US Civil War Land Game Photos

	US Civil War
	Photos & Reports	Rules Used	Background

December 2008: Unless otherwise specified, the following game photos are of mostly Dave's 1:72 ESCI, IMEX and Revell ACW figures. We've been pretty inactive in this area for a few years. Currently under "development", ie being on the shelf, but a long way off from being done(!), are two large forces of Baccus 6mm figures. We're tentatively looking forward to some large scale games some time in the future, but won't nail down a time line!

New ACW Campaign - this is actually many battles, but only a few pictures from each, all on one page. Various rules.

Battle for Petersburg played 20 Feb 00, using Piquet. A map campaign game.

Battle for the Plains of Marystown played 1-2 Feb 00, using Piquet. A map campaign game.

Battle for Whitaker's Farm A very small Piquet engagement, 19 January 2000. Generated by the map campaign.

Battles for the Marystown Fords Our first Piquet battles! Generated by a hypothetical map campaign. Pictures are from end of last battle, taken with a Kodak DC-50. Games were played January 3 & 9, 2000.

May 1999 Game using Dave's latest rule set, a combination of Brother Versus Brother and his own rules...Pictures are poor quality. A half decent shot of river and hill making April has done.

Battle for Bridgeport, November, 1998 This is on Dave J's site - actually, this link is, unfortunately, dead. Dave T was the scenario designer & umpire and John fought the Confederates against the Union troops commanded by Tim and April. Buildings are Atlas, figures are IMEX, Revell and ESCI. This game was made famous for the infamous mpving outhouse...

First Brother versus Brother Game, March, 1998

All pictures shown in the battle reports above were taken with a digital camera, with no special lighting, other than what the gaming room provided.

Background (Back to Top of US Civil War Page)

Dave T thought this would be an interesting period to try. However, we had no troops or basis with which to start an army. Unlike our WWII period which had loads of figures and equipment we had built up over the years (see the section on Our "Early" Period), with ACW we had nothing. Dave took the task in hand and did a huge amount of research (watching TV) and bought many Imex, Revell and ESCI figure packs. We got our start in the Fall of 1995 at my former house where I had a large garage with a ping pong table. Nine of us, including Fred Schwarz, an archaeologist in Nova Scotia who gamed with us and also played D&D in Our "Early" Period, sat around the ping pong table with paint brushes in hand and got an excellent start on the Army. Also there were Joe, John Ha, RonK (who we were absolutely delighted to see as he had not really participated much in wargaming previously, being primarily an RPG player), John Ho, Chris, Peter, and of course, Dave and I. It was a grand time and a great start for the Civil War armies featured in the pictures below.

We had our first game on half a ping pong table later that Fall. Fred was back again and participated as did I and someone else. It was a trial of Dave's rules and it was a great game. Essentially, there was a farm, occupied by Confederates with the Union emerging from a wood to try and take it. Confederate reinforcements, notably a couple of guns came from the other side to help out.

We then had a large game some time in the following year. It turned out to be a long two night affair, but one of the most exciting games we'd ever had. Myself, John Ha and Joey were Confederate and Peter, Chris and John Ho were Union. Both sides had to take several objectives in the middle of the table. The balance swung back and forth with a particularly exciting and bloody action in the very centre around a hill (one of the objectives) in a wooded area. One lone Confederate company held out against swarms of Union attackers, while more confederates advanced to reinforce their gain. The real turning point in the game was when a Union cannon, commanded by Pete, had a critical shot at a large number of fresh Confederate companies advancing in the open. His cannon misfired and then blew up, killing the crew. Pete also suffered damaged eardrums from my yell of relief and delight.

Rules Used (Back to Top of US Civil War Page)

Rally Round the Flag, by ?. A seventies era game, introduced to us by a friend from Toronto during one of several visits. By "seventies" style, I mean large scale representation of troops is described, but mechanics are suitable for 1:1 representation. This is a fun and relatively simple set of rules, which, for us, has pretty much replaced the two sets of rules described below. Although pretty much an I go U go type structured type of mechanic, the movement phase involves players conducting simultaneous movement, another quaint feature which I associate with Charles Grant and also the 70s. This has a good and fun effect which can result in a flurry of panic as the referee secretly keeps the time. I don't think we could have tolerated such a system in our younger days - there would have been far too many arguments!!!

June 2004 - I've decided I personally don't want to play these rules anymore. My comments above still hold true, they are indeed a fun set, but it kills me to see the damage accumulated on Dave's figures as we all hurredly try our best to move everything me must - we put a time limit on the move phase. We've talked about going back to Piquet when we restart this period with the Baccus figures I mention above for precisely this reason.

Brother Against Brother, originally written by Walter Janci, heavily modified and produced now by H.G. Walls. These are small unit rules, where one figure represents one soldier. Great and enjoyable rules for small scale actions. We play these as is and Trickett has tinkered a lot with them, but to the point where he was making them large scale rules...so the time became ripe to move on to bigger actions:

Piquet - Hallowed Ground is another set of rules which is vastly different from the traditional approach to wargames. Mechanics are completely different from Crossfire but the effect is the same; situations develop realistically and play faster than traditional games. Rob Wolsky's comments for Crossfire could indeed apply to Piquet. Piquet is actual a core set of rules with supplements adapting them to different periods. Hallowed Ground is the US Civil War supplement.

Piquet is a huge departure from our traditional 1:1 "group heritage": a stand of 2-3 figures represents a whole company!.