American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

The following has just arrived in my E-mail Inbox from Duchet here in the UK. 00.33AM GMT


6th March 2009 - Two new HPS wargames
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1- American Civil War 11 : Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville
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Introduction and Overview
Following Lee’s failed invasion of the North in 1862, and McClellan’s inability to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia near Antietam Creek in September of that year, President Lincoln tried and failed to find a commander who could defeat Lee.
Lincoln chose first Burnside, then Hooker.
During the next eight months each Union general would in turn fight two major battles which they hoped would win the war and end the Southern rebellion.
History records these battles as Fredericksburg (December 1862), and Chancellorsville (May 1863).
They would later be known as Lee’s greatest victories, the “high tideâ€

Wow! This is good news! I am guessing this game will be much more difficult to win as the rebs than in real life! Well, it was difficult then too but both battles were such major tactical and strategic victories we rebs will be hard pressed to duplicate history!

Looks like two MUST HAVE titles!!

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet Member
ACWGC Records Site Administrator
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim Pfleck</i>
<br />Wow! This is good news! I am guessing this game will be much more difficult to win as the rebs than in real life! Well, it was difficult then too but both battles were such major tactical and strategic victories we rebs will be hard pressed to duplicate history!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Indeed - on paper there is no way Hooker should have lost Chancellorsville - the plan was very good, initial execution was great, and the sheer number of Union troops involved against Lee with Longstreet away in southern Virginia with two divisions of the ANV should have resulted in Lee being at least forced back towards Richmond if not completely destroyed... (of course, the same applies to McClellan at Sharpsburg... and Pope at 2nd Manassas...


Any chance we can get more details on all of the new optional rules? [:)]

Regards,

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn
CSA Chief of Staff
3rd Bgde, 3rd Cav Div, II Corps, AoA

God Bless <><

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim Pfleck</i>
<br />Wow! This is good news! I am guessing this game will be much more difficult to win as the rebs than in real life! Well, it was difficult then too but both battles were such major tactical and strategic victories we rebs will be hard pressed to duplicate history!
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Not if the game forces the same Union stupidity.[V] Burnside and Hooker-although hooker wasn't a terrible Corps Commander, just army commander. Burnside on the otherhand ...[}:)]

Brig. Gen. Phil Driscoll
1st Brigade/1st Division/VCorps/AoP

Excellent!


General Jeff Laub
Union Chief of the Army
ACWGC Cabinet Member
http://www.geocities.com/laubster22/UnionHQ/

I worked as a playtester on this one. Here's my take on the changes.

<u>New Proportional Opportunity Fire Optional Rule that causes Opportunity Fire generated by firing units to be more proportional to the total strength of the units firing.</u>
As I understand it a smaller unit will have less chance of drawing opportunity fire than a large one. It did seem to me that there was more opportunity fire with this game than before, made Fredericksburg a real bloodbath.
<i>This is a Optional Rule.</i>

<u>New Alternate Fixed Unit release Optional Rule that releases Fixed units within 5 hexes of an enemy unit regardless of Line-of-Sight to that unit.</u>
This means you can't sneak up on a fixed unit in the woods anymore. Not sure I'm in favor of this one but I guess it's better than the current situation. Would have been better if you could have had two settings, say 5 hexes in LOS and 3 if not but I guess that would have been tougher to do.
<i>This is an Optional Rule and can be left off if you want. </i>

<u>New Parameter Data value that controls when artillery crews are killed.</u>
This one definitely results in less gun crew kills if set properly, the PDT now includes a line that sets the number of casualties needed to kill the crew. Default Value is 100, higher values mean fewer crew kills, lower value means more crew kills. I'm not sure how this is related to the old values but the setting in the C'ville PDT's are 150 and I definitely noticed less crew kills after this change was instituted.
<i>This is not an Optional Rule, you can't turn this off but it can be changed in the PDT.</i>

Just remember these changes will not be available in the other games until they are updated.

As to balance I did a lot of my testing as the yanks against Mike Mihalik, I think we're pretty close in ability in regards to playing these games and I certainly didn't have an easy time of it. There are scenarios where the yanks have fixed units and the victory conditions are set to balance out others.



Gen. Ken Miller
1/2/VI
AoS

HPS has not posted these games,yet.

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet Member
ACWGC Records Site Administrator
</b></font id="gold">

When I first read this post I was all set to smash open the piggy-bank and order the game from NWS, but on reflection I think I shall exercise some caution and wait to see how positive the reception is. I've tried the custom scenarios of Fredericksburg & Chancellorsville on both HPS Corinth and the BG engine. I found even crossing the river in the face of the enemy at Fredericksburg infuriating and frustrating [xx(] and I really don't see ANY Reb winning a victory on a game version of Chancellorsville? [^]
They are great battles, but I'm not sure either is an ideal subject for a simulation? I do hope to be proved wrong on this one...but I think I'll wait and see.


Colonel Jim Wilkes.
2nd Brigade, Cavalry Division, XX Corps.
AoC. U.S.A.

Woo Hoo!!!! I am so excited to see another ACW title. My Civil War pants are going crazy!

Jerry Butley

Ernie,

Rich Hamilton posted a notice at the Civil War Campaigns forum over at Game Squads today and at his HPS blog so they must be officially released. He said the HPS website should be updated sometime today.



Gen. Ken Miller
1/2/VI
AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by krmiller</i>
<br />Just remember these changes will not be available in the other games until they are updated.
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Its our intent to release a round of updates for the entire ACW series once Chance has been on the market a short while...been a while since most have been updated, so its time.

LGen. Hamilton
II Corps
ANV, CSA

Hmm. New CW game out. Upcoming birthday. Time to start dropping hints to the CO (my wife).

Lt.General Dale Lastowicka
XIX Corps, AOS

<font face="Book Antiqua"><font size="4"><font color="limegreen">Gents,

HPS Simulations website now has the new games posted. Just finished ordering Campaign Chancellorsville, whoa hoo!

Regards,</font id="limegreen"></font id="size4"></font id="Book Antiqua">

<font color="limegreen"><font size="4">Nick Kunz

General
Commanding
3rd Georgia Raiders
4th Cavalry Division
II Corps, AoG</font id="limegreen"></font id="size4">