"What are your favorite ACW rules?" Topic

Hello eveyone,
What are your favorite ACW rules?
Thank you.

This is going to be a long list.
Apologies for chopping in.
Might I suggest that responders give a main reason why a rule set "works" for them.

e.g we really like the game length, number of figures, table size, dice type, writer is present
That would create an illuminated discussion ? (possibly not?)

martin

Iron and Fire, my favourite ACW Naval rules for detailed yet fast playing actions.

Dahlgren and Columbiad, my favourite naval roles for larger actions, battles where I only have a small playing area or short time for a game, or for one day campaigns.

A declared interest – I wrote them (mainly because I didn't find other naval rules "worked" for me)

For different reasons:

Terry Wise Airfix ACW rules
Rolling Thunder (Parkfield Miniatures Rules Number 4)
'61-'65 ACW (Ganesha Games)

And depends on what you want to do. Fight skirmish battles--Sharp Practice or Brother Against Brother.

Fight major ACW battles. Fire and Fury

Johnny Reb III – I prefer them because I like regimental combat.

Johnny Reb III

Field of Battle by Brent Oman. These are our grail rule set! We have fought many Acw battles with them. Each unit represents a regiment although that can be scaled up or down a bit if desired.

Thanks

John

'The Devil to Pay' good fun and free at:
thedeviltopay.com

At one point I would have echoed John Leahy's recommendation of Piquet:Field of Battle. I used it for ACW for many years and it usually produces exciting games but after a while it feels like the game situations come about due to the way the cards came up and not by any brilliant strategy on your part. You could be losing the battle and then get a good run of cards plus some "triple magic moves" and you suddenly make a come back and pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Exciting stuff but it wasn't because of anything clever you did.

I'm currently moving away from any set of rules that has a lot of random command rules (FOB, Black Powder, etc..). There's enough randomness in most combat systems that you could make all the "right" moves and still lose. Right now I'm back into Volley & Bayonet where one base is a brigade and command is you can do anything you want as long as you stay in command distance of your command figure (in other words, the command figure is there to keep the brigades in a division together on the table top). Note that, because one base is a brigade, there's not a lot of ACW "flavor", but I'm perfectly fine with that.

Fire and Fury for large battles

Johnny Reb III

Sharp Practice. I like the shock rules. Sharp Practice is a large skirmish ruleset but I have been playing around with making each unit a regiment. It's just scale.

Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury for large battles, Longstreet for smaller ones

Johnny Reb III is my favorite.

Fire and Fury for larger battles and conventions.

I always like Whipping Bobby Lee, yes that's a ruleset by the Ragnar Bros, not a personal issue!

I think Fire and Fury does a good job with regimental combat. It helps to have an umpire that really knows the rules, but it is simple enough that anyone can get the hang of most activities within a couple of turns. For large battles (a stand is a brigade) I like Volley and Bayonet.

Fire and Fury for large games.

Fire and Fury Regimental for medium sized games.

Rebels and Patriots for semi-skirmish games.

Fire and fury for regimental sized and larger battles

Fire and Fury.

A home ground set of rules written by the guys at Old Glory15 which is for brigade level.

The other set is Mr. Lincoln's War which is a great set of regimental play.

Volley & Bayonet without a doubt.

We have fought most of the major battles with them… as well as multiple campaigns. I've played many others and found them all wanting… Though I do find Fire & Fury fun as well.

Joe Collins

Rusty's Rules

JR2, because I am not rebasing/reorganising to fit the changes made in JR3.

Mr. Lincoln's War

We like Fire & Fury but also play Black Powder (a lot) – I think a true ACW afficinado can poke a lot of holes in Black Powder but it plays fast and works well for people who are not too familiar with the ACW

The Old "Rally Round The Flag" rules by Iron Bde Miniatures.

Fire and Fury (Brigade) rules. I prefer higher levels of command. I want to let my colonels make colonel-level decisions.

@All :

And what do you think of:

"When Johnnie comes marching home,"? by ACTIVE SERVICE PRESS.

As an side, is JR III much better than JRII, I quite like JRII until a charge happens and it then slows to an absolute grind.
jon

I quite like JRII until a charge happens and it then slows to an absolute grind.

Too true, Jon, but it's still not enough to make me want to re-base and re-org my figures. Though grafting the JR3 charge rules onto JR2 is a good idea. All I have to do is find where I put the rules….

Don't know about 'When Johnnie comes marching home' but my group uses;
Small skirmish, Song of Drums & Shakos with official mods.
Big skirmish, Sixty One to Sixty Five.
Games with regiments as base units, From Shakos to Coal Scuttles or Longstreet.
Big battles, Chamberlain (Blucher variant).
Good luck with your search!
🙂

Volley and Bayonet. All day, everyday

Longstreet
Fire and Fury
On to Richmond

Johnny Reb 2, Mr. Lincolns war is good as well.

Fire and Fury
Fire and Fury Regimental

JR II, but only to play against a peer who knows the rules well.

And nobody knows :
"When Johnny comes marching home," by ACTIVE SERVICE PRESS.?

American Battlelines ODGW

And nobody knows :
"When Johnny comes marching home," by ACTIVE SERVICE PRESS?

Fire & Fury and Regimental Fire & Fury.

Fire and Fury seem to be the fave. Quite remarkable for such a set of rules which came out 30 years ago and only one revision.

Blackpowder for me with the Glory Hallelujah supplement for me.

I just enjoy it.

"Mr. Lincoln's War"

We like it because it's regimental, easy to learn, has a sane basing system and doesn't have a complicated, drawn out charging sequence.

And nobody knows this very good rules:
"When Johnny comes marching home," by ACTIVE SERVICE PRESS?

Sharp Practice for skirmish/large skirmish and Fire and Fury (brigade) for big battles.

Johnny Reb for regimental and Brigade Fire & Fury for brigade level.

I've enjoyed They Couldn't Hit An Elephant, Carnage & Glory, and Longstreet.