"Large Scale Battle Rules?" Topic

I need some opinions and or advice. I have always planned to play the battle of Gettysburg (entire battlefield). I know I need a lot of room, and I am going to play in 10mm scale. No, I will not use 6mm. Just too small.
So, what I am looking for is, the ruleset to play a large scale battle such as this. I don't really care if it takes a long time to play it, but I don't want it too bogged down with details. It will take a long time just to move the troops. I want invisible movement or offboard movement, so as to be able to maneuver around without the opponents knowledge of my wearabouts. I want playability with realism. I know I'm asking a lot. Just looking for any suggestions or ideas. This is a long term goal. I've just started painting the 10mm figures, and even though they paint up very quick and easy, there will still be thousands to buy and paint.
I appreciate any comments.
John

Fire and Fury.

Works already done. Organization charts and everything.

Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury just to get a "third". :)

Another vote for Fire and Fury. We are about to start our 4th campaign, this time Lee's Invasion of Pennsylvania. Our previous efforts were Briscoe Station (Late 1863 in the Wilderness), Tennesse (Rosecrans and Bragg) and Vicksburg (Southern victory!!).

Of course there is always On to Richmond.

If you can find a copy.

Plus the game is a turn based on "what card flips up". Can get a little crazy with really BIG BATTLES.

You can also do Volley and Bayonet for this battle and they have an ACW scenario booklet out with Gettysburg already prepared. Play/base your figs for F&F (a fine set) and then mount the figs on a sabot base that you like for V&B (either 2/3rd scale or a 3"x3" base).

Very different flavor and game with V&B versus F&F, but again, you may like both for completely different reasons.

Good luck with the game.

Erik

A second vote for V&B. Each stand is a brigade and it plays quickly. V&B has a small ground scale too, one mile being about 18 table inches in full scale, 12 inches in 2/3 scale. Gettysburg will fit on a 6 X 9 table at full scale, 4 X 6 at 2/3 scale. That's the whole battle, not part of it.

Hey I found a copy of On to Richmond on eBay. Don't bid on it. The one I have is beaten up and falling apart.

Blowing my own horn here, but A SIMPLE CIVIL WAR GAME has regimental level structure, and an OB for Gettysburg done. Each stand represents @ 100 men. Send me an e-mail at bilros@insightbb.com and I will send you a PDF of the rule book.

Bill Rosser

Horse, Foot & Guns is 1 base = 3-4 battalions.

Link for HFG:
link

I can do Gettysburg with JRIII But then again I am a diehard. For less detail but still a regimental game look at F&F Regimental. Or for a Bde game regular Fire and Fury.
VR
James Mattes

I would suggest Advance Battle Cry Deluxe Edition. (The rules are available on the web). This a vast improvement of the Battle Cry boardgame by Avalon Hill (which in itself is a good game)

We've converted it in our club from hexes to 4" per hex. EAch unit is 4 stands of infantry, 3 stands of cavalry and 2 stands of artillery.

We plan to put Gettysburg on as a 2 player game on one large table in 20mm.

Fire and Fury

Volley and bayonet. And those OTR rules on Ebay was the one I was bidding on. Oh well, I have two copies around here somewhere.

:-)

Thanks,

John

Volley and Bayonet. You'll need too many stands to play Gettysburg with Fire and Fury. While you're waiting to paint 500 or so F&F stands, play Gettysburg with V&B on a 6'x4' table.

I'd pass on Horse Foot and Guns. Even playing a smaller battle like Stone's River, we found it took too long and didn't seem to give a good result.

If you feel like it, you could give this set a 'once over':

hwcn.org/~ao421/fbg.html

Thank you all for your responses. However, I am still baffled and feel like I'm going to have to buy every rules book and study them to figure this out, without knowing a little more.
I would like to hear more reasons why one game would be better than another. How many stands would I need total to play F&F or V&B or another game? How much room would I need? What other factors? What do you really like about one game and dislike about another?
Once again, thank you all for your input.
John

I am going to check out all the rules mentioned, but I took a quick look at Dan O55's link, and they look pretty interesting in the design. Very different with some items included that I haven't seen before. I really like the messengers with orders. I have always wanted to include something like that. I like the command structure also.
Dan, did you write these rules? Very interesting! Like I said, I will check other rules out also, but this might be what I'm looking for. Thanks again, everyone who responded.
John

I forgot that their is a ACW Warmaster variant that looks pretty good. All the rules are free.

Thanks,

John

I don't think that playing BIG battles with regimental level rules is something that I ever want to try again. Too time consuming. Volley & Bayonet is more my style these days.

Yes, thank you. I'm gratified that you think them interesting. I created them for a bunch of 15mm figs I have, but as you can tell, scale doesn't matter.

