Introduction to Issue 4 2

ACW Gaming News 3

Review: Across A Deadly Field: 4Regimental Rules For Large Civil War Battles

Hobby: 15mm Gettysburg 9 Dioramas Review: American Uncivil War: 15Action and Adventure in the American Uncivil War

Review: American Uncivil War 20Miniatures Range

Summer 2014Workbench: Sound the Charge! 24Painting 6mm Cavalry

Workbench: Uncase the Colors! 33Making Your Own ACW Flags Scenario: A Bad Afternoon along 37 the Orange Turnpike: The Battle for Saunders Field, The Wilderness

Hobby: The Zouaves at Saunder’s 43Field: A look at the uniforms of Ayre’s Zouave Brigade

Hobby: Command Combat: 48Civil War

Cover photo: A Union Division prepares to repel a Confedederate assault at Shiloh in Cory Ring’s Across a Deadly Field GameAbove: A portion of the Shiloh Battlefield Both photos by CigarboxBattle.Com

ACW Gamer is a publication of Raven Banner Games. Raven Banner Games is registered as a business operatingin Pennsylvania, USA

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Welcome to ACW Gamer, the Ezine!

Welcome to the fourth issue of ACW Gamer. Recently Chris Ward of CigarBoxBattle.com told me that occasionally, when you are creating a product you have to ask yourself “why did I start this project to begin with?” So, I asked myself that question as I started to layout Issue 4 and the answer is “because gaming the American Civil War deserve its own magazine!”

When Scott Mingus’s Charge! ceased publication, I launched ACW Gamer: The Ezine and committed myself to doing four issues to find out what kind of enthusiasm there was for a ACW gaming magazine. I believe that enthusiasm has proven to be strong and I will continue to produce this magazine for the foreseeable future. I must say that I would not have come to this conclusion without the continuing support from the Ezine’s subscribers, readers, and of course, our contributors. I would like to thank everyone for that support and I look forward to bringing more great Civil War gaming to your email box!

I believe this issue will show that there are plenty of facets of the American Civil War to interest gamers. This issue we take a look at the grand tactical rules set by John Hill called Across A Deadly Field, a Hollywood style skirmish game by the Architects of War called American Uncivil War, and another grand tactical rule set called Command Combat Civil War. Each of these rule sets have different approaches to Civil War gaming and provide the gamer with a choice on how to do it.

This issue also contains articles about how to paint 6mm war figures, a look at Larry Reber’s 15mm Gettysburg dioramas, and an scenario by author John Michael Priest - again, demonstrating the many different aspects of gaming the American Civil War in miniature.

Enjoy Issue 4 and don’t forget to renew your subscriptions! Stephen M. Huckabyinfo@acwgamer.com

The Electronic Magazine dedicated to wargaming the American Civil War on the tabletop.

The official miniature of ACW Gamer presented to contributors -Photo by Bill Gilson

Issue 4 Summer 2014 Page 2 ACW Gamer

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Hobby

Issue 4 Summer 2014 Page 3 ACW Gamer

ACW Gaming NewsAlan and Michael Perry of Perry Miniatures announced via their Facebook page, that they have left Games Workshop

after 36 years. The Perry brothers, who have an extensive range of ACW 28mm miniatures, sculpted figures for many of the Games Workshop lines to include the many of the Lord of the Rings ranges. The sculptors stated “we are now able to focus our energy on our historical ranges. This means more time to dedicate to Perry Miniatures”. When ACW Gamer contacted Perry Miniatures to inquire if this means more Civil War miniatures will come our way, Alan’s response was that it was “a bit too soon” to comment on that.

HMGS’ premier event, Historicon 2014, will be held 17 through 20 July at the Fredericksburg Expo & Conference Center, 2371 Carl D. Silver Parkway, Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401.

More than 25 ACW games are listed on the event schedule as well as tutorials on painting miniatures, building terrain and historical seminars. The location of the convention also puts attendees within a short distance of the battlefields at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania.

More information available at http://hmgs.site-ym.com/?page=HconHome

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As many of our readers have already heard, John Hill, creator of the iconic Johnny Reb rules and the equally iconic Squad Leader WW2 tactical board game, has been laboring, along with his design team, to create a rule set to allow Civil War gamers to move from commanding brigades to commanding corps into battle. The result of that labor: Across A Deadly Field (ADF), a new miniature wargaming rule book which will be released by Osprey Publishing in time for Historicon.

Subtitled Regimental Rules for Civil War Battles, ADF is 144 pages long including the title page and table of contents.

The rule set is hard bound and with the high production values that one would expect from Osprey Publishing - ADF is presented in full color and is very pleasing to look at. The book itself reminds me of other Osprey offerings such as the modern wargaming rules, Force on Force.

The basic maneuver unit (or game units as the rules designate them) in ADF is the regiment for infantry, artillery batteries, and the battalion, squadron or regiment for cavalry. Ground scale is 100 to 120 yards to the inch for 6mm/10mm figures, 80 to 100 yards to the inch for 15mm/20mm figures and 60 to 80

“Across a Deadly Field”Regimental Rules

For Large Civil War Battles

Review

Page 4 ACW Gamer

A look at the new set of Grand Tactical Civil War rules from

the legendary John Hill

Issue 4 Summer 2014

ADF style units in play. Photo by Allan Sheward ©Osprey Publishing Ltd

©Osprey Publishing Ltd

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yards to the inch for 25mm/28mm figures. Figure scale is 60 men to a figure and the time scale of each turn is 30 minutes.

