John Vanore’s Spearhead venture did not exactly break from the gate with front-runner speed with their initial offering, Bodyguard/Overlord, a game with all the visceral impact of no-fat American cheese. Luckily, and pleasantly, their second shot is a lot more felicitous, a “player’s” game. With Bloodiest Day, designer, military author, and general wargamer-about-town, Pete Perla, has taken the system used in AH’s Breakout: Normandy, et al., and tacked it on to the ACW battle of Antietam. And, despite the misgivings of B:N’s guardian angel, Don Greenwood, it has worked out quite well.
The best part of B-D is that it looks (and smells) a hell of a lot better than B/O, mostly thanks to John Vanore’s realization that a game has to look good to sell, as well as the graphic input of such as Joe Youst and a professional map outfit. Perla, himself, did his own counter art… something not encountered too often, unless you consider Perry Moore an unrecognized master at this sort of thing.
The “half” map features the sort of painted, birds-eye look that AH uses in many of its games. It is divided into rather large areas, each with its own Terrain Effects modifier used for combat.(ranging from +1 for plain fields to +3 for the Bloody Lane area). It is pleasing in a relaxing, greenish way, without being overly informative. (One area looks pretty much like another, which it probably does in reality.) The counters are big (5/8”), easy to read (only 2 numbers), and colorful enough. They look good on the map, even if it doesn’t exactly look as if they’re in a battle.
And therein lies my sole complaint about B-D, other than that its rules are sometimes almost as opaque as mine. The game plays fast, it places a lot of the decision-making on the players, it’s tense, it’s fun … but it feels a lot more like a variant of chess than a Civil War battle. Yes, I’m aware chess is a (rather generic) wargame, but, while I think that B-D should (and will) appeal to most gamers who play for the competitive thrill, it is not something with which ACW buffs will feel totally comfortable.
What makes BD so accessible is its system, although the rules have enough errata-seeking questions (most answered in my copy) to make me feel that I’m not alone in this gray area of game design. To tangentialize a bit, errata has been a rather hot topic on the Internet as of late, with more than one gamer (apparently a shut-in academic type) declaiming that those who provide him with errata are doomed to verbal perdition … at least from him, although most of his forays were of the four-letter variety. I didn’t know they gave a Ph.D. in scatology. Whatever, it seems that, while many gamers simply shrug off the usual questions that arise during play, tossing in a House Rule or two where needed, there is a large minority who, on approaching this detour, simply throw up their hands, throw down their rules, and throw out their dice. They then rush to their desk, dash off a letter - usually endearingly earnest, but, far too often, riddled with the apoplexy only the “entitled” can muster - and wait six months for the answer to resume play. To each his own, I guess, but as one of my compatriots let slip the other day in the Great Ether, “80% of the people I sell games to I wouldn’t want to be seen in same room with.” (Present readership excluded, to be sure.)
To return to the matter at hand, the heart of the somewhat unusual Play Sequence is the Action Phase, where players alternate activating and moving units. What makes this otherwise commonplace mechanic so interesting, is that each time he does something the Union Player rolls the die to see if the turn ends. The longer the turn goes, the more likely it is to end, thus randomly restricting offensive operations to a frustrating minimum. This is great for the players in pure gaming terms, especially as the Union has a much larger army than that of Bobby Lee. The only problem is is that the restrictions is really restrictive, almost artificially so, for the Union. Anyone with a few years of High School math will quickly figure out that the Union player will average less than 3 activations/actions per turn. With only 7 turns available, this means that the Union player will get to “go” about 20 times per game. With 7 corps at his disposal, this usually means that much of the action is concentrated on the units that are easy to get going. The Union has a rather loudly ticking Clock of Damocles hanging over his head.
Yes, this pretty much sums up McClellan’s approach to combat, but it plumps down rather heavily on the Design for Effect smorgasbord, as do the rules which give the attacker a rather uneasy advantage in combat. Developer Jim Werbaneth states that the latter was necessary if the Union was to ever have a chance to win, given the other restrictions weighing him down. And while it does make it a rather joyous day for an offensively minded player, the whole feel is somewhat unreal. This Dutch-Boy-at the Dike approach to design and development produces far too many artifices for any historian to take this game seriously.
Fortunately for most of you, that is of little importance. Who cares if the units on the map bear little resemblance to the long lines and columns we’ve come to expect with such as the CWB and GBACW series? The game is remarkably tense, requires tremendous concentration - and not a small amount of guts - on the part of both players and tests, if not their historical knowledge, their playing skills to the utmost. If you can overlook the somewhat offhand treatment of history and reality, you will find Bloodiest Day a real Perl of a game.
CAPSULE COMMENTS
Graphic Presentation: Excellent
Playability: It’s biggest selling point: accessible, quick, and fun. Not bad solitaire, either.
Replayability: Good, Antietam being the “puzzle” that it is.
Historicity: Good surface, little underneath.
Creativity: Nice job of adapting.
Wristage: OK
Comparisons: Lots of Antietam games. Not for the folks who love the detail of the CWB and GBACW series, but certainly a welcome addition at a more “gaming” level.
Overall: A gamer’s delight … a historian’s frown.
from SPEARHEAD GAMES
One 22”x34” map; 175 counters; Rules Book; OoB and Player Aid Charts. Boxed. $35. Spearhead, POB 523263, Springfield VA 22152
Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II # 19 Table of Contents
Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com