This Hallowed Ground represents no less than the 3rd look at Gettysburg we've done over the years -- clear proof that for me, at least, this battle holds more than the normal amount of fascinahon. Gettysburg remains the defining battle of the war, and the greatest clash between the two premier armies. It is also so full of "might-have-beens" so as to never go stale. Hence, when Dean suggested that we do a full regimental treatment of the battle, akin to DAK, I jumped at the chance.

So why a regimental Gettysburg game? The short answer is that I already had one close to finished: a personal adaptation of the CWB system that I had designed for my own interests, given my obvious love of the subject. Of course, I had always assumed that it would never see print, and was designed purely for my own consumption. When Dean expressed a desire to do a couple of Regimental projects, Gettysburg was the natural choice because it was the only one in progress.

Fortunately, the CWB itself had evolved from a regimental system we had first designed to cover the Battle of Chickamauga, and in many ways, I returned to that model to build the regimental iteration of Gettysburg seen here. Players familiar with the CWB will see many of the essential concepts unchanged or modified only enough to cover the added detail of regimental actions: I wanted to preserve much of the basic CWB model because I think it does capture much of ACW combat so well already.

Once we announced a Regimental Civil War game, many people immediately started asking us if we intended to do a whole series of regimental topics now. The short answer is -- "No." We contemplate tackling at most three major projects with the Regimental game Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and Antietam. As you will soon see, Gettysburg is done, and we anticipate doing Chickamauga perhaps some hme next year, leaving Antietam dependent on public interest and response. We do not anticipate republishing the entire CWB line in regimental form, or addressing the large number of smaller (say 20,000 or fewer per side) battles that are available but uncovered so far in the CWB.

Why? Two reasons really: First, neither Dean nor I have much interest in revisiting a lot of these battles, preferring to devote more time to other subjects.

Second, the market is frankly a lot less interested in topics once past those "big three" projects, as our sales figures for a whole host of CWB games prove, and we do not see much sense in investing the kind of effort inherent in one of these massive projects into such less productive topics. I don't see much problem, however, in doing the three mentioned above -- no question that interest for these exists.

The System

Command and control are essentially unchanged from the CWB. I have preserved the orders mechanic at the Army and Corps levels without extending it down to brigades and divisions (except, of course, for the Divisional Goal concept, which is still carried over from the original rules). Army commanders still issue orders to their Corps commanders, and the delay process is still involved. At the brigade and regimental level, command radius is still the control device, an extension of that found in the CWB. In essence, I wanted the CWB orders system unchanged, except for the obvious changes to probabilities for twiceas many turns and other such scale modifications.

The basic combat model, however needed to change quite a bit. The brigade scale of the CWB allowed a substantial degree of abstraction as to range, weapons, etc. -- all things that any regimental game would have to address. Certainly veteran gamers will recognize the basic structure of This Hallowed Ground's fire combat and strength system: it owes its lineage directly to the concepts first seen in Terrible Swift Sword. This is no accident -- that game was a defining wargame for me, and my love of it (despite its flaws revealed over time) was certainly what prompted this whole project in the first place, some years ago.

Strength Points

As such, players will see strength point increments of 50 men or 1 cannon, weapons types that range from rifled muskets and smoothbores to the Spensers and Sharps's that adorned some of the flashier units, and detailed artillery types to include Napoleons, Rifled Guns, and Howitzers. Even the two famous Confederate Whitworths of Hurt's battery are included.

Small arms ranges tend to be limited, more so than you might see in other regimental games: My own reading and research has convinced me that engagement beyond 300 yards was non-existent, despite the of ficially published effechve ranges of 500 to 800 yards often seen for the two most common rifled muskets of the war -- Springfields and Enfields. Artillery has longer ranges, of course, though effectiveness drops off dramatically beyond about 10 hexes -- 1100 yards -- and cannon firing beyond this distance is really only suitable for counter-battery work.

Another core mechanic I thought vital to preserve was the straggler concept. Civil War combat produced huge wastage of otherwise effechve men who became separated from their units through a variety of confusion-inducing methods. Deliberate stragglers were always a problem, though the bulk of men were not such malingerers.

