"Can you dabble in ACW?" Topic

Just finished a 500 man AWI project and for some reason I am looking at ACW now. I really like the idea of painting some Perry plastics, but wondered what I would do with them.
I chose AWI for the small battles so what rules would you suggest for 200 figures per side and how would you base them? I have done ACW in 10mm twice painting over 1000 each time, but cant paint that small anymore.
Open to suggestions/.
Thanks TMP

I've been looking at the Perry ACW figures, too, and using them in small battles/skirmishes. I live out west: most of our battles were relatively small.
Grelber

For 28mm skirmishing there is 'Brother Against Brother' or 'Terrible Sharp Sword' which both work with well under the 200 limit (even with cavalry mounted/dismounted, artillery and all those extra figures you seem to 'need' for a skirmish collection, you should be well within that number). Individually based 15, 20 or 28mm figures would be the way to go with them.

Yep. See above. :)

DM

Don't overlook "61-65" by Ganesha Games. You control a company made up of small units of 6-8 figures each, lead by sergeants, lietenants and ond one captain. Only one color party needed per side. And figures are individually based. My friends and I had a lot of fun with these a few years back, using Perry plastics.

There were small engagements in the war and even in the large battles there was fighting between skirmish units. Even for Gettysburg you can do parts of actions, the 20th ME standing at Little Round Top or the fight for Culp's Hill or, if you want to be suicidal, the charge of the 1st Minnesota.

If you are willing to play with 'thin" lines, you could mount them 2 per base on a base about 1.5 x 1" deep. You'd have 50 bases. At 5 bases per regiment that gives you 10 regiments a side. Add a couple guns and officers and you have a nice little game. You could use On To Richmond for bigger battles, with a few minor adjustments. Heck, you could use most regimental games with minor tweaks – like using a roster instead of figure removal, and deciding each stand really counts as "4" for firing or whatever.

I would look at Rifles and Rebels by TwoHourWargames. You control a unit and try to guide them successfully through the war. It has a good built-in campaign system, plays well solo or same side, and doesn't require tons of miniatures.

And if you are a fan of The Sword and the Flame rules, you can use the newly released variant, The Sword and Secession.

TSATF variant for gaming the American Civil War. In this game you command a regiment at most & more likely only a battalion or a few companies. Includes four (4) scenarios.

sergeants3.com/18.html (at bottom of third page)

Jim

I think you can do a lot with 200 men per side, depending on what you want units to look like. What I would do is base them on about 1" frontage. For 1:1 scale, 1:1 is probably more than you would need. For Regimental scale, you could just use each figure as a base for sets like Regimental Fire & Fury – your units would be around 10 figures (400 man regiment), which wouldn't look too bad. 200 bases per side is around a division per side, which is fine for many interesting scenarios. For Brigade scale, you could do the same thing for brigade level F&F, or sabot figures on a 3" frontage for brigade-block rules like Volley & Bayonet. Depending on the scale of game, the only tricky bit might be those big 25mm gun models, but you can work around that.

Cheers,

Christopher

Agree with the above; 200 figs is a lot for skirmish gaming

We have used home made rules as well as Brother versus Brother

One never dabbles with ACW :) IMO one of the fundamental periods of wargaming.
I like the 2FL rules myself and classics like Fire and Fury so 50 tp 150 per side and club games of 300 plus :)
Cheers and always rebel yell when charging the Confederates (a universal rule for ACW gaming :)

Crumbs! 200 figures per side? My entire ACW armies are about half that!

We generally do great big battles for ACW, but it would be nice to have a set of fast, ultra-simple rules for skirmishes; what does the TMP hive suggest?.

I usually intend to dabble in a period, just a few figures to start with, etc, etc and then boom …I've got enough figures to restart the war!!

All too true I fear. We got a few 28mm ACW for skirmishes about 10 years ago..never done a skirmish, but we ended up trading off our 15mm stuff for more 28s…and then got more…and more…and more….

im currently working on roughly 200 troops for the black powder rules. units of 24 figs gives you 8 units which makes for small but good little game, add a unit of 12 cav and a couple of cannons and you have a solid force.