In the current set of our 15mm American Civil War rules, all regiments, north and south, are composed of five stands. Rich Hasenauer told me, some time ago... in fact, several ACW rules sets ago... that this is not historically realistic. Unfortunately for the historical end of things, 5-stand units are what I purchased, and that's the way things are run in My household. Be that as it may, the little blue- and gray-clad fellas still have at each other quite ferociously, and none to-date have complained of any lack of historicity. As in most of the rules in which I take an interest, there are command and control provisions which provide the gamer with a choice of tactical options. Here, each turn, each Force Commander receives a number of Command Point (CP) cards. The average card value is 3, and the CP's are used in one of two ways: a.When a unit tests morale, each CP "spent" in assisting the regiment will augment the morale level of the unit by 5 percent. b.When a unit is hit by f ire or in melee, a number of Casualty Cards are drawn. The Casualty Cards form a deck of 20 cards, and each has a notation such as "Fall back 3 inches" or "Lose 1 stand", or "Down 1 Status Level", etc. When drawn, these cards are placed face down, and before they are turned up and the loss to the target recorded, the CP' s may be used to "buy off" the cards; 4 CP's will nullify one card. The Casualty Card results, in effect, represent a decrement in regimental integrity rather than actual physical losses, and in "buying off" the results, the CPs represent the officers' attempts to hold their units together. Thus far, I've mentioned the Command Point deck and the Casualty Card deck... but there's more... now for the Action Card deck. These are used in two of the four phases of each turn as shown in the following flow chart of the bound: (1) union move (2) Action Card (3) Confed Move (4) Action Card The Action Card deck contains 12 cards. During Phases (1) and (3), the sides may only move troops; during Phases (2) and (4), a number of other things may happen as specifically designated on the cards. The cards in the Action deck call for firing, for additional movement, for morale tests, and for melee. When one of the two Action phases occurs, cards are continually drawn, one after the other, and the prescribed functions carried out, until a HALT!/MELEE card appears. At this time, melees are resolved for troops in contact. When this is completed, the flow chart sequence is resumed with the implementation of the next regular movement phase. There are 4 HALT!/MELEE cards in the deck of 12. This means that if, during the regular movement phase, two units are placed in contact, then as the Action cards are drawn in the next phase, the units may fire at each other, they test morale... they may even get to withdraw from contact if a movement card appears... they perform all these functions until the HALT!/MELEE card shows up. Only then do they get to bash each other in handto-hand combat. The basic element is the 5-stand regiment, and two to three regiments are assigned to a brigade. The regiment provides the maneuver capability, while the brigade provides the Status Level. There is a two tier system as follows: a.First, each brigade is rated in one of five Status Levels, 0 through 4, with 4 being the highest. Here, I took my cue from Doug Ziprick, who, in his English Civil War rules, designated unit level by the number of attached officer figures. This eliminates paper work, for one simply counts the officers accompanying the brigade to determine its rating. once the brigade is rated, all regiments within the brigade are given that same Status Level. If brigade status is lost, so is that of its regiments. b.Second, each regiment starts out with five stands, and as stands are lost (the result of a Casualty Card draw), the number of stands affects the Morale Grade of the regiment. When a regiment incurs losses, and a Casualty Card is drawn, the result may be loss of a stand, or a decrement to the Status Level of the brigade. Note that loss of a stand affects only the one impacted regiment, while loss of Status Level impacts upon all regiments within the brigade. This two tier system was borrowed from Tom Elsworth's Napoleonics rules system. It works well; the Status Level reflects the Brigade Commander's outlook... as his individual regiments take losses, the ever-decreasing Status Level of the brigade indicates the Commander's reluctance to commit his units to battle. Morale is tested on a regimental basis. The regimental Morale Grade is a parameter which has to do with both the number of its stands, S, and its Status level, SL. The Morale Grade is defined as: Morale Grade = 5 x (S + SL) The higher the Morale Grade... i.e., the more stands and the higher the Status Level... the better off the unit, for the morale test consists of adding the Morale Grade to a percentage dice toss, wherein high numbers are desired: 01 to 33 : Regiment flees the field 33 to 66 : Fall back 3 inches, lose 1 stand 67 to 100 : Hold position 100 to 133 : Rally and recover 1 stand Over 133 : Rally and recover 2 stands The high end of the table can be reached because the dice throw is augmented by both the Morale Grade plus whatever Command Points (5 percent per Command Point) are tossed in to assist the testing unit. An interesting scenario that we set-up followed, in general, the map shown below. Fred Hubig's Union forces were somewhat scattered: the 1st Division was in camp; the 2nd Division was just off-board to the south on Route 1; the 3rd Division was somewhere to the south, but no one knew quite where. The 3rd Division was to appear on the south baseline a number of inches from the southwest corner as tossed on percentage dice. The river was unfordable and unfortunately for General Hubig, he threw an "04" ... his 3rd Division appeared on the wrong side of the river, next to the 2nd Division, leading to the biggest traffic jam in wargaming history, as two whole divisions attempted to cross the one available bridge, Key Bridge. The Confederate objective was to take and "trash" (how I love that word!!)