I believe it was Hal Thinglum who once wrote in his gaming magazine, MWAN, that when he read a rule set that stated: to translate their rules from 15mm to 25mm, “double all ranges and movements,” he felt that the designers hadn’t actual tried their rules set in more than one scale. That is not the case in ADF. Beside the fact that I saw the rules were played in both 15mm and 28mm at NashCon, charts are provide for the three major scales ground scales mentioned above so gamers don’t have to produce their own charts. Additionally, the designers have explained how to layout scenarios and terrain based on these scales.

After reading these scales and figure ratio, one of the first questions that pops into the mind of any gamer when hearing of a new rule set is “am I going to have to rebase my figures??” The short answer is “no.” ADF does not dictate a specific stand size for its units and states that it does not

matter if a stand has four figures in a line or four figures in two ranks as illustrated in the above graphic from ADF. A unit with six figure stands becomes a two stand unit and a double ranked 4 figure stand becomes a three stand unit. This should allow the use of figures that have been mounted for most of the more popular Civil War miniature rule sets out there. The rules also discusses how to field large regiments for the game, depleted regiments (think late war CS regiments), and elite units.

I have seen many pre-release postings on the internet critical of the rule set for its’ use of two or three stand regiments on the table. One criticism calling the units lines of ‘color guards’ on the table top. As a reviewer of these rules, it is not my place to dissuade these gamers of their conclusions. How, I think it is fair to point out that this is actually a matter of taste; just as the gamer’s choice of 10mm or 28mm figures are a choice....if you like ‘big battalions’ there are plenty of rules for those type units. It should also be noted that regiments don’t usually operate alone on a battlefield, even if they are the

Review

Page 5 ACW Gamer Issue 4 Summer 2014

When formed up in a typical brigade line the two stand units of ADF create a very cor-rect linear appearance. This scene is from P.J. O’Neill’s game portraying a clash between Early’s II Corps division and William’s XII Corps division just northeast of Gettysburg, this game will be offered at Historicon 2014. ©Osprey Publishing Ltd

©Osprey Publishing Ltd

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ACW Gamer Page 6 Issue 4 Summer 2014

Reviewextreme flank of an army. This means that most games will present long lines of regiments operating as parts of brigades, divisions and corps.

The actual rule set begins with a forward by Duke “Uncle Duke” Seifried and then moves into the introduction which

contains the equivalent of the designer notes. This introduction is of particular interest because it explains many of the core concepts and driving factors that influenced the development of the rules. One of these factors being the abandonment of the order counters from Johnny Reb (for more on Johnny Reb order marking mechanics, review Robert Sweeney’s Johnny Reb battle report “Return to Castleman’s Ferry” parts 1 and 2 in ACW Gamer: Issue 2 and Issue 3) due to Osprey’s requirement that rules be ‘self contained’ in single volume book and not in a box set like Johnny Reb.

The method by which ADF eliminates counters and order marking is through the introduction of a “action-reaction” system which John Hill borrowed from his Squad Leader World War 2 tactical game. The player with the initiative acts and the non-initiative player reacts. This prevents a game where one side lines up its unit, shoots the crap out of the other while they stand there and take the damage. In ADF, when a unit or unit group is activated, it perform two actions such as move twice, fire twice, move and then fire, fire and then move, rally and move, move and then charge, fire and then charge. This gives the active player a number of tactical options.

The reacting player can, as you might expect, return fire. But that player can also decide to hold that fire in the event the initiative player is preparing for a charge. Or he can rally his troops. Or reform his troops...or even change facings. To me this seems much more realistic than a regimental commander watching a unit closing on his flank with a ‘let’s hope they don’t charge’ attitude. Another interesting reaction is ‘disengage.’ Again, this also seem like a logical choice to a regimental commander who has realized that he is out gunned or in a poor position to face down a charge.

As much as I appreciate the action-reaction system, in the interest of fairness, I must say that in the ADF game I participated in at NashCon, I became concerned that the ‘activation-response’ engine caused some players on the eastern

side of the battle field to sit idle while the intense fighting was resolved in the Seminary Ridge and Oak Hill areas. I never like to see players idle or bored during a miniatures game.

That being said, there are some factors that may have had an effect on my observation; first, most of the players were learning the rules, which usually slows down game play in any rule set. Second, this was a particularly large battle, and lastly, Dean West, who hosted the game, commented that the Confederate commanders on that side of the field were not advancing as aggressively as the Confederates on the western side of the battlefield. I would also note, that not all gaming clubs have 12 members playing at one time and

Every wargame rule set has its strength, and the real strength of ADF may be its abil-ity to bring large games to a satisfactory conclusion in a reasonable time. At Nashcon 2014, the first day of Gettysburg, with over 200 distinct regiments and batteries was played with 12 players – 10 of which were being introduced to the rules for the first time – and was wrapped up in about 6 ½ hours.

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