Now here is one you may have missed (boulderg@aol.com is a good source), a masterly design by Masahiro Yamazaki that appeared in his Japanese magazine Six Angles. Six pages of rules, an A3 map and lots of counters with both kanji script and arabic numerals (so not much room for GBoH-level factors). In a hobby where Gettysburg games are all multi-map, battalion-level, sixteen levels of Cohesion Hits before the unit notices its under fire this will hardly seem an excessive application of detail but what possibly is there left to say about this battle?
I think there is quite a lot to say because in their haste to address the micro issues many designers are missing the major operational issues. At this level of combat the heroics and the individual actions may be compressed into four of five significant passages of action. Simulating those passages is just as valid a simulation of the battle, indeed some might argue it is the only simulation since the former, counter-heavy, model simulates the fighting, not the battle. At present only Chris Perello really seems to be trying to think in both areas, although the sheer size of Fateful Lightning and Hell Before Night makes for a topic I find hard to game. [But then I do not "care" about the units unlike, say, a Napoleonic battle, and I might put up with more in such a case.
So despite years of Gettysberg games there is still a very great deal which a good designer can say, and Yamazaki-san is of that elite band. Furthermore he does it with such lightness of touch. A veritable millefeuille my dears!
2nd and 3rd Day
First point to identify is that this game covers only the second and third day of Gettysberg. The meeting engagement is over, the Union hold the fishhook, can they be dislodged? The problems are therefore more properly those of army level than the first day where units appeared and went into action in a corps or divisional level action. The rules are simplicity. Confederate and Union players alternate turns, in which they attempt to activate units with command chits, move them, lay down barrages (only activated artillery units may barrage) and then fight.
The CRT is Napoleon at Waterloo in style, so a 3:1 is advisable, 1:1 is a long shot. And that is pretty much it! The rules are not testing but the problem of applying them is, as will be revealed.
The simulation and the difficulty of the game arises from activation. Unactivated units may not enter enemy ZOCs and move more slowly (half) the speed of their activated brethren. When in unactivated status you can arrange your units for the assaults moving them up to their jump lines, positioning the agonisingly slow artillery ready for the bombardment. However, you cannot launch those attacks until you have activation. So what, you enquire? Well the number of activations is six a side and after use they are removed from play. As if that was not enough they do not occur automatically but require a die roll of 1-3 (1-5 for Lee) on 1d6. So you get Ewell's men ready to rush Culp's Hill, you send the order and......... nothing!
Meanwhile, Union troops are moving up to the line. Ooh, its enough to make you spit! (And the tightness of the situation can result in impudent dice being sternly castigated). The temptation to try for activation as soon as possible (before an optimum position is developed) is strong. Waiting for the optimum may result in a delayed activation during which the position declines materially.
What is the designer saying here? Firstly, that attack plans (even in four hour turns) take time to develop. Napoleon at Waterloo was obviously not throwing his dice well! Secondly, that the realities of numbers and material still come down to one group of men moving across open ground to attack a second group who either drive them off or decamp. That moment is a traumatic one, especially in the ACW, and it is not entered lightly into by some gamer seeking a "soak-off".
Furthermore, the cost in terms of fatigue and loss for such an attack (defined as entering the EZOC, that is, rifle-fire zone) is such that the number of times this will happen is limited. Chris Perello notes how long a good brigade will last at Gettysberg under his more detailed system. This game makes it one turn - unless of course the combat is prolonged by follow-through.
Having achieved an activation one seeks to destroy enemy units into whose ZOCs one can now enter. Activation is the only opportunity to enter ZOCs so you better get it right. The concern must be not to score an Attacker Retreat which will break that ZOC contact (and you will need another activation, if one is available, to get back in). If a Defender Retreat result occurs the attacker may follow up, and units may not leave ZOCs during their movement, so if you keep winning your opponent must die. The activation results in a bear-hug from which (the attacker hopes) the defender will emerge dead.