- the Union camp, and General Scott W. R. G. Holder, fresh from his ancients campaigning efforts, struck south with his three divisions. He slightly outnumbered the northern forces, about 17 regiments to 13. When I say "outnumbered", this, of course, refers to the forces as a whole. As it was, with two-thirds of the Yanks to the west of the river, Holder had a pretty sizeable edge on the defending Union 1st Division in camp. One Confederate Division was sent south to hold up whatever troops the Union managed to get over Key Bridge, while the other two made for the camp. This resulted in widespread slaughter on the western half of the field as Hubig tried to break through to assist his 1st Division. Casualty Cards are used in both the firing and melee procedures. Remember that a Casualty Card is drawn for a target unit when something horrible happens to it. When firing, a regiment draws one card for its effect on the target. In melee, more than one may be drawn, as the various pertinent factors are assessed: one Casualty Card for every opposing unit, one card if you're attacked in the flank, one card if the opponent has a higher Status Level, etc., etc. This was one of our first games, and it was noticed that there was a dearth of Command Points... the sides were not replenishing as often as I had planned. The Action deck contains a special card for each side, which, when drawn, permits replenishment... this card didn't show up often enough. The other function performed when this card is drawn is for the Corps Commanders to bring up "Reserve Officers". I previously mentioned that Status Level is indicated by the number of officers with the brigade. As the Status Levels of the brigades decrease due to combat, i. e. , officer figures taken from the brigade and removed from the field because of the mandates of a drawn Casualty Card, the Corps Commander can assign his Reserve Officers to his brigades to build their Status Level up again. But here, too, the "replenishment" card, or rather, its absence, severely limited both sides. Not only were an insufficient number of Command Points available, but the number of Reserve Officers dried up abruptly. Which meant that there was very little "buying off" of the Casualty Cards, and even less replacement of officers lost in battle. The battle turned into one of sheer attrition, and somehow, General Hubig pulled all his irons out of the fire! He was able to scoot several regiments of his 2nd Division over Key Bridge in time to ward off Holder's attack and permit his other brigades to force march towards the Union camp. At one time during the early stages of the battle, General Hubig, thinking that Holder would win the race to Key Bridge and completely bottle up the Union 2nd and 3rd Divisions, sent an entire brigade, three regiments worth, north to the Lesser Bridge. His objective was to run this brigade across Lesser Bridge and come into the flank of Holder's force. Ol' W. R. G. Holder, veteran of many battles, saw through this immediately, and sent a single artillery battery to park itself at the eastern end of Lesser Bridge. The mere sight of this lonely battery was enough to deter Hubig, who then issued orders withdrawing his brigade, commanding it to return to Key Bridge. I feel certain that the Brigade Commander was quite confused by the successive sets of orders received: first to Key Bridge, then to Lesser Bridge, then back to Key Bridge. All devastatingly historically realistic, no doubt. Meanwhile, back at the camp... Hubig's 1st Division held on for dear life, eventually reducing Holder's two advancing divisions down to the point at which it became impossible to keep up the attack. With the battle over, we made some changes to the procedures, and I "eased up" on the replenishment rules for both Command Points and Reserve Officers. At least, I thought I had eased up, but when we played out another battle similar to the one just described another "take-the-Union-camp" affair - once again, the replenishment rules proved wanting. When a card was drawn from the Action deck indicating replenishment, the Corps Commander totaled the Status Levels of each of his brigades, and divided by 3 to obtain the number of .Command Point cards he got. Status Levels ran from 0 to 4, and towards the end of the battle, O's and 1's predominated, so that there wasn't too much going on in the way of replenishment. The lack of Command Points severely limited the gamer's participation in the procedures by restricting his ability to assist his forces. To my mind, this was a key element in the rules since, as in most games, firing and melee results were out of the gamer's hands - they were random functions as read out on the Casualty