"Looking for detailed Civil War rules" Topic

Hello again folks!

I gained interest in the American Civil War era, and I've been checking out different rules systems out (sites and such), but haven't found a favorite yet.

I was thinking that I want detailed depiction of combat on the smaller scale, like ASL, which I play. I'll probably set up imaginary battle scenarios at start, to get a feel for the era and to have fun of course!

Why detailed? Well I like the implements of war as much as the tales of courage and exceptional men. I like the focus on technology (which is why I love WW2) and the changes a war brings in technological advancement.

Detailed doesn't mean small scale though, so I'm not limited to skirmish level stuff. I would prefer to collect 15mm armies because of cost reasons, and because I love the way Peter Pig minis look despite their size.

So, weaponry (canister rounds, different rifles etc.), historical details, cost and of course fun are my criteria for a rule set.

If you like ASL try the ACW rules its author John Hill wrote -either Across a Deadly Field or Johnny Reb III. Both include many tactical nuances but are at different scales. Both use regiments but ADF is at a higher scale. JRIII is 1 to 30.

Yes, I agree completely with Redbanner, try AsDF. Mark

For the most part, the technology in the Civil War is relatively stable. Once all of the smooth bore muskets are retired, everyone is armed the same, with a few exceptions. You'll find breech loaders and repeaters in a few places, but otherwise most rules, even very detailed ones, treat all rifled muskets as identical.

The same can be said for the artillery. Napoleons, rifles and howitzers of a few types predominate.

There are no rules for the period with ASL type detail at the skirmish level that I know of. But I have summarized a lot of rule sets in my "Rules Directory" project here:

link

Hmm. Okey dokey. Before I get a shiny new rule book to gawk at, how much miniatures would I need for a game of Across a Deadly Field or Johnny Reb?

I would be satisfied running smaller engagements at start, to familiarize myself with the era and concepts in the rules.

bp: For JRIII, you can start with about a brigade per side. Each figure in JRIII is equivalent to 30 men. A 4 regiment brigade will be roughly 48-60 figures. Batteries are represented by a single gun stand with 2-3 gunners representing the number of sections.

You could use the same basing for ADF and will end up with up to 8 regiments from the same brigade.

My suggestion is to check out 2 Fat Lardies 'Terribly Sharp Sword' these rules have enough of the detail to run company size games with all the problems associated of C&C of the period (and as an aside a damed nice set of rules IMO :) you would need +- 120 figures total for Rebs and Unionists total. Have a look see if these are what you are looking for.
Cheers happy gaming

I have looked at Terrible Sharp Sword as an alternative, but it wouldn't have that big battle feel that I'm looking for. But what do I know? I'm completely new to the era and haven't read a single book yet on the subject. I might like the skirmishes more.

But I know that I like John Hills Squad Leader/ASL contribution.

Also, as a side note, I was thinking of using actual miniatures of guys getting hit to mark casualties in a base of figures, add them to the side or front or wherever of the base then just wipe out the unit after the last casualty. That would add to the game in my mind, but would that be workable? More work, but much more fun looking game :)

I would actually consider looking at Johnny Reb 2. It covers just about any tactical situation you can think of in great detail.The biggest time killer is the charge phase, but once you know the rules, its not that bad. There are charts for every weapon and artillery type. Too much detail for some, which is why Johnny Reb 3 was designed to be "grand tactical" and drop some of the details.

Figure scale is 1=20 with 5 stands per regiment. The number of figures varies per stand, which turns some people off since it makes it more difficult to use the same figures for different games. I would also think about going with 10mm instead of 15mm. 10mm would be perfect for JR2 basing, especially the artillery.

No love for Brother Against Brother? It's a very nice set for handling small-unit combat in the rifled muzzle loader period. I have the feeling they may be out of print at the moment?

10mm is the best scale for ACW IMO.

Johnny Reb 3.

Brother Against Brother is only available as a PDF from the author off the Yahoo group. Figures are singly based and it handles even large skirmishes well.