However, any movements under fire produced confusion, and the widespread prachce of able men helping wounded comrades back from a battleline was omnipresent despite constant discouragement. A Union officer once wrote in his diary that a veteran could quickly judge how severe a given fight was, and which side was winning, by the number of unwounded men helping each injured man to the rear. This resultant temporary loss of combat strength made for significant fluctuations in the combat readiness of regiments and brigades, a vital feature for understanding any large scale Civil War action.

Paperwork Reduction

On the other hand, my early version of this game soon convinced me that keeping detailed regimental rosters was tedious even for me, an admitted addict on the battle, and would prove cumbersome for most players. Paperwork can founder an otherwise good game more rapidly than almost any other mechanic, and I wanted to reduce the administrative drag to a minimum.

Hence, the game now includes two versions of the straggler rules: a brigade level roster that reduces paperwork to the same standard as the CWB games and a more detailed -- and optional set of regimental rosters for those who demand precision. Essentially, in working the brigade level rosters, players only keep track of stragglers and only at the brigade level -- not at the regimental level. Conversely, straggler recovery requires that each unit in a brigade that has suffered losses must regain stragglers equally, preventing unintended strength shifts between units within brigades. Play with the brigade rosters is as fast an efficient as any of our CWB titles, a solution I am quite proud of, since it is my hope that the regimental games get played, not just bought.

Artillery

Artillery is generally the hardest aspect of Civil War tactical combat to simulate. A powerful defensive weapon if properly supported, guns rarely found effective use offensively and have to be handled carefully in determining fields of fire. The first thing I decided to do with batteries was limit them to being allowed to unlimber only before doing any other movement -- which meant that any guns that advanced must spend a turn under fire while limbered before they could unlimber and shoot. Batteries also generally have only average morale -- C rahngs -- which better simulates their proclivity to retire quickly if unsupported by better infantry. Guns alone in a hex will be vulnerable.

Generally either guns or troops can shoot if stacked, though in close combat both can fire, which makes closecombat against well-supported batteries pretty bloody. Artillery also can shoot through or over its own men in some circumstances. I think the regimental rules as they now stand give a pretty clear picture of the limits and uses of cannon.

While a number of smaller changes were introduced to deal with things like affillery resupply -- now both small arms and cannon are subject to low ammo and even no ammo status -- and cavalry rules, these changes tend to be minor. The intent was to produce a set of regimental linking rules that could be easily mastered by the CWB player and series gamers right into playing THG.

Early on in the development process -- long before Dean suggested that we might actually do this game for publication, in fact -- I experimented with variable turn-sequence concepts, along the lines of the Turn Continuation Table or Chit-Pull concepts found in some other games, notably Three Days of Gettysburg ™. While intriguing, I ultimately discarded this experiment, because it sacrificed something I thought too valuable to set aside: the defender's fire-first advantage that best represents the historical advantage the defensive side usually enjoyed.

However, I was still intrigued enough by the concept of combining both our CWB command system and some version of variable sequencing at the tactical (read brigade and divisional) level that I have included a bit of my experimentation. The result is a marriage of the CWB orders system with variable levels of chit-pull activation, ranging from (with a good order acceptance) the possibility of a full corps commitment to (with a poor order acceptance) piecemeal brigade-level commitment and movement that precludes coordinated action. Ultimately, this experiment will live or die purely on public interest, but I am curious to see what your reactions will be. Look for these rules in a future issue of Operations.

The Game

Certainly players of Thunder at the Crossroads will recognize a lot of elements in This Hallowed Ground. In addition to the fact that they are about the same battle, my interpretation of the battle has not fundamentally changed since we did TATC II. For example, all of the variable forces -- Union and Confederate -- present in TATC II are here again, this time in regimental form. Even if you never use these guys, I have found that the regimental numbers alone are kind of intriguing, adding a large number of heretofore unheralded units to both sides.