Cards - and the only chance the player got to "participate" in the game in terms of committing assets (other than to push troops around) was to toss in his Command Points at what he deemed were critical moments during the battle. The solution was to place additional cards in the Action deck for the replenishment function... it now takes place more than once during the bound. To prevent the number of Command Points from being excessive, the number of Command Point cards are limited to seven... the player can never hold more than 7 cards at a time. And because of the more frequent drawing of Command Point cards, a total of 4 Command Points, versus the former 3, are required to "buy off" each Casualty Card. When a replenishment card is drawn for a side, three functions are performed: a. First, as described, Command Cards are drawn. The total of the brigades' Status Levels is divided by 4 to obtain the number of cards. There are 15 cards, and each has a number, 1 through 5, annotated on it. An unlucky draw, therefore, might result in a series of "1"s while a lucky one could result in a blessed deluge of Command Points. b. Second, the number of Reserve Officers that show up at the side of the Corps Commander is half the number of drawn Command Cards. As Brigade Commanders die off and their figures removed from play, the Reserve officers ride out (at cavalry speed) to take the place of the defunct Brigade Officers. When a Reserve Officer arrives at his assigned brigade, its Status Level goes up by one grade. The highest Status Level is 4, hence a brigade cannot have more than 4 officer figures hanging around Brigade Headquarters. c. Third, all regiments on that side that have lost stands, i.e., are below 5 stands, will test morale. The morale procedure was explained above... the extremes could result in the regiment fleeing the field, or holding position and regaining two stands. I should note that the reason for my focusing on the replenishment procedure is that, to me, this is the heart of the rules. It's got nothing to do with realism, nothing to do with historical accuracy, nothing to do with the "flavor of the period" ... it's simply a gaming ploy designed to permit the player to participate by exercising a command and a control function. For example, not only can the Brigade Commander assist his regiments in their morale tests, but he may also add Command Points when they engage in combat. If he does so, then the enemy unit, which his own is fighting, will draw another Casualty Card and be assessed additional losses. I look at the clump of Brigade Officers at Brigade headquarters as, in essence, symbolic only, representing the status of the force at any given moment. As such, they can't be captured nor can they be killed in battle. There is a different outlook, however, concerning the Corps Commander and the pool of Reserve Officers which surrounds him. Here, I regard the Commander and his staff as a physical entity on the field and, as such, subject to capture. The rules state that any enemy unit that comes into contact with the Corps Commander is deemed to have captured him and the entire staff. This actually happened in one of our games; one of the Confederate corps Commanders was overrun by advancing Union troops. As I remember, this embarrassing event happened to Brian Dewitt, who is usually quite careful about troop placement. Not only was it embarrassing, but Brian's Corps was disadvantaged, for thereafter, it could neither obtain Command Points, nor any Reserve Officers, since both of these functions derive f rom the Corps Commander himself. Conclusion And in conclusion, A-wee bit of philosophy... the quasi- philosophy of wargaming, In another article in this issue, the one on modern armor battles, I mention the f act that it has always seemed illogical to me to permit all the troops, all the units, of one side to act in perf ect synchronization with one another. This is inherent in the simple alternate-move sequence, wherein, across miles of battlefront, the gazer knows when the battalions and regiments of, one force will all advance together, fire together, change formation together, etc. It's interesting to me that almost all rules design are this glitch... even the WRG organization, in the search for the holy grail of "realism". doesn't acknowledge its existence, indeed, probably doesn't even know it exists. Paul Koch's ON TO RICHMOND solves this problem in an elegant manner by limiting co-ordinative movement to the elements of a single division... he does this by drawing cards for the order of movement of the divisions. Larry Brom's THE SWORD AND THE FLAME approaches the sequence, again by the use of cards, in slightly different fashion, this time on a per-unit basis, as each individual unit takes its turn in the sequence. The rules described in this article takes the coward's way out. There's still quite a bit of synchronization left, in that all the units of one side can fire together, or move together. But I console myself with the fact that, because of the draw of cards during the two Action phases of the sequence, one is never quite certain of the next action to be implemented (morale test, fire, melee, etc.), nor is one certain of the side that will be placed in motion. Well, no one's perfect... Back to PW Review June 1990 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1990 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com