John: Popular as they are, I can't see how Fire and Fury can be stretched to cover a battle the size of Gettysburg. I suggest you need something a little more grand tactical. HFG has 40mm wide elements representing circa 2000 men and a ground scale of 8" = 1 mile. This makes Gettysburg possible.

Richard

Ah, another fan of BattleCry – I know its a simple little game but I love it. Nice break from the rules heavy simulations I normally delve in. I just finished building a 5" hex flocked battleboard for it and completed an entirely new set of painted figs, plus 3D terrain sections. Hope to experiment with some of the rules variations out there. Are the Deluxe rules really that good?

Birney,

If you want to represent each btn present and mini command dioramas. This way you can represent actual strengths on the table top. I would recommend JR3 to acheive this, It also depends which day you would like to recreate. Day 1 Lee's 83,000 men and 140 guns converts to about 2700 figs, this excludes Stuarts 5000 men. Meades 88,200 men and 100 guns converts to 2940 figs.

Very impressive and acurate. The table could also represent true terrain features. One thing you will need to play with is commanders for each of the divisions.

Good luck and you have raised the bar for all of us (near mad gamers)

cheers

matt

Hey, Freewargamesrules (or anyone)

What is the link for the Advance Battle Cry Deluxe Edition? Can't seem to find it…would love to check out the free rules.

Thanks!
a.

Is there an ACW equivalent to Grande Armee in the Napoleonic period? (1 stand = a brigade or small cav. division, say 1,500 – 3,000 men).

Volley and Bayonet. Grande Armee is a close cousin of VnB.

John

Advanced Battle Cry Deluxe Link:
link

Volley and Bayonet remains a firm favourite with myself. It allows the gamer to actually think as a Corps or Amry Commander, and if you intend to fight Gettysburg you will need to be either a Corps or Army Commander. With V&B every time you move a base you are moving a brigade of foot or mounted troops or a regiment of artillery. Military commanders must stick with the principle of two down and one up – meaning that you should know the intent and mission of your boss and that you should also be aware of what is happening two levels below you. Deeper than that and you are micro-managing and are unable to control the whole of the battlefield. Rulesets that require an army or corps commander to start worrying about the dispositions of regiments have asked too much. V&B is also a simple design with elegant constructs, but like chess or draughts is very difficult to master. It also allows the humna element plenty of room to either be brilliant or a complete ….!

I hope this helps – Dave

Hi All

We were able to run quite easily to a conclusion in a day our refight of the battle of Anteitam using Honor & Glory rules, using a 10' x 6' table. You can see some pics of the battle at

link

Take a look, see what you think.

While I am a fan of F&F, and yes Gettysburg is the 'featured battle' in the rule book, … NO, unless you have a lot of room (the table is 14'x7', a lot of time, and 8 or 9 freinds willing to play.

My rule of thumb is you should command 2 levels down (not the one in real life). So in F&F the rules let you play Corps commanders, and the basic unit is the Brigade (I think the rules say this somewhere).

You want to be an Army commander, the units should represent Divisions. If the units are Regiments then you usually are playing as the Divisional commander. Virtually every rule set that uses this "Napoleonic" structure fits this, all the way down to Platoon Leader->Squad Leaders->1 figure=1 man.

Someone did do some 6mm rules for ACW (and a Nap set). They had a number of holes so I never played them, but an interesting mechanism was there was no musket fire as such. You brought 2 divisions into contact (because musket range would have been about 2mm on the ground scale) and cross referenced relative strengths on a table that gve you a letter. This letter was on a CRT. One side may retire, or for a mid range result it gave a time, you came back and resolved the fight in that many game minutes.

You kept playing the game until the alloted time was reached then resolved it. This meant you had to maneuver not being 100% sure if what the result of the battle would be.

The fight represented the two sides blazing away at each other, not necessarily melee.

I once played Chickamauga (= Western big battle)to F&F in 15mm but must admit I've enjoyed smaller more detailed battles to JR rules.

Horse Foot and Guns.

Lets you play just about any of the Civil War Battles (except for Gettysburg) with approximately 40 bases a side (or less).

Fire and Fury Brigade level is fine( the best) if you have a lot of room for your layout and ,at least, 3 Players per side!! If you can get the Original set , it has a fine section on just the project you are contemplating! Seperate maps of the different days and complete order of battle for both sides in two different troop to stand ratios. The other rules listed are better if your game requirements are different( less room, less castings, less players, less time, less expense) but not less of a game!!

The Blue the Grey and the Butternut from Pendraken designed for Corps to army size games.

link

Ideal for 10mm as thats the size we use, see the 6mm Napoleonic game very similiar rules.