Before you buy figures only to discover you don't like the ACW, pick up a rule set and make counters to play with. Or buy the Billy Bones paper and build an army in an afternoon. then if you like the period, invest in miniatures.

Johnny Reb II

Guns at Gettysburg

is released a series of tactical board games on the Battle of Gettysburg using an ASL comp system.

Can't get more ASL-like than that ;)

Board gaming might be a good idea to start with. There's numbers of Civil War games out there.

Instead of Terrible Sharp Sword from TFL look at the "They Can't Hit an Elephant". It has distinctions for different kinds of weaponry in it (Rifled, smoothbore, inferior). Each stand is 100 men and ground scale is roughly 25 yards to the inch.

Hi bpmasher,

Do yourself a favor and look at the Regimental Fire & Fury rule set. I was described as being a "Rules Lawyer" in the credits after play testing the draft rules for 8 years and going through 78 versions of the Quick Reference Sheet (QRS). You won't find a "tighter" set of ACW rules and the rule set is supported by the author, Rich Hasenauer and me on the RF&F forum if you have questions. There are free downloadable articles, scenarios, QRS for other scales and optional rules on the website too.

These rules are also the base system for AWI, Wo1812 and MAW. All of the QRS for these other American Wars are free on the website as are the rules for forming squares.

The 15mm scale is 1" = 25 yards, 40 men per Infantry or Cavalry stand and a 2 gun section with 40 Cannoneers representing each Artillery stand. I game with Baccus 6mm miniatures so 1" = 36.6 yards or 12" = 440 yards (1/4 mile). Love this scale!

The basic maneuver elements are regiments and batteries and casualties are taken by stand removal. You can game small size actions of one or two brigades and a battery or two per side or you can game larger actions up to one, two or even three divisions per side. As your armies grow, so can your battles.

The F&F website is; fireandfury.com Check out the rules and the two scenario books. We are working on the third scenario book even as I write.

Best, Lowell D. Hamilton

Another vote for Johnny Reb series, I favor 3 but played 1 for over 20 years. Your member page does not say where you live but let us know where you live, let us know and you might be able to get into a game locally. Play a rule set before you buy your first miniature.

I live in Finland.

Johnny Reb II is probably more detailed, at least smaller in scale slightly. For some reason, I also liked it better than JR-III. I've not tried ADF.

I'll add my support to Regimental Fire and Fury and highly recommend it.

Christopher

Johnny Reb II is much better than JR-3, especially if you want to see the differences in weapons.

Regimental Fire and Fury is my second choice.

Jonny reb II or III,

I love the look of the larger regiments, they really capture the feel of see saw combat, must play another game soon.

I decided to try out with cardboard counters first which I have to make.

The top three so far is:

1. Johnny Reb
2. Regimental Fire and Fury
3. Across a Deadly Field/Terrible Sharp Sword

Being the newest of the bunch, what went wrong with ADF so that people don't want to play it? I found some stuff to convert JR3 basing into the system. How bad can it be? :)

I got a book recommendation for Battle Cry of Freedom, which seems to be a whole-war treatment. Any other good books I can look into (single battles, whole-war etc.)?

Sorry guys, while detail is relative to the opinion and experience of the player, the OP said:

I was thinking that I want detailed depiction of combat on the smaller scale

Well on that basis and with apologies to Lowell, Regimental Fire and Fury doesn't provide it.

Yes, its more detailed than the original Fire and Fury but manoeuvre and formation changes aren't handled in "detail" and the rules as they appear in the main rule book don't even cover Skirmishers properly.

Things like a simple half move deduction for a formation change aren't detail.

There are other things I could mention and of course this is all relative to how much "detail" you want but over time I found them a disappointment, in terms of the level of action they are supposed to represent.

That said, you have to write a rule set that covers a broad range of users, not all of whom want "detail" even assuming as a author you have the mystical power to know what their idea of "detail" actually is!

I'll try ADF with the smaller scale tweaks available for it. It has weapons differentiation & detail, fun looking sequence of play, was written by John Hill and looks quite pretty from what I've seen.

Thanks for all the suggestions folks.

You live in Finland!?

