"Altar of Freedom: any thoughts?" Topic

Applying the axiom "no set of rules survives first contact with wargamers", I am looking for feedback on these Army level rules from Iron Ivan.

We play ACW on only a very occasional basis using Fire & Fury, but do not have enough stands for large battles. Altar of Freedom seems good as we have about 30 stands per side and this would do all but the largest battles.

Are they an easy set of rules to learn for the occasional game which can be played out in 3-4 hours?

Any comments from someone who has played a game with them would be appreciated.

Alan

I bought the rules and we have played 2 games of the Battle of Seven Pines. I had different players for both games and we played through the first day's fight in an evening of 3 to 3.5 hours. Both battles played out differently, which was neat.

The game was a hit for the players. I ran the game for the first few turns and then people got the hang of it. We liked the feel of it, as it does put you in the position of a Corps or Army Commander. The movement is fairly loose and you do not have all the fidely formation changes, etc. like other games (which you would not deal with at this level of command).

Now having played Fire & Fury and other rules, it does have a distinct feel that is different than these rules, and the turn of clock and deciding how to allocate your command points is the key to the game. There is never enought points to do everything you want. Overall, we enjoyed it and we plan to play more scenarios. The Eastern front scenario book is 156 pages long, and full of all the large battles in the Eastern front – an impressive book as well.

For our next battle in a couple weeks, I'm looking at Shiloh, which is a scenario that is presented in the rules themselves.

Thumbs up in my book.

Does the scenario book include raw numbers (men and guns), or does it just list the game stat's for the rules?

If you have a look on 6mmacw.com there are sample scenarios which gave Orbats based on the rules, not raw numbers.

I presume the scenario books are similar.

Correct. The scenario books are only for the rules, without raw numbers. There will be a few scenarios released for free in the coming months and I intend to include raw numbers in them, in case anyone wants to convert them for other systems.

Alan,
we played our first battle (Champion Hill) last saturday. You can find some comments in my last post. BTW my 15 mm are all based for Fire and Fury… and the answer to your question in the OP is *yes*.

6mmACW, I have just a couple of questions, where can I ask?

drumsandshakos.blogspot.com

I enjoyed the blog report! Nice looking table you had. The rebels also won Champion Hill--but narrowly--when we played it this year. You're welcome to ask any questions you like here, at the Iron Ivan Yahoo Group, or privately email me from the FAQ page of the Altar of Freedom website, linked below.

6mmacw.com/faq.html

OK I asked my questions in the FAQ page (thank you for the link)
SL

Many thanks.

Just bought the rules combo. Printed off the pdf and am greedily reading through it all.

Thanks,

John

What I'd like to see is a step by step example of a turn.
I've read the rules trough three times and I 've yet to
come to that 'A-HA' moment finally understanding the mechanics.
My biggest problem is the clock. A specific example of
how time passes would really be helpful. Is the 10 sided die
only a marker? The way I read it, it is.
Both sides roll, the player controlling the clock chooses the deduction. A 6 and a 3 are rolled. The player
chooses the 3 and turns the clock-die from 0 to 7.
And when does this rolling of dice take place? Is it
every time a new level of bidding happens?
A detailed explanation of bidding and what triggers
the dice rolling would also be helpful.
Thank you,
Tom

Ditto. Received the rules last week and this is a stumbling block for me too.

Lots of good discussion of the rules at Iron Ivan's yahoo group.

link

Yes, I posted my question there and got a couple of excellent responses.

Thanks for the link.