"essential ACW rules suggestions here now please!" Topic

Some great ideas had on the original thread and I made notes, so quite a few people mentioned troops running away but rallying again in certain situations…. But my stupid vPN has locked me out of it… can we continue the subject here please?

Posted on the original thread… and in answer to Scott Washburn`s post; a tactical level might include battalions with skirmishers, where column and line formations are possible, but perhaps not to become as detailed as to go down to company level, or to differentiate between varieties of column.
No armies functioned without drill, and Scott`s right to point this out, but tactical detail is not needed at a level of gaming which is perhaps between the typical, battalion level and brigade manouevre elements.

Extracrispy just made a good point on the original thread – time scale of game, and the scale of the game itself are important points to consider………

I like brigade level, or grand tactical because it is less complex and abstracts some of the tactical elements coming up in this discussion. All this is fine if that is your interest, but finding the line between grand tactical and regimental is a matter of personal preference. What command position does the player want to assume? The rules flow from there, I think.

I agree with Tortorella. What position is the player supposed to assume? Too often, the units under that level don't need to have issues like when and if to fire, formation changes, local use of terrain do not and should not have to be ordered from the brigade commander. Let the player go ahead and move, act with those subordinate units as the unit commander would have made those directions and hopefully with regards to the Brigade's orders/postures which were ordered by the Division Commander. New orders are never issued every 15 minutes from above! For me, I am not interested in the details of low level tactics. I would rather play Patton than Sgt. Rock. But if you are into those lower level command functions then go for it. Playing the 1970's Tractics level of detail for ACW would take a long time. I enjoy playing a game to completion without having to "guess" how it might be ended. My gaming time is very limited to I gravitate to those rules sets that allow me to finish a game to the end.

Johnny Reb and Fire and Fury were popular in the 1985-2010. A Florida convention highlighted Fire and Fury at its show. They had a 25mm game, 15mm game and 6mm games all running at the same time. Great concept.

When I started miniatures Rally Around the Flag was popular. TSR published a large number of historical rules at that time.

I'm with Dye4minis, first establish what level the player is, brigadier or battalion commander? Then ask yourself what does he control. Typically no commander goes further than 2 levels down.

After that rules design should be a systematic structure build. Start with a simple time and motion calculation for your player/commander to issue an order and get it at least partially obeyed, this is your turn length in time. Then do the maths for move distances in that time and relate this to your table size to give you your ground scale. Then consider the visual impact you want to have from a unit and calculate how many figures of what scale will reasonably go on the table to make up that unit. Knowing the size of the unit you now have your figure scale.

Once you've done the above think about how many moves you can reasonable get into a 'game time' and thus roughly how long a typical move must take. This will tell you whether you are going to include ammunition levels or skirmishers or…… At no time think, this isn't what a typical set of wargames rules look like, because I'm afraid typical, commercial rules are clearly designed to sell books and figures and 'traditional' rules are not designed at all they are just another rehash of 'Charge' or similar.

I think the writer's above referencing the level being represented have nailed it really. The ACW at brigade level was pretty well sorted, troops knew their drill, brigadiers knew their business.
Where it got tricky and therefore makes for a worthwhile convincing game is co-ordination of troops above the brigade.
For many reasons attacks (especially) became disjointed and difficult.
Formations lost contact with those on their flanks or front.
Often it was personal animosity between commanders, other times density of terrain. Other factors too, including enemy interrupting things with effective long range fire.
A set of rules that permits fully co-ordinated engagement of an entire enemy position to go smoothly every time is not an ACW set I'd be happy to play.