American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Just curious to get my fellow officers thoughts on the
following topic. When playing any scenario for the first time
how closely do you scrutinize your enemy's
OOB,starting position,releases,reinforcement
and scheduled arrivals and do you do this at the start of the scenario
and continue to consult this info throughout the game.
Anyone try to play "blind" to get more authetic F.O.W?[?]

Y.H.S
Col.J.Lytwak
AoT U.S.A

I try to play things as "blind" as possible, maybe that's why I don't win much [:)]



Col. Robert Hinkle
"Hinks Brigade"
1/I/AoA

In a campaign I always play blind, it's the best. Back in my BG days I figured the other person knew or would look so I looked too, unless he specifically stated he preferred blind.

I think looking at a campaign battle before play is unfair, unless both players agree.

Maj. Gen. Beno
Pickett's Division, I Corps, ANV

Same here. With the same old BG scenarios, I would assume everyone knew everything anyway, so I thought knowing something as well was both OK and necessary. With the HPS games, I hardly ever look. Especially not in a campaign. Sort of would spoil the fun.

Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

Of course,the downside is that you can still figure it all out. Pea Ridge is my favorite campaign, and with the small size, I've played it through a number of times, and I've seen just about every major possibility. Thus, when I open the battle of Pea Ridge within the campaign, I just keep an eye out to see which of the three options the Reb took. It's just that I like that battle [:p]

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

I play the games for the fun of it, so I do not take the time to check out OOB's or scenarios. Of course, after you have played a scenario, you do know what i going to happen, but you seldom know everything, like reinforcement areas.

I remember one game I was playing and had an excellent left flank envelopement going on. I just knew I would hit my opponent in a soft spot. Well, I had moved that flank attack right into the middle of a Corps reinforcement and he just creamed my couple of brigades. It completely stopped my attack.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

President, Colonial Campaigns Club
</b></font id="gold">

If we are both new to the Scn I go totally blind, which is costing me big time right now as Gen Hill is beating my brains out at Prairie Grove (underestimated his forces [V]).

Of course totally blind is not always historical either. In many cases both COs had a rough idea of who was in the area and how soon they could be where, more or less.

But even where a scn is well known I prefer the variable entry variants - I think they are more historical for both COs.

Maj Gen Mike Kaulbars
3rd "Freiheit" Division
VIII/AoS

The general consensus seems to be to play blind and that is how I feel. If an opponent sends me a scenario I've played before I will tell him that incase he wants something else instead. The only way a battle would not be blind is if it was done mirror or we agreed in advance to "peek". You can only play a scenario blind once - the first time. So why spoil that? The test of a good general is dealing with the unexpected.
As has been pointed out, sometimes the real commanders would know something of the enemy dispositions and terrain. So that sort of thing should be given in the scenario briefing. Gettysburg is a little more than an hour away and I've been there a gazillion times, so I'd be fairly smart on that. But just about anything else blind would be pretty darn blind for me. I'm in a Peninsula Campaign with Gen Pinkham. I'm not smart on the battle and it is the only play I have with this game - nothing solo and no other opponents. So everything in it is totally new and blind to me. So if anyone wants to further my education, I'm open to starting a campaign. [:p]

BGen, 2/XIX/AoS

In the campaign games I consider the army structure common knowledge. That is, if you run into so and so's brigade you know what division and Corps it is attached too. In Gettysburg I have the 20,000+ scenarios downloaded so while I have played it enough to know generally what's out there I still don't know what optional forces are included until I run into them and what the release/reinforcement times are.

I have a mirror match of Peninsular going but the two games diverged dramatically so all we know is what forces are available but not what is actually useable in the two games.

Has anyone used the random scenario generator that they released for Gettysburg? Can you make a "real" blind scenario with it and do you need a third person to handle the generation to keep it blind? Any experience with it out there? Would this be similar to the Litton Blind games?

BG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Scott Schlitte</i>
<br />I'm in a Peninsula Campaign with Gen Pinkham. I'm not smart on the battle and it is the only play I have with this game - nothing solo and no other opponents. So everything in it is totally new and blind to me. So if anyone wants to further my education, I'm open to starting a campaign. [:p]

BGen, 2/XIX/AoS
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

General Schlitte,

I had several battles going, but I seem to have had a run of bad luck with opponents who have had to go inactive for one reason or another. Suddenly I find myself with only one battle I would consider active -- and that's in the CCC!

I did just pick up Campaign: Pennisula, though, so if you're still interested in another opponent please give me a holler. (I've loaded the game to make sure it runs on my machine. To test it, I started a campaign game and I started a stand-alone game. I didn't even take a full turn of either one, so you'll probably never find a more 'blind' opponent [:)] !) The only options I feel strongly about are Manual Defensive Fire (prefer it OFF) and Automatic Defensive Fire (prefer it ON), but even those are negotiable.


Your humble servant,
LGen 'Dee Dubya' Mallory

David W. Mallory
ACW - Lieutenant General, Chief of the Armies, Confederate States of America
CCC - Corporal, Georgia Volunteers, Southern Regional Deaprtment, Colonial American Army

I play Blind. Always have. It's more fun that way. That's why I like the campaign games. Even if you have seen the map before, the situation is always at least a little different once both sides have started taking losses in earlier scenarios. Of course, in the old Talonsoft Battleground series, the FOW was at best a light mist, esp. after my 20th time through the Gettysburg game. I had a pretty good idea what to expect most of the time. Still, I never actually looked at the other guy's OOB or reinforcement schedule, and rarely even played the other side. Variable reinforcement schedule helped in that series. Nevertheless, I know that I played a lot of opponents that had my opening positions, OOB and reinforcement schedule down. The worst was the old BG Shiloh. There were a lot of rebs that pretty well just collected all the Union fixed units in the opening moves of the game as a matter of course. Still, I really never asked an opponent to play in a particular style to compensate for the dwindling effects of FOW over time. We did edit a few scenarios to compensate for the worst situations. Did some Victory Hex modifications in Shiloh, or changed Doubleday's reinforcement entry hex at GB for example.

General Thomas Callmeyer
4th Bgd.
1st Div.
XV Corps
AoT
USA