The initial indications illuminating the latest attempt by Doc Decision to corner the Simplicity Crowd are not good. The box for Charley Diamond’s Antietam Campaign, a 300 yard per hex, one hour turn evocation of the four days from Harper’s Ferry to Sharpsburg, tells you very little about the game, content to drop same grade school gobbledygook about the operation, stuff that will neither interest the aficionado nor intrigue the novice. The Doc must have gone to the same business school as Uncle Ed Wimble. (Cf. King’s War review, herein.). A waste of paper and marketing opportunity it is; a tragedy it’s not. Some gamers out there, however, are gonna push their Budget Button and go into their Rumplestiltskin act when they heft the box (light) and read the price: $30. Get used to it, gamer types; the cost of paper is making the sub-$30 game a candidate for Michael Crichton’s latest book.
What they get inside are some really nice Rick Pavek counters, colorful little suckers that are easy to assimilate into the command system. And the brightly dressed boys do look snappy against all that green, because the maps are greener than a gigabyte of grasshoppers. They’re easy to read, and all the landmarks are clear. However, it is a bit disconcerting to see that there are three levels of clear terrain, all the same color, and all of which appear to have been dropped when they got around to writing the rules. I was also somewhat nonplused to see South Mountain and its brethren ranges represented by “slope” hexsides. It’s not that the depiction of these Maryland mountains is inaccurate in terms of scale - although it just barely qualifies therein - it’s that the folks responsible for AC simply don’t get it. This is a visceral hobby; we play this stuff because it evokes a period, provides information, and, at the same time, gives us a little I Can Do Better Than They Did competitive fun. The only area AC could even begin to check the right boxes for is the last category. Designing simple games does not mean turning off anyone with a brain. XTR has made a living out of providing easy-to-play stuff that has some intellectual bite. You get bitten by this one and all you get is decahydral rabies.
And simple it is, with only 2 and 1/2 pages of basic rules, none of which you really have to read to be able to play. This is Paleolithic-level Igo-Hugo, rigid ZOC, AE/DE, 1950’s stuff, with an almost imperceptible nod of the head to push it into the ‘60s. The “advanced” rules (a term that is truly relative here) add only a page or so more and bring it into the early 70s, so this is a game that takes longer to set up than it does to understand. Far longer. It’s not that the rules don’t have their moments of humor, though. We note, in 5.4, that eliminated units cease to have a ZOC. After yukking over this for a few seconds, we realized that this might be an important statement, as, in the Advanced Version, “…the first time a unit is eliminated it is flipped to its reduced strength side…,” something that does not occur in the basic game. Does this mean that reduced strength units have no ZOC?? We decided not, although I bet there are some out there who would stop play dead, write a letter, and wait 6-8 weeks for the reply.
And then there’s the Supply Rule; it purportedly starts with the 0600 turn of 9/14. Unfortunately, none of the scenarios starts that early, the earliest turn being 0800 on that date. Then there’s 13.1, which blithely states that all units are in supply, all the time, for the first 3 scenarios (but, evidently, not the campaign game). Not too difficult to surmise what’s going on here, but why isn’t this sort of kindergarten-level hosstoss spotted before it settles in and stains the carpet.
AC has 4 scenarios: Harper’s Ferry (are they kidding? that’s a reverse Rorke’s Drift for white folk!); South Mountain (which starts with the Kanawha Division simply boogalooing through Fox’s Gap as if there were no one there, which is true; there isn’t … at least not in this version); Antietam (a rather dopey version of the battle), and the 109 turn campaign game covering it all. Now, that’s a lot of turns, but, don’t worry, it’s never gonna last that long … even if you feel like playing it to a conclusion. One does wonder, though, why stop at 109 turns? Lee find an Armageddon Notification in those cigars? McClellan give orders that the next turn after was an official holiday? We saw this kind of regressive boobery in Rebels & Redcoats; obviously, DG also thinks the world is flat.
Fortunately, if you can ignore all of the above and just tell yourself “it’s just a game, it’s just a game” (click your red shoes every couple of minutes, too),you can have a bit of braindead fun with AC. Most of this interest comes thanks to a fairly simple command rule, which is only partially effective is it only restricts the ability to enter an enemy ZOC, and the fact that there’s a lot of wide open spaces and not that many counters. This means players will have lots of opportunities to wander around the countryside to see what they can do. Whatever they do, though, it won’t resemble anything you’ve ever learned about this campaign. An example from our opening few moves of the Campaign Game should suffice to give you a bit of flavor here.
The game starts with Jackson et amis investing Harper’s Ferry at the south end of the map, and McLellan’s Kanawha Division a few hexes from Fox’s Gap up by South Mountain, supported by a large division of Union cavalry (which, historically, was unable to operate in the South Mountain area because of the terrain). Now DH Hill has three brigades atop South Mountain, but none of them guard the road through Fox’s Gap … and the Union goes first. Guess what happens? (If you guess wrong, go back to Tactics I.) Both Cox and Hill start the turn out of command (dierolls here, but not unusual ones). The Union player waltzes Cox through the lower gap, and then brings up Pleasanton to freeze Hill and make it difficult for him to hit Cox, which he can’t do anyway because he’s out of command, and his reinforcements - Rodes and Ripley - are 3 turns away from having any effect on this situation.
By the middle of the next turn, the Union has used his cavalry to solidify his hold on Fox’s Gap and Cox is racing towards Keedyville and the center of the map. By holding Fox’s Gap, the Union now has access to the Confederate Rear. To ameliorate this situation, Designer Diamond has the Union lunchtime reinforcements arriving through the wrong road (a couple of miles north of where they actually came in), so all is not lost for the CSA.
What develops from here on in is a rather free-wheeling, stroke/counterstroke sort of affair between the two “mountain” ranges west of Sharpsburg … although we did manage to get a Union cavalry unit into Sharpsburg before Lee even got near the place. When Harper’s fell at the end of the first day (it’s all dierolling, little thought involved), the whole scene shifted north with everybody racing in for who knew what reason. It was wild fun - and it didn’t last much past the 15th of September (the actual battle took place on the 17th), mostly because none of us was shy about committing troops to combat.
As I said, rather fast-moving fun. But if that was the Antietam Campaign, I’m Brad Pitt. To be sure, a quick fix can make this game far more historical. Simply put Garland’s brigade in N5315 (which is a more accurate depiction of its actual position).
Antietam Campaign is a game for folks who neither know any history nor are interested in learning anything other than the names of villages and commanders. It’s Here Come the Rebels (AH) for the historically challenged.
CAPSULE COMMENT
Graphic Presentation. Kermit the Frog would love it. Nice Pavek counters.
Playability: Very good. Easy to learn, fast-moving. Almost no (unsolveable) errata, and good solitaire.
Replayability: While things could be different each time, I haven’t bottomed that far out socially to find out.
Historicity: Aside from the unit and town names, virtually none.
Creativity: Even less than the historicity. The Doc and his Disciples must have picked up this muse from a Cracker Jack box.
Wristage: OK
Comparison: A little better than Chutes and Ladders. If you really want to play something on this campaign, try Here Come the Rebels.
Overall: If you like Blue & Gray type stuff, this may be for you.
from DECISION/OVERLORD
2 22” x 32” gamemaps; 280 counters; 2 Deployment cards; rules book. Boxed. DG, POB 4049, Lancaster CA 93539. $30.
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© Copyright 1994 by Richard Berg
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