In fact, my goal here was to take the best of TATC II, and combine it with the kind of information and detail that only a regimental simulation could make use of. Hence, most but not all of the bells and whistles found in brigade level Gettysburg are back--Jackson, for instance, is an option, but not the Rebel choice to reorganize back into two corps. Simply put, adding in the two corps option required new units, a revised arrival chart, and a number of detailed little changes to the process for a scenario that was almost never played, since everyone much preferred three Rebel Corps to two, and simply tended to replace Ewell with Stonewall straight up.

However, this game is more than simply TATC II on steroids: five maps and 2,200 counters give us the chance to explore Gettysburg in detail. The maps themselves are the best yet on the battle. The base maps were done by Rick Barber, who shares an equal fascination for this battle with me, and whose proximity to Gettysburg and cartographic research talents combined to create a superbly detailed portrait of the battle field ata scale never before matched: 110 yards to the hex. From these source maps, Dean created the artwork for the final game maps. The five maps cover not only the actual battlefield, but also substantial maneuver room in all directions from those areas which saw fighfing. Space and reality constrained us only in one area: the East Cavalry battlefield does not quite make it onto the east map, being about 8 hexes too far.

However, the area east of Brinkerhoff Ridge is covered fully, which saw skinnishing on 2 July and which does provide both players with more than adequate maneuver room around the eastern flank. An option allows the players to either exit their cavalry to fight the historical action beyond player control, or keep those forces on-map and, in essence, move the fight a mile closer in to execute it in detail.

Terrain detail is extensive: three kinds of streams, rocky ground, slopes and slope hexes, woods and orchards, every stone wall on the field, and even swampy ground, to name just a few. The town is there, the buildings are accurate. The other farms and rural buildings are all included, and fully named. (Several may strike a jarring note: they bear the names of the residents who actually lived there at the time of the battle instead of names that were applied later, when the 1868 survey map was done.) In short, Rick did a first-class job, and gave Dean the best possible base maps to draw the artwork from. I think we will all be pleased with the final result. The final game maps will be five sheets: three across the top and two across the bottom, all with the long axis oriented north-south.

Scenarios

I chose 10 scenarios (maybe more), most familiar to TATC II fans, but with some additions. I made sure that at least half of those scenarios are 2 maps or less, for the space-challenged among us, and included a couple of 1 July PM actions that rarely see print in game scenario terms.

Four of them are one map, two are 2 map (including a whole first day 2-mapper) and the rest are 3 or more maps. Both the fight of Seminary Ridge and the 11th Corps defense north of town get full-fledged scenarios, easily adapted as ideal training scenarios, since unit density and time are both quite manageable.

The other scenarios include First Day, Second Day, and Third Day versions, including both full map and two map versions of the First Day. Pickett's Charge, Culp's Hill, and Little Round Top of course get separate looks. The package concludes with a Fourth Day scenario and the full battle game, which should give virtually anyone interested in the actual battle a chance to look at his favorite aspect in detail.

A version of the full battle scenario uses a four-map area that takes up about the same space as EatG (46 x 68 inches). Finally, the scenarios are structured so that players can begin the battle at just about any point, and play out the full affair. All in all, the scenario package should be flexible enough to satisfy any gamer with an interest in the battle.

Scenario unit placement tends to be quite detailed. With access to a vast body of literature and some really outstanding troop placement maps, it is possible to locate almost every unit on the field at any given time. Be forewarned that some of these set-ups will take some time: I chose to err on the side of detail in some of them.

However, just setting them up will sometimes give one a better sense of the tachcal thinking behind each side, especially the Union in some of the more defensive oriented 2nd and 3rd Day set-ups. Of course, 1 July unit density is way down, and there are also several scenarios that can be started almost immediately, thanks to the meeting-engagement nature of the battle. Another cridcal aspect of TATC II has also made it here: the variable arrival hmes. While variable arrival locahons were dropped (no one used them much either), the uncertain arrival of reinforcements had a tendency to really shake up the situahon and produce some different results. The critical thing to keep in mind for both sides when using these variable fumes is that the game lasts beyond 1 July, and that things are not over if you don't win on day one. Variable arrivals especially if used in conjunction with DH Hill's optional corps -- will tend to dictate new strategies and new opportunities: don't be afraid to explore them. Avoid stereotyped thinking here.

