Fields of Blue and Grey

A very different kind of American Civil War rules, that allow the grand sweep of corp level actions to be recreated while still using the regiment as the basic combat element. A simple set of rules, where command & control is as important as combat…

These rules came out of a vague sense of dissatisfaction with historical wargame rules in general. While researching historical battle reports, I continuously came across the situation that the side that kept its reserve uncommitted the longest usually held a great advantage. Unfortunately, this is the opposite of how wargames work. Usually, anyone who keeps a reserve is a fool, because your opponent, with all his troops in line, beats you piecemeal.

So I set about trying to create a set of rules to allow for this problem, and reward those who kept a reserve. The rules grew and became more and more grand tactical in concept as I added new ideas. While perhaps not unique, these rules should generate a game different from most you've played. The different modules, Volume of Fire, Zone of Observation, Officer Ability and others, were created independent of each other for other rule sets, but when I started putting them together in this one, they blended far better than I could have expected. For instance, things like the Grand Tactical Movement plus Zone of Observation went together to create a fog of war effect that mimics hidden movement. In fact, on the tabletop, the location of enemy figures out of sight of any friendly troops should be considered merely their last reported position.

To sum up, these rules are meant to be more than just a collection of game mechanics to play a game, and are actually an attempt to imitate what might have happened on a battlefield. They can only succeed in a limited fashion, but keeping this in mind might help when trying to figure out how a rule is meant to work. .

– Fields of Blue and Grey introduction

Designer: Dan Abbott
Status: In Print
Contents: Available online (webpage)
Scale: Designed for 15mm figures or smaller, but usable with any scale…

Ground scale is 1 inch = approx 50 yards and the players are meant to be divisional and corp commanders, instead of brigadiers.

– Fields of Blue and Grey introduction
Basing: There is no need to rebase figures for this rule set, in fact it uses the simplest of basing systems. Each unit has two important characteristics, its 'Size', and its 'Combat Value' (explained later). The size of a unit is determined by the total width of all its bases when in line, instead of the usual way (the number of figures used) so any basing system will work.
– Fields of Blue and Grey