General de Brigade

[White Feather]

Hi all,

Well, played my first 'serious' game over the weekend, and now that the rattle of dice is finally silent and the casualties of war have been superglued and returned to their boxes I hope that I can share my initial impressions with you.

1) Confederate infantry are incredibly resilient. Their across the board ability to ignore any losses over 30% seems to me over-generous.

Perhaps this is historically so due to their policy of sending recruits to veteran units. But, isn't this, in part covered by their greater percentage of high quality units?

I could quite easily accept them ignoring the first 30% before casualties started really taking their toll and, maybe, if the units were of a reasonable quality to begin with treating a Rout result on 'Other' morale tests as a Retreat.

2) I can appreciate the use of initiative dice for attempting to gain the advantage in the battle as a whole through manoeuvre, but for firing it sometimes seems unfair.

For example if two stationary units are blazing away at each other over several turns; or if a stationary unit, behind a wall, watching the enemy approach cannot fire first.

As I say, these are only my first impressions, but all corrective criticism will be gratefully received.

Not wishing to cause offence in anyway,

Ken

[Keithandor]

Well, played my first 'serious' game over the weekend, and now that the rattle of dice is finally silent and the casualties of war have been superglued and returned to their boxes I hope that I can share my initial impressions with you.

1) Confederate infantry are incredibly resilient. Their across the board ability to ignore any losses over 30% seems to me over-generous.

Perhaps this is historically so due to their policy of sending recruits to veteran units. But, isn't this, in part covered by their greater percentage of high quality units?

I could quite easily accept them ignoring the first 30% before casualties started really taking their toll and, maybe, if the units were of a reasonable quality to begin with treating a Rout result on 'Other' morale tests as a Retreat.


My Confederates still seem to run away
Once down by 30% that's a -3 to your morale tests , things are going pretty bad anyway.
The union might take their tests at -4 or -5 etc , but it hasn't been a real advantage in our games , it is a nice bonus for the rebs. You sort of expect them to stick around a little longer.



2) I can appreciate the use of initiative dice for attempting to gain the advantage in the battle as a whole through manoeuvre, but for firing it sometimes seems unfair.

For example if two stationary units are blazing away at each other over several turns; or if a stationary unit, behind a wall, watching the enemy approach cannot fire first.

It's real disadvantage to lose the iniative when there's a big firefight going on. But one side obviously is loading and firing quicker , or has the enemy ducking for cover , it's not fair , but it happens.
Some of our games have really hung on the initiative roll , last game , we tied half a dozen times with our initiative roll off at a crucial time. It's all good fun.

[White Feather]

Thanks for the reply.

>My Confederates still seem to run away
>Once down by 30% that's a -3 to your morale tests , things are going >pretty bad anyway.
>The union might take their tests at -4 or -5 etc , but it hasn't been a real >advantage in our games , it is a nice bonus for the rebs. You sort of >expect them to stick around a little longer.

I appreciate it's nice for the Rebs to stick around, but what I'm saying is that surely Elite is Elite, and Militia are Militia, regardless of allegiance.

I can see why the confederates have a higher morale (although this wasn't as marked in the West) which accounts for their better quality overall, but the generally acknowledged superior union artillery doesn't get a look-in.

As an example, if the Texas brigade attack the Iron brigade and both take 60% losses why does this effect the union 'Elites' twice as much? After all, they certainly took some shifting at Gettysburg.

Regards, Ken

[Keithandor]

Well I don't think anyone would disagree with you.
You can always play it as you see fit , when you work out a scenario just put any variations to the standard rules in the description.
e.g. confederate special -3 max morale rules do not apply.

I think the confederate advantages are for pick up game and points games to add a bit of flavour ( and to appease all patriotic rebs

[DCRBrown]

WF,