I'm in Helsinki, and we have a couple of active groups playing ACW – mine is about 10 players, although the number fluctuates and we usually have 4-6 per game. I have a very large (and growing) collection of 10mm, and primarily play RF&F for division-sized and smaller battles, and Volley & bayonet for larger battles. There is also another small group playing Longstreet in 10mm … but they are not really the "detailed" approach I think you are looking for.

I'm sure that there are any number of rules that would meet your criteria, and JR has had a long run as the dominant tactical rules set for the ACW before the past decade or so. RF&F handles all the detail you could want – and I'm definitely a "get the small stuff right" sort of GM. ;)

If you are in the Helsinki area and want to play, just let me know.

Cheers,

Christopher

Sure! Will get in touch if I get over to Helsinki.

Hi Trajanus,

No apologies needed. You are entitled to your opinion and I respect that.

Please note that the message traffic before and after your post did not include any criticisms of any rule sets. Each mentioned the rules they liked and why without disparaging other rule sets.

You write:
Yes, its more detailed than the original Fire and Fury but manoeuvre and formation changes aren't handled in "detail" and the rules as they appear in the main rule book don't even cover Skirmishers properly.

As you know, the original Fire & Fury rules (1990) were brigade level so players were division, corps and/or army commanders. Regimental Fire & Fury puts players into brigade and divisional command. I'm not sure what you mean by maneuver and formation changes aren't handled in "detail" but we play tested the rules for 8 years before publication in 2010 and worked to add detail without increasing complexity to a level where the system became bogged down with minutiae. A half move "penalty" seems reasonable to cover all of the movement required to change formations while the unit receives the order and reorganizes itself before further movement in a 10 -15 minute turn during the noise and confusion of a battle.

The skirmisher question was addressed during play testing. For the medium and larger scenarios, skirmisher rules slowed the game down to the point where play became boring and tedious and players eventually discarded their use. However, the RF&F Scenario Book, Volume 1 included a very small scenario (Big Bethel) which actually required the use of skirmishers (as opposed to a single line formation). So, detailed optional rules were included in the Optional Rules section of the book. These rules can be applied to any scenario you wish but I wouldn't recommend it for any but the smallest scenarios.

Note that each Scenario Book (1 & 2) has an Optional Rules section. Scenario Book 3 will also have an Optional Rules section. Players wishing more detail can add these optional rules to their games, or not. RF&F is very adaptable; players can adopt house rules to match their level of detail. The Rules Police will not bash in you door and confiscate your miniatures;-)

bpmasher, get in touch with Christopher (CATenWolde) and discuss RF&F with him. He is a Veteran (maybe even Crack;-) RF&F Game Master and runs fabulous games that he shares with us on the RF&F website. He won't steer you wrong.

Best, Lowell

Lowell,

Posting a view on TMP is always a tricky thing. Someone asks for suggestions and you provide a comment, without mentioning a dozen other set of rules of the same period and all of a sudden it appears that you have a an axe to grind.

I'm aware of the development time put into RF&F, I played some the early versions when it was in its "America's Wars" incarnation as well as the final product to just assure you on the background of my views.

Like I said, the problem with the OP is that there was no idea of what the originator considered detailed and no guarantee his, yours, or my view would coincide on what that might be.

On that rather small list of JRII, RR&F and Sharpe, in comparison with the other two RR&F is not detailed. I appreciate a lot of time and effort was put in to make the rules playable but in doing so they do not have things like ground scales and time frames that match with unit frontages so there is a direct relationship between formation changes and the time taken to do them. Instead they have that half a move.

OK you can treat it as you say but Regiments could change formation and "reorganise" a lot quicker than the 10-15 minutes you base things on and yes skirmishers can slow a game down but they were an integral part of tactics that are missing from the RR&F representation and thus part of that missing detail.

Sorry again if it looks like I'm pointing the finger but to turn things around, if I had seen a request for a list of 'simple' Napoleonic rules with "Empire" appearing on it, I would have put in my two cents worth on why they are not simple, without listing all the other rules I've played as well.

That should have been Critical Hit has an asl acw series. Here is a link
link