However, enemy units not contacted in the turn of activation remain out-of-bounds so punching through a multiple-line defence needs multiple activations or attack lines. In this area the Confederates are assisted by their extra units (they are single-step brigades versus double-step Union divisions) which permits finer grades of articulation and limits the Union to a clumpy defence on alternate hexes. For a defender the real disaster is to retreat so as to bring further defenders into ZOC contact with the advancing attackers. When it comes the defender's turn to attack, he looks for retreats to shatter contact. Once the moment of climax is passed the attackers check in position very much as in real life. Although alternately spaced lines are the best the map is small and (correctly) too much of this by the Union will have him defending a mile behind the front.
The positioning of counters to avoid follow-up combat (never adjacent) cannot be perfect since retreats can allow advances that may pull the attacker through any defensive line. This is of course old stuff to NAW hands (especially those of the Blue and Gray persuasion). To reduce the risk the Union needs to get as big a perimeter as he can, and this has an interesting result - Sickles Salient! Pushing the Union line out to the Peach Orchard will mean the CSA have all the further to push you in combat. Sickles is usually criticised by the elite group of generals who constitute the Little Mac School of wargamers for exposing his command. Oddly enough in both Gettysberg 1863 and They Met At Gettysberg he seems to be getting more plus points than I imagined.
The difference in feel between the two armies is very effective, but ultimately the Confederates are very over-strength having pretty much as many SPs (and more artillery) than the Union. (I find the artillery unbelievable). A bit of downscaling would assist here. However, sheer numbers aside the feel is dead on. The Union cannot do too many clever things, they sit there in big units, knowing that a step loss is much more dangerous to them than to the Confederates (as befits the members of a more fragile army). Both sides edge forward, the Union trying to force back flankers, the Confederates to turn the line.
Activation
The activation mechanism also handles command control. The Union chits are five Corps counters (allowing the entire Corps to activate) for Sedgewick, Sickles, Hancock, Slocum and Sykes. The sixth chit is for Warren who may activate one division (his choice). At the most one Union division may activate twice. You will note that the first day Corps (Reynolds and Howard) have no activation, they are pretty much shot with most of their units being at the one-step level. The Confederate chits are four Corps counters (which permit all the Corps units to activate) for Ewell, Hill and two for Longstreet. General Trimble may activate Army artillery and one division (so making him a very good "Pickett's Charge" merchant). Finally Lee can activate the Army artillery and three divisions (and of course he does it on 1-5 rather than 1-3). So a Confederate division might be activated four times (twice by Longstreet, and once by Trimble and Lee). The difference in attack planning and aggression, plus army organisation have all been simply subsumed into twelve little chits. You will note that George Meade is, correctly, conspicuous by his absence.
Victory arises from taking one of four victory hexes (for a tactical victory), two will get you an operational victory. The hexes are Culp's and Power's Hills in the north, Cemetery Hill in the centre and Little Round Top in the east. Interestingly the aim of a hooking right wing is not seen as the key approach by Yamazakai. Instead, he distributes the targets across the field. Taking Power's Hill is going to be tough with the broken terrain reducing assault prep moves to one hex a turn, indeed the same problem affects Little Round Top where developing a flanking option is a tough proposition.
However, the lack of Union numbers offers the opportunity to smash them up in a number of offensives and use Lee's Command Chit for the final offensive. Something which many historians have argued should have occurred. The Confederate needs to remember (and I here I wonder if this is historical) that time may be on his side but that he must smash up Union formations to achieve the shortage of Union counters that may assist. In addition by strong pushes on both flanks he will oblige the Union player to move at least one corps into each area, and then he can try hey-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle.
Gettysberg 1863 is a game about Army-level combat, it covers but does not get embroiled with the divisional and brigade operations. Here we sit firmly alongside the Commanders watching plans succeed or fail as armies of ants sweep forward. At any point a key part of one's plans can wreck on the last 100 yards of the charge where the columns collapse and retire - end of activation! It uses old old design features but they are at least fast compared to the Computer Looping fun of many modern games. Gettysberg 1863 is a gut-wrencher of a game, whatever you do can be criticised after, and your errors come back to haunt you. I cannot recommend it more to you, its beautiful simplicity, it grasp of what matters, I strike my forehead three times before Masahiro Yamazaki.
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© Copyright 1997 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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