Alternative Gaming

Off the painting table this weekend  has come the first of what will be four dismounted Union cavalry units. Following the other experimental Civil War units finished a little earlier this year these are based on a single unit base. This particular unit of 9 figures plus a horse holder set (it seems odd to me that the Perrys only included two held horses in this set whereas other sets have three) will represent what I will call a small unit. I know that the horse holders would not be that close to the troopers, but I wanted them all on the one base so I am exercising some artistic license.

The inclusion of this unit in this post creates the perfect segue into the real subject of this post. As the impact of COVID-19