Command Combat: Civil War Battle Report - Fremont v. Polk (1861 Meeting Engagement)

Today we see a battle between General Fremont and General Polk in 1861.

Command Combat: Civil War - 1864 Released! Video

My Source of Information

When looking up information, I always start with Wikipedia.  Some people criticize that for some reason.  I don’t understand why.  First, they provide a great overview to get you started, and they have everything in one convenient location.  You add to that the fact that not only does it list the various connections, (what battles the unit or general was in, etc.) but they have links!  These links become enormously helpful.

But here’s what’s specifically great about Wikipedia: They list their sources, with links, at the bottom of the page.  That’s right, if I want to learn more about what I’m reading, I can click on those links and find out more, or learn where to buy a book I need, etc.

I also have a small library of Civil War books.  The most useful one, of course, is Shelby Foote’s The Civil War.  Nothing is more complete, and easy to navigate.  As I was making each book, I read through the years of which I was writing in Foote’s book, occasionally picking up something to use I hadn’t gotten out of Wikipedia.  I also had Ken Burn’s documentary running almost on a continuous loop on the specific year of which I was writing.  This provided inspiration and, again, small ideas I hadn’t considered before.

And, as I said, I have a few other books that I went through to find a bit more to put in.  For instance, I knew there was something interesting Forrest had done in ’64 that I wasn’t seeing in my regular sources, so I picked up his biography again and found it, placing it in as one of his special rules.

A more specific example of something that came out of Foote’s book was Longstreet’s special ability to create a flank attack.  I knew he had played an important role in the Battle of the Wilderness, coming in at just the right time to hit the Federals and taking them by surprise; but what I had forgotten was that he split up a brigade, creating a separate one under a temporarily promoted officer.  This way the Federals thought they knew where every Confederate brigade was, and was therefore surprised when a new one appeared on their flank.  As such, his rule allows him to break up a brigade and have a new one appear within a certain distance and attack.

Campaign Games vs. Individual Battles

The biggest addition to 1864, which was just released last week, was the campaign game, so I thought I’d say a couple words about my thought process on creating them and playing campaigns as opposed to individual battles.  This is the difference between strategy (campaigns) and tactics (individual battles.)

First, there’s a rule of thumb to any game.  You only go up and down 3 ranks.  So if you’re playing a corps level game (where your top general is a corps commander) your smallest unit should be a brigade.  (Corps, division, brigade.)  If you’re playing a game where your smallest unit is a regiment, your largest commander should be a division general.  (Division, brigade, regiment.)  Anything more or less than that bogs the game down.  However, it can be done, and indeed I did do it in the 1863 expansion where the top general is an army general.  However, these games are intended to be epic in size, and should be played with full days in mind.

So when creating a campaign game where you have a huge army versus a huge army, your smallest unit is going to be a division.  (Army, corps, division.)  That was the first place I started.  This immediately created the largest dilemma in creating a campaign game; every stand will have multiple types of units in it.  While a brigade will typically be just infantry or cavalry, a division is going to have both, and batteries of artillery.  This means that record sheets are unavoidable.  I had tried to keep Command Combat: Civil War such that players never needed to take their eyes off the table, but once you get to this size, you don’t have a choice.

There is the exception of when you have an entire division of just cavalry, but even then you’ll typically have horse artillery.  And you’ll need a way to know how much cavalry is in the unit.  Plus there are commanders and possibly other features, so you need record sheets.

Fog of war needs to play a part, but without a game master, you’re going to need to place all the pieces on the table.  So the elements that can be added are the fact that division sheets are hidden from the enemy, and decoy units can be placed on the board.  Information on each unit can only be seen when in line of sight and with a certain distance.

This last element becomes important as, when you’re used to tactical battles, you tend to think of things in line of sight.  But on a strategic level, each inch can be a mile or more.  You start have the issue of the curvature of the earth, and the land itself is never fully flat.  You’ll have hills and occasional trees that eventually add up to only seeing a short distance.

I played a strategic game where the host tried to use tactical rules, and it just didn’t work.  You don’t line up the way you do in a tactical fight.  At that distance, units mash together and the specifics are laid out on the table.  In my own system, I determined that the table would be laid out based on the immediate area and units will come into the tactical battlefield based on where they’re placed on the strategic one.  But if players were going to just roll off the results, I needed to come up with a system that reflected what everyone had, where they were coming into the battlefield in relation to the enemy, and what the terrain was like.

This, by the way, was what took 1864 so long to get done.  Well, that and my personal priorities shifted.  But that’s another story.

My answer was to make it all center around the infantry, the backbone of any battle at the time, and to let cavalry and artillery support it.  Then, that final number was to be altered by the general, whose abilities will shape how those elements are used.  Did it work?  Only the players can tell you.  I’m a little biased.

1864 Generals Preview 2

Here are some more samples of generals in the 1864 expansion.

The Battle of Fort Donelson Game

Here's a battle report of the Battle of Fort Donelson from our Youtube channel Command Combat Battle Reports.  Our last one done a year or so ago was a battle re-enactment showing what really happened.  This is a play-through of our game.

1863 and Gettysburg to Premier at Historicon

Next week we will be premiering the 1863 expansion at Historicon, and playing the Battle of Gettysburg.  This event will show off some of the new rules in the expansion, as well as the elements of the recently released Gettysburg battlepack.

This will be my first trip to Historicon, so it should be very exciting.  The convention is held in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is the sight of two major battles of the Civil War.  I will try to take a tour of the battlefield at some point, but may be gaming too much to have a chance.

If you will be at Historicon, please come visit and join us for our game.

http://www.historicon.org/

Battle of Gettysburg Battlepack Released

The long-awaited Battle of Gettysburg Battlepack has just been released.  In this battlepack, players choose one of the three days of the battle, and duke it out using the generals and units of those times.  The player can then put the maps from all three days together to play the entire battle using special army rules and stats for Lee and Meade.

The Battle of Gettysburg Battlepack is available on Wargame Vault:

http://sww.wargamevault.com/product/115932/Command-Combat-Civil-War---The-Battle-of-Gettysburg

On paperback on Amazon, or at:

https://www.createspace.com/4326048

And, as always, you can find it at the website:

www.commandcombat.com

Command Combat: Civil War at Model Kit Expo

 Command Combat: Civil War made an appearance at the Model Kit expo a while back.  They gave us prime real estate right in the middle of the convention.  I put up the First Battle of Bull Run.  We got a lot of kids running up to try it out and they played a pretty good game.  The Confederates made a push up across the southern bridge, hitting the Union division before it could get far onto the baord.  The Union, meanwhile, struck on the opposite side of the board, hitting the Confederate reinforcements as they came up the road, taking out at least some infantry and artillery along the way.

Command Combat: Civil War at Gamex 2013