General "Dee Dubya" Mallory and I had the opportunity to play pjvdr_c23u4 The Battle of the Hatchie, October 2, 1862 /40 recently.
It was an enjoyable game, set up with an initial mad dash of cavalry on both sides (with variable entry times for Union forces for added suspense!) to seize control of Young's Bridge, effectively cutting the battlefield in half due to the un-crossable river hexes on the map. That set up a subsequent 'mad dash' of follow-on infantry divisions from both sides to re-fight for control of the bridge crossing all over again (again with variable Union entry times). Besides the exciting gameplay, this is also a great scenario to practice bridge repair (infantry in column facing the bridge hex) and bridge destruction (via infantry melee or artillery fire).
Overall, this scenario was quite enjoyable except for two apparent (and somewhat annoying) errors in the scenario design: 1) The Yankee-held objective were never credited in the overall victory score. So players will need to manually compute those points themselves until this technical glitch is corrected. 2) The designer inexplicably designated entry hexes for both factions as exit hexes for victory points. That made no sense to us historically, as it awards points for essentially fleeing the battlefield through uncontested entry hexes well behind friendly lines. Perhaps it was meant a way of simulating the preservation of forces in a campaign game, but it made no sense to us in a stand alone scenario. So again, players may wish to agree in advance not to utilize either of those exit hexes for cheap points.
Overall, I would recommend this scenario *if* both players are willing to house-rule a prohibition against the use of exit hexes in advance, and if they are willing to manually compute objective scoring (to give credit to Yankee-held objectives).
_________________ General Scott Eichelberger, ACWGC Commander, 1/1/I/AotP "The Iron Brigade" UMA Superintendent 2020-2021 Union Cabinet Secretary 2020-2022
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