division structure presents a problem. Do the Rebs just get two cards, one for the Valley Army and one for the Potomac Army? Or should I divide them up into arbitrary groups, some without leaders and activate them that way?

One last question: when playing OTR, is a roll of zero-zero treated as 100% or zero?

Thanks in advance.

zero-zero is zero based on the morale results table entries.

What if every Confederate brigade had a card? It would allow for better opportunities to take advantage of any given situation; but prevent any heavy counterattack on most occasions.

VTSAO, Gratuitous etc. is correct. The idea of giving
each CSA brigade its own card is also worthy of play-
test.

As to your OOB questions, you can play First Bull Run
using four cards for the CSA. Beauregard and Johnston
each get a card, and Jackson also, but Jackson only
influences his own brigade for morale purposes. The
fourth card would be a CSA 'free move', allowing
any previously activated unit to be activated again.

Alternatively, you could elevate Jackson and Bee to
quasi-division commanders and roll a D4 per turn to
see how many units they'd be able to influence.
In this case, delete the 'free move' card.

I think I would rate some of the USA commanders as
cautious and some as poltroons as you suggest. But
perhaps a single die roll (d10) and if a '10' results
move 1 commander to 'aggressive' status. It won't
influence the play much, but would give the USA another
morale pass.

USA regular artillery I always rate as 'veteran'.