It has been the desire of my heart for a long time to take part in an American Civil War tournament. Yet in all the years I have been gaming, there has never been one to my knowledge. I will admit that I am not the most informed person in the hobby, yet surely the knowledge of such a tournament would have come my way by now.

With the encouragement of a few friends and a determination to take part in such an endeavor, I put my mind, such as it is, to the task at hand. There are only two things necessary for a tournament, those being a way to purchase the armies and a way to bring them to the table top. Ideas came easily at first. But putting them on paper was another matter. With all the years of game- mastering and all the rules sets I have written for local campaigns you would have thought things would have come easier; think again! Still once it started to flow, it became a matter of putting down my thoughts in the proper order.

The rules that have come about are intended to be easy, practical, and historical. The simplicity may not satisfy the individual who loves to keep records. To such individuals, I can only apologize. My group has play-tested these rules with the thought in mind for a fast and easy games.

Because of the difference in the concepts of how morale and fire are executed, we decided to make a buying sheet for each different game system we knew that was being used in any major way. The important thing was to make sure that the damage factors and staying power would be play-balanced when buying one's army. Also, we wanted our armies to be able to reflect experience. So a little something was added to the system to allow for growth.

Next we tackled the problem of bringing armies onto the table. If at any time, things began to get complicated, we stood back to take a good look at our efforts and did major revisions as needed, our intent being to keep things simple. The game sets used would define the actual playing of battle. Bringing our tournament armies on to the table would require scouting, hidden units, and flanking columns, all of which had to be dealt with. Using our historical knowledge we came up with the realization the the best informed armies could do the most with what they had. You'll find cavalry plays a more important part in gathering information. And this gives it a more important role to the overall game, not an over-rated role.

The starting tournament armies are small and not very powerful. But as more battles are fought, the armies will become larger and more powerful. So be careful not to be swamped. Not only generalship, but skill also, will be required to see the weaknesses in one's army. Build your armies with growth in mind. I wish to thank Jim Harsney, Rick Brown, Dave Pasky, and Dave Reynolds for their help and encouragement as well as others who helped in play-testing this set of rules.

These rules will work with all major Civil War rules sets available today, including Stars & Bars, Fire & Fury, On to Richmond, and Johnny Reb. We hope to test our tournament rules at the next available convention in the near future. If you wish, you may hold a tournament with your club or group. Just send us the results and we'll place them in our national standings.