"Looking for an ACW ruleset where 1 base = 1 division" Topic

Hi

I've played ACW skirmish, Company, regimental, Brigade levels, but never played a game where 1 base =1division.

Would there be a ruleset with this requirement? And if it also provides some scenarios or a scenario booklet, that would be great!

regards

Pascal

I believe Avalon Hill Company made one, titled "Gettysburg." The map and bases were provided with the rules, so all you have to do is paint up some 5mm castings and glue them to the provided bases, and you're in business.

OK. That was a little sarcastic, and I'm sure someone on TMP is selling a product which he will tell you is perfect for this. But are you sure you want to reduce Gettysburg to a DBA battle?

A board game is probably your best bet for this level. Most are relatively easy to convert to miniatures. Few miniatures gamers have interest in this level. You might be able to convert a rules set titled Bloody Big Battles or DBACW/DBN dbnwargaming.co.uk for your needs. I have not played them.

Bloody Big Battles has division sized units but it is multiple bases per unit. The game plays similar to Fire and Fury. You could use single based units and just say each unit can take a certain number of hits based on unit size, similar to Volley and Bayonet.

Altar of Freedom is a game where each base is a Brigade. BBB is also a Operational level game. I would suggest checking both out. You can get free ACW Bloody Big Battle (BBB) scenarios at the Yahoo Group, and the Altar of Freedom folk also provide some free sceanrios. Go check them out and see what works for you. I love them both.

Altar of Freedom has two substantial scenario books covering most of the battles of the civil war. Four or five battles are also done for BBB.

Altar of Freedom freebies

link

If you do not want to join the Yahoo Group for BBB, you can take a look at my scenarios for the Balkan Wars to get an idea

link

As others have said, your best bet will be to "scale up" a brigade level set of rules (where each unit is a brigade). The classic rules at this level are Volley & Bayonet (single base units) and Fire & Fury (multiple base units). The sets mentioned above are evolutions of those sets: Altar of Freedom is a single base set with roots in a streamlined V&B approach with a C&C system added, while BBB seems to be a streamlined take on the F&F approach.

You're going to run into the same scaling issues that brigade level sets do: very often, CSA formations were numerically much larger than the same USA formations. I think your best bet might be taking a set like V&B, which uses 1 "strength point" per 500 men, and just doubling that to 1SP = 1000 men, adjusting ground scale to suit.

Of course, I think that is precisely what BBB does …

Cheers,

Christopher

La Grande Guerre by Sam Mustapha. Its free and 1 base = a division.

On day 1 at Shiloh, Grant had 6 divisions. At Nashville Hood had 9 plus a few cavalry.

Do you really want a game at that level? Seems you'd really be limited to just a few of the larger battles like Gettysburg.

That said, the DBA ACW variant would be perfect. Just don't limit the armies to 12 stands.

Lastly, you'll need to figure out a way to handle artillery. perhpas give the side with more/superior guns a single extra unit?

thanks for the nice suggestions.
i'll check bloody big battles and altar of freedom.

Another vote for BBB.

They got me to get out my 6mm ACW after 20 years of not being used for lack of suitable rules.

1 stand = a division is ridiculous.

I'm partial to 1 stand = 1 army.

Just roll a gray die for the Confederates and a blue die for the Union. High die wins. Fast play rules promote replays.

I think you are all being quite a bit narrow minded I dare say.

There are quite a lot of board-games that use such equivalencies. If you used toy soldiers instead of chits or counters, and if you had 3d terrain, than they would be miniature wargames. I see no rational reason why they are worthy of contempt. You might not like them, and that is fine, but that is prejudice based on aesthetics perhaps, not rational argument.

As an example I remember seeing pictures of a truly remarkable 15mm game set up by a Dutch wargame club which represented the theater of the first Balkan wars in table top and bases represented divisions and brigades. It looked mighty fine to me. (I tried to find pictures again, but alas I have not been able)

There we go. Let us fight now, as Don Quevedo says.

I've used one stand per division for some WW2 games (mainly Eastern Front, the German stands were Regiments – same scale as Panzergruppe Guderian).

As noted above, BBB uses divisions as the basic unit, as do Ricahrd Brooks 'Terrible Swift Rules', which are the basis for my own 'Rifle & Kepi'. I've used those to fight some pretty big battles, like Koennigratz.