A number of special leaders populate both sides. The Union player has a number of special rules and leaders that convey the significant tactical advantage their artillery orgaruzation provided, with Union guns able to concentrate more fire and more flexibility in a given gun duel.

Also Henry Hunt, the Federal tactical genius behind the artillery at this time, deserves some consideration, and proves to be quite useful. Only one Union junior artillery commander gets his own counter and rules: Lt. Col. Freeman McGilvery, the commander of the First Volunteer Brigade, Artillery Reserve, who is one of the least known heroes of the battle.

It was his extraordinary efforts that patched together a piecemeal artillery line behind the shattered 3rd Corps and held the Union center at a time of crisis with only a handful of cannon.

Also available on July 1st is John Burns, who for sheer gumption deserves a place in any Gettysburg game. Burns has no command abilities, but is in effect an extra leader who provides a morale boost to any unit he fights with. After all, it is hard to fall out of the fighting line when the man next to you is a 70 year old civilian who has been fighhng with you all day. Burns only quit after the First Day's battle was over, despite three minor wounds.

While the Rebels don't get super-civilians and a superstar artillery line-up, they do get one of the finest artillery officers of the war: E. Porter Alexander. Alexander, nominally only a battalion commander in Longstreet's Corps, was handed command of all of the First Corps artillery and a significant chunk of Hill's Third Corps guns. He has the ability to impart some of the flexibility and better fire control that Federal artillery leaders do, though, since he cannot be everywhere at once, Rebel players may well lament that he is only one man. As a special dispensahon, (and in a blatent attempt to pander crass commercialism and repeat buyers) if the guy playing the Confederates owns more than one copy of the game, he can use all the Alexander counters at once. Consider this our nod to including an "ultra-rare" card.

One other civilian gets a counter: Jennie Wade. The only civilian loss at Gettysburg, poor Jennie was killed baking bread in her sister's kitchen on the south end of town. She died without knowing that her fiannce, Jack Skelley, had also just died of wounds sustained at Winchester on June 17th. In any case, that's the version they tell the tourists. There are some darker rumors concerning Jennie, and we at The Gamers are not afraid to put them in the ultimate simulation of Gettysburg. (Sorry, no Flashman counter here: our extensive archival research has revealed that he was fictional.) Jennie, if killed, provides the Union one victory point for propaganda purposes.

Finally, one unit deserve special mention: Andrew's Sharpshooters. Not the same troops as Berdan's two regiments, the 1 US SS and 2 US SS, Andrew's independent company of sharpshooters was the only documented unit -- some 42 men -- who actually had sniper rifles with telescopic scopes on the field. Most units designated as Sharpshooters were actually extensively trained in skirmishing duties, and rarely performed what we have come to think of as sniping roles. As such, they can attempt to snipe Rebel officers up to 6 hexes away. While likely not to have a huge impact, they represent a unique capability on the field.

Losses

On a more serious note, one thing I have spent a lot of time analyzing were the losses. While overall loss rates are reasonably well known, many units incurred casualties over more than one discrete action, and determining who lost how many when was substantially harder. For example, Heth's command clearly lost heavily on 1 July, and yet must have suffered equally fierce losses on the 3rd, as part of Pickett's Charge.

Having gone back and forth over the Official Records reports and many pertinent secondary sources, I am very satisfied that the loss rates presented in the game give a clear picture of the varying intensity of the battle, and the loss rates of a unit in any one action. As such, they can present a rough yardstick in determining how severe a given fight must have been, and present a useful tool for looking at the battle as a whole.

If I had to sum up This Hallowed Ground in a single phrase, I'd call it Thunder at the Crossroads meets Terrible Swift Sword. Many small things in THG -- weapons types codes, for example -- are meant to call forth the best memories I have of TSS, and I hope convey my love of that original game, warts and all, I first bought more than 20 years ago. By the same token, I took the challenge of making THG into a regimental Gettysburg game that incorporated all the critical concepts that I think made TATC II such an excellent game on the subject, and in effect crafted the ultimate Regimental Gettysburg game. Certainly I think This Hallowed Ground is more than the sum of its ancestors; I hope you do too.