Martin

On to Richmond is available from the Courier article on the game. You can get a copy off MagWeb.
VR
James Mattes

I'm working on an ACW version of the Napoleonics rules I recently wrote/designed. I'll post a thread here when they're done. They'll be free.

My rules are not completed and can be downloaded at:

link

"now" completed, I meant.

Volley and Bayonet!!!! Use 1.5 X 1.5 bases and reduce the map/table by half. Halve all ranges. Buy OG 10s in strips of 5 from OG25s; be sure to get the right web site. Put a command strip and and one infantry strip on the base, two strips. That will take up 1 inch by 0.5 inches on your base. If they sell skirmishing infantry scatter a few on line with the brigade. Thats 10-13 figures.

2 command packs (10 strips=50) to 1 Infantry pack (20 strips=100) gives you 20 brigades. Skirmishers are singles 50 to the pack.

Pendraken's are beautiful. They are also all singles and take as long as a 15 to paint. Strips are easier.

You can only do things like Prarie Grove or Spring Hill with F&F, a nice idea too many figs, and it only works for 15mm. The 15mm Gettysburg table is far too large for most extra rooms 13 X 7 feet. Now imagine the size at 25mm--30mm.

I bet your dining room table is 41-43 inches X 60 inches when fully extended. Have a place for a ping pong table? That's nice.

You sounded like "you" were doing the battle. So I'm not being sanguine about the special table and terrain you intend to build for the club meeting hall.

You can get insulation board which is a mess to cut, or foam core to cut out hills with contours. You have a shop? Use pressboard. They will help to hold down the sheet you use for a "ground cloth." There is always the books under the sheet method.

Life is too short to make trees. Especially if they all have to be movable. Fields? Well, think contrasting color material. July is high summer. Fruit trees are just staring to ripen fields of corn are green. Wheat is starting to gold.

Roads? Try srips of cloth. Streams? Strips of blue cloth Snake rail fences are fun to build until you need a bunch. 10mm is a no go for pre-cast.

Buy the houses unless you like the frustration of construction. Keep the footprint small and scale the the height. 10mm buildings are not plentiful. You can get away with 15s, IMHO, especially if you are using OG10s. Use as few as possible for the town.

Good luck.

Hello again. I will add in my tupence regarding rules.

I have played F&F and then changed to GoG,these rules are imho far superior to F&F. The feel for these rules give the regiments the feel of the period but as I said its my opion and Im sure you will find a rule set that will suit your needs.

Also may I add that when you looked onto my game that I had posted on YouTube link the lay out comes direct from F&F Gettysburg map, again the layout was simple and if you wish I will take pics the next time I go up and send them to you and that way you can get a rough idea on how you wish to complete your table, ours was which was 8FT BY 5.5FT, yes I was using 6 mm but the table we have is 12ft by 5.5 and this was big enough for the complete map within F&F

Hope this Helps

Another vote for Volley and Bayonet.

ebsc82 you mentioned GoG – what are these rules?

BTW – i liked the youtube post – love that music and going to watch the movie again

Durban
I wonder if ebsc82 meant Guns at Gettysburg, by the same people that do General de Brigade. Excelllent set of rules which I use for 6mm with inches = cm's.

Napoleons Legacy of course! based a bit on Warmaster (ACWMaster 'free' mentioned earlier required the main book first at £20). See it here link
Have a look at the download 'Reference Sheet'. best played with units of Battalions (6 bases each) but you can make almost any combination work. Profits to charity.

F&F is an amazing game. I like the command and control rules and feel that they make a better game than V&B which have none. Since each day of the battle takes up different amounts of space you don't really need as big a table as some are suggesting for Gettysburg. A 10' by 6' table is quite sufficient to do the 2nd day for instance.

I'll second Napoelons legacy, great game. Its hooked my interest after a playtest game the other day and am now making the move into ACW for the first time.

ACW is a secondart period to me and I have aprox 60 infantry stands each side in 6mm. With Fire & Fury, I am unable to game anything other than small actions of a couple of brigades each side (which is OK) or sections of larger battles (not OK).

Has anyone tried gaming the large battles on a fairly abstract basis with 1 stand representing 1 brigade or perhaps 2 stands representing a division for the really large battles: could I do this with Volley & Bayonet or are there any other suggestions?

If you want some real thrill and fog of war go for Piquet Hallowed ground 2. Its activation mechanics and the sequence of play governed by the cards really get as close as you can get playing with toy soldiers to the stress real life commander must have experienced. Not for the faint of heart, and sometimes a bit frustrating if you're on the losing side, but, hey, some real emotions there.

vezio
also check the piquet yahoo group