The ACW Rules for Army level Wargame by Cliff Knight and Peter Dennis are intended to enable you to recreate large ACW battles on an average sized table within a reasonable time. The rules are designed for 2mm or 6mm figures and the scale is based on a block of figures. One Infantry block equals 150 men, one cavalry block equals 100 men, and one gun model equals an artillery battery. The ground scale is 1mm equals 8 yards, while a game turn represents 10 minutes. For 6mm figures the ground scale changes to 1mm = 4 yards, while the block size has a frontage of 20mm. Armies are organized on the brigade being the smallest unit. In game terms, if your brigade has 1500 men, it would be made up of 10 blocks plus a command element and ammunition wagon. Each block of troops is assigned a combat value which is dependent on its quality. The player represents the Army and Corps commanders (or even Divisional if there are enough players), writing orders for each of these levels at the start of the game. The game system revolves around the "Change of situation" term. This means such things as 'the enemy opens fire on your troops', 'a hidden unit becomes visible'. You, as the commander, have several options available such as 'Take defensive action', 'Send a message to your superior', or 'Move your command group'. Once orders are initially written the game "Clock" is then started. A "Change of situation" is worked out and the time that this occurs is noted. For example, the game starts at 0800 hours. The hidden unit would be visible at 0840 hours. Therefore, four game turns would have elapsed. All units are then moved for these four game turns and THEN commanders react to this "Change of situation", with combat possibly occuring. Fresh orders are sent, the time for units to receive new orders is worked out, and the duration of the combat is also worked out. The length of these various results is then applied to the clock and units moved the number of game turns to the next "Change of situation'', allowing the game to be speeded up to the points at which something significant happens. Combat is essentially quite simple. Your brigade either routs, becomes engaged in a long range firefight, or a close tactical engagement. All of these factors are represented by a length of time. For example, a firefight could last 40 minutes, so the units are tied up for 4 game turns. Casualties are in men whole blocks being removed when necessary. Ammunition plays an important part in that a firefight will use up so much ammunition that the units will have to be replenished from wagon lines. The rules provide other interesting items such as skirmishers firing while not in a firefight, crossing bridges while under fire, and counter-battery fire. Overall, these rules provide a very flexible tool to recreate large scale actions with good detail, without bogging down into such things as individual regiments firing. This enables the Command and Control problems faced by real commanders of the day to be emphasized more in so much that large sweeping strategic moves can be recreated in the span of minutes, giving the commander more time to develop his strategy. Also, these rules can be easily used for large campaigns and the individual battles being fought with rules such as "Johnny Reb" or "Stars & Bars". Back to The Zouave Vol II No. 3 Table of Contents Back to The Zouave List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 The American Civil War Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com