American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

In the middle of playing my second campaign as the Reb commander. Both times I have started retreating to Richmond from turn 1. The first game, it was almost an every man for himself retreat to Richmond as three or four separate columns retreated. The supply wagons are the slowest elements on the battlefield and as a result, the Union cavalry and infantry and artillery can/do catch up. You have to send the Confederate artillery and most of the infantry ahead to Richmond to join the units already there (plus the replacements that get released) in building (1) breastworks with the current entrenchments plus (2) build a shorter interior line of entrenchments and breastworks that is short enough for the ANV to adequately man it. While your infantry is busy doing that, the Reb cavalry has their hands full trying to slow down the AotP long enough for your supply wagons to make it back and allow the AotP to advance close enough to your advanced fixed units to release them and then hold off the AotP long enough for those units to retreat . Infantry doesn't do much good in these rear guard actions because once disrupted, they are even slower than the supply wagons. If you make it back to Richmond within those entrenchments, you should win. I won this game.


Now my second game, I tried to retreat to Richmond with a unified ANV in one column. What a mistake. The AotP cut my column in two, surrounded one half of my army, and I'm not going to be able to extract it. Even if I do, the fortifications in Richmond had to be left alone in order to save half of the ANV. Doomsday. The ANV has to run as fast as possible, in any way possible, from turn 1.

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Gen Ned Simms
2/XVI Corps/AotT
Blood 'n Guts hisself, a land lovin' pirate. Show me some arty tubes and we'll charge 'em.
VMI Class of '00

Because it supposed to be a historical scenario, and to meet that it can't just depict the setup as historical but has to keep the overall course within historical plausibility.
Nobody wants a scenario that forces a perfect replay of what historically happened, but it also can't be a "do whatever you want" game.
And as General Simms pointed out:

Currently the Confederates need to run south asap for a chance on victory. Doing what Lee did doesn't seem to bring them anywhere. But in my eyes a fall back to Richmond without really any serious attempt to deny the Union closing in on Richmond should result at least in a minor Union victory because at that point it's a similar situation like Petersburg and only matter of time till the Union finishes the ANV.
The new "Variable, Asymmetric, Turn-Based Victory Points System" could help here and make resisting the Union pay out for the ANV.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

"Where to stop? I don't know. At Hell, I expect."

When I played this scenario against Kelly Ross, I managed to isolate and destroy two Union divisions. Captured both Hancock and Sedgewick. Didn't matter. Kelly had so many men he could replace worn units with fresh ones while my worn ones had to keep on fighting. The icing on the cake was trying to save the Maryland Line, which stays fixed for a long time. That gave Kelly time to outflank my army. Probably won't play it again because life is too short.

While I believe the Tiller ACW games are the best engine available, I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I don't blame JT, as he is spread thin, and will always be grateful for these games and the continuing support over twenty some years. I have high hopes for Berto who is concentrating his efforts on ACW.

Hate to keep beating a dead horse but there were features present in the SSI ACW games of the eighties that could benefit the JT games. Those games used operation points to do everything from march to fire to entrench. The operation points were influenced by leader quality and distance from the unit. Fatigue accumulated in small increments every hex you moved, and you could increase operation points at a cost in fatigue (forced march). Compare that to the steady rate of movement all units now enjoy. Even Jackson can't speed them up,
and even McClellan can't slow them down.

Hope someday someone creates a map like Overland from Fredricksburg, Va to Harrisburg, Pa for a Gettysburg campaign where the numbers aren't so lopsided.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

I think the "monster" overland scenario is mostly an experiment not meant to be taken to seriously. The JT games are designed to handle 1-3 day battles. They don't include the things needed to reflect a campaign length scenario. They have no logistical elements that would make retreating to Richmond a bad move. And it has no logistical and quality factors that made it difficult for the Union army to make large maneuvers. They do long campaigns by linked scenarios for a reason.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

Be that as it may, I have used the largest maps and scenario editors for both Gettysburg and Chickamauga to put together multi-day scenarios, using variable entries. They have been among the most enjoyable scenarios we have played. There was a lot more room to maneuver and greater suspense than most scenarios we have played. Of course, the forces were more equal than Overland, but also the historical campaigns were of a nature that individual unit replacements weren't a factor.

Of the stock scenarios, the long Peninsula Campaign scenario was a lot of fun as well. Never much cared for the linked campaign scenarios.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

One can do multi day scenarios. Multi month scenarios are a stretch for the game engine. The game just doesn't have limits on what you can do that a real army does. An army can fight for a few days non stop but at some point it had to stop and make an extended rest or all its horses and mules would die. Until the game engine supports some kind of Campaign Fatigue that would shut movement down if the player didn't allow his army to rest and regroup for a few days it really can't handle something like the Overland Campaign. Something like the Peninsula is more in reason since continuous operations only lasted a week. Likewise the Maryland portion of the Gettysburg campaign is a reasonable scenario.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

... not to mention, too, that certain leader losses did contribute to OOB structural changes in real life. (ANV going from 2 Corps to 3 Corps when Stonewall as lost is a good example, and not the only one - I think there were also some during the Overland campaign -although off the top of my head I can't come up with anything specific.

The point being, that the engine can't handle that in the context of one big broad period. I guess that is across the board with all of the grand tactical scale series, though.

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~Retired~

The engine has a lots of limitations which we have to live with. Realism isn't a factor. It appears even the Overland scenario rarely lasts more than a quarter of the turns allotted.

I am not looking to model half the war. I would like to model campaigns like the Gettysburg campaign or the Tullahoma-Chickamauga campaign or the Red River Campaign (including Steele's expedition) on maps large enough to cover the whole area of operations without the map edge likely to be a factor. That to me is the primary attraction of Overland; minimal time and space limitations. Given Overland, I see no reason why the engine would not be able to handle this, albeit imperfectly.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Hence my point of using Chancellorsville to Gettysburg. Less than 60 days from one battle to the other. Not the way things currently stand with the engine.

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~Retired~

Congrats, guys! Amazing display of sticking with the game, Ken M. and John D.! Cudos to those that played!

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Optional Rules I Use in WDS ACW Games:
(by column from left to right)
Column 1: All ON except for Man. Def. Fire; Column 2: All ON except for Alt Fixed Unit Rel.; Column 3: All ON except for Art.Capt. & Prop.Op.Fire