"Bull Run to Gettysburg 25mm" Topic

jonscurioclashes.blogspot.com

Nice looking game. I have the rules but I have not had a chance to try them out.

Very nice.

We've played this ruleset, and whilst I wouldn't go so far as to describe them the way TigerJon has, they are, without doubt, less than a fully formed product. Movement and shooting are OK, but melee is incomplete and confusing, whilst the less said about morale the better.

What disappoints most is that they were offered for sale in the state they are in. The eye candy is wonderful, but it doesn't make up for a set of rules that surely cannot have been playtested. If they were playtested then how is it that the very first time we played we came up against situations that the rules just did not address? And these were not far-fetched situations either, just events that would happen in every game.

I'm keeping the movement and firing rules, but ditching the melee and morale for something that actually works.

Nice pics though TigerJon.

deephorse, I'm sorry that you found the rules not to your liking,we've been playing happily with them for over twenty years in their various incarnations. Of course, different peple want different things from their games and rules, that's inevitable in our hobby,so I'd be surprised if folk did n't pop up who find things not to their liking. I don't personally think rules can address everyhting that crops up in a game, but then that's just me, you are free to differ. I wish you joy of whatever rules you decide on!
David

Hello David,

We've corresponded on your rules, and the replies helped, but still didn't result in the ‘fully formed product' I was looking for. I didn't, until recently (and after reading Nosworthy and Griffith), have any particular view of what an ACW battle should look and ‘feel' like in terms of a wargame. Up until then I could have accepted any rules that didn't leave you floundering mid-game turn wondering what on earth the author intended you to do next. Unfortunately, every set we picked up did exactly that.

Your rules are the best set so far for what we want, but it's going to take a few changes to suit our needs, and to give us something approximate to what Nosworthy and Griffith describe. Of course, if you designed the rules to be something other than what these authors see as an ACW battle then please accept my apologies.

I've never playtested a set of rules destined for commercial release, so cannot speak with any authority on what that must be like. But I have a view that it must be between the playtesting and the final draft for publishing that some rules ‘go wrong'. The author has the rules on paper, but also in their head. If they play alongside the playtesters, then the things that are not already on paper become common knowledge amongst themselves and never need to be spoken of again. But somehow some of these bits of knowledge never get written down or explained in the rules, and we novice (to the rules) purchasers fall at the first fence as a result.

One set of rules for the ACW that we bought had credits for four playtesters, two Senior Vice Presidents of playtesting (!) and an Initiator and playtester. We could barely even understand the rules by reading them. It took numerous e-mails to the (very patient) author for us to get any kind of feeling as to what we should be doing. We're not stupid, and we're not inexperienced wargamers, but we felt enormous frustration as we battled to understand what we were supposed to do. A frequent thought as we tried to play was "how can they have playtested these when we hit a snag every time we try them?". The answer seemed to us to be that they must have known the rules backwards, but what they knew was not what was presented in print to the purchaser.

You are right in saying that rules cannot cover every possible situation that could arise in a game, especially in one where movement is not confined to a grid or hex based system. But I'm not talking about the equivalent of Rebel Apache gunships versus Yankee guided missile frigates. An extremely rare event on any ACW battlefield I'm sure you'd agree!

No, what I mean is – what are the movement rules for mounted infantry; does a unit with a firing result of zero or minus dice still count as firing upon the enemy for the purpose of calculating how many dice that enemy fires back with; is there no risk at all to a brigade or army general that is attached to a unit in a melee; and what score does unlimbered artillery need on a D6 to cause a casualty when in melee with infantry?

Common enough events in virtually every game you could play. But unless I'm being particularly unobservant I cannot find an answer to these questions. You probably know the answers, but possibly haven't realised that they're not in the rules because of your familiarity with them.

Anyway, thanks for writing Bull Run to Gettysburg. They've given us a foundation to build upon for our own purposes.

I'm sorry for a delay in answering your questions, real life got in th way.
1. Movement rates for mounted infantry ~ p57, second para under Other Troop Types.
2. 'Firing' it says, not 'causing casualties', so Yes.
3. Risk to Generals etc, page 46, second paragraph on right column.You might also adapt the 'Risk to Regimental officers' table on page 55 if you wanted.
4. Page 43, Resolving Close Combat, paragraph 1. Though I do think now I look closeley, that Artillery crews should be in the factor table in line three, so probably a typo there?
Again, sorry for the delay, and hope this has helped.
David

That's OK David, though I did think that you might have done a runner! Thanks for your reply, and it both helps but also illustrates the issues I wrote about.

1. Page 57 (for mounted infantry movement) is well past the page headed 'Optional Rules'. Upon seeing 'Optional Rules' I decided to read no further for the time being until I became more conversant with the basics. Surely movement for mounted infantry should be in the section(s) where movement for everyone else is listed? That's where we looked for it and were unable to find it.

3. I'm afraid that that paragraph deals with something other than what I was asking. What I meant was, if a Brigade General is attached to a unit in melee, is there a casualty risk to that general, and how is it calculated?

4. The more important omission for the artillery crews is that they are not mentioned in the first part of the text on page 44, which tells you what score a particular troop type needs to get to cause a casualty in melee. Artillery v mounted cavalry is mentioned, but not artillery v infantry or dismounted cavalry. We've gone for them needing a 6!

I hope you can see that as rules novices (to your rules), we came upon issues that we could not solve, but which were not unusual situations (how do mounted infantry move and how do artillery fight back when in melee with infantry?). It would appear that this was a combination of the information being in a place we never thought to look, and a typo.

Because you've played these rules for 20+ years (and because you wrote them!) the answers to our problems are at your fingertips. Unfortunately they weren't at ours, and frustration set in early on. But, thanks to your answers here and elsewhere, and some of our own 'tweaking' we're now getting a good game from them.

Thanks again David.

As I said before, I do wish you joy of whatever rule set you settle on and enjoy, even if its not mine in the end. That's the nature of our hobby I think: a continuing quest for a set we enjoy and which gives us the game we want. That's why I wrote my own.
I think that point 3 is covered by my answer if you look at it again, Generals are surely fighting as a unit in their own right versus the base[s] adjacent to them? As you know, I'm always willing to answer polite enquiries and comments via my Bog, but I do reserve the right to ignore abuse!
For a look behind the scenes, so to speak, I have a piece in Wargames Illustrated later in the year explaining how and why I write my own rules, though this time for the English Civil War.
All the best.
David