I've also done Waterloo, Leipzig and Borodino with division sized bases – which the original Horse, Foot & Guns used.

At one point, Sam Mustafa had a set of short rules for Napoleonic battles where I believe this was the scale. If you can track down those rules, they could likely be modified for ACW. At 1 base = 1 division you're talking about an operational wargame that would cover a very large theater. I've long been intrigued by doing something on this scale, where instead of playing the Battle of Gettysburg on a 6x4 tabletop, you'd play the entire campaign on the same size table. It's just a totally different gaming experience than some of the less creative minds on this forum would imagine. Good luck!

I'm afraid I have to agree with some of the posters above, 1 division = 1 base is just too big a scale for the ACW. It might be fine for WW2 or other giant conflicts where there were dozens or hundreds of divisions involved, but for the ACW you max out at half a dozen or a dozen at most. This would make battles smaller than DBA games.

If you were doing campaigns or entire fronts, this would make more sense, but I believe it would be easier to play as a boardgame than as a wargame with figures. And speaking of 1 counter = 1 army scale, it's already been done – link

That Gettysburg game looks like a variant on the Strongpoint W5 game that used to be around the SPI office.
It had two counters: the US unit, a 4-2 and the German unit, a 2-0. The German was in the strongpoint and doubled. The US moved first and could only move up the beach and attack at 1-1. A roll below 4 and the US unit was eliminated. A roll above 3 and the German unit was eliminated. The map was three hexes. The whole thing fit in a small matchbox, rules included. They were shorter than the Gettysburg rules.

Agree with those who are saying 1 Division stands are too large for ACW. I have Sam Mustapha's La Grande Guerre, which is 6000 infantry stands at 1 div=Stand. That gives the Confederates 9 stands at Gettysburg. Using the points system he gives a battle would be 30-45 stands a side. Even if you go 1=3000 men, you still only end up with 19 stands, 24ish for the Union. Given the way the command system works you'd be moving too many units a turn.

Part of the problem you will also run into it the highly variable strengths of ACW Brigades and above, and the mismatched sizes between the two sides – CS tend to have fewer larger brigades, while the union have lots of smaller ones. F&F has 200 men base, with Brigades being variable numbers of bases. Even scaling back to Bde=Stand, you are still not going to be able to represent this mismatch.

LH, good points about the variable unit sizes in ACW (actually in pretty much every war really).

For the BBB Gettysburg scenario, the Confederates are reasonably straightforward. They get 9 division-sized units, all but one being 6 bases strong. (Bases in this scenario being 1,500 men.)

The Union side is messier. Units vary from 3 to 6 bases in size, some represent an individual division, some combine parts of 1.5, 2 or 3 divisions, to keep the number of units manageable for the players.

My point is that you don't necessarily need to be straitjacketed by historical organisations into trying to treat units the same way just because they have the same label ("division", "brigade" etc).

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
link
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.co.uk

But real generals on the battlefield could not easily combine parts of different divisions and expect them to behave as a single unit. Part of the problem with the Army of the Potomac was that it consisted of a plethora of units of widely varying sizes. Meade, at Gettysburg, for instance, had to orchestrate 7 army corps, the artillery reserve, and 3 cavalry divisions, no 2 ever being alike. Some had three divisions of 2 brigades each, others had 2 divisions of 3 brigades each, and all kinds of other combinations. Lee only had to deal with 3 corps commanders and 1 cavalry commander (and he still screwed up).

Chris – why don't you link to where we can buy the rules.

I was going to say what Don did. A base can't be shared between units (at what ever level of command) because those commanders each have their own mission to fulfil. And a unit failing under poor morale won't necessarily affect those around it, but if bases are shared it does.

LH, since you ask: BBB is available in the US from, among others, Brigade Games:
link
or OMM:
link
and in the UK from Caliver Books:
link
or North Star:
link

In deciding which units to combine and which to represent individually, a scenario designer may be balancing several factors such as:
- the need to reflect command problems such as Don mentions Meade faced;
- the need to reflect particular pros/cons/characteristics of larger or smaller formations;
- the demands of the rule system (what variations in size can the rules accommodate?);
- playability (what is a manageable number of units per side?).
I think the BBB Gettysburg scenario fulfils the first two requirements OK, despite the compromises I made to satisfy the last two factors. It can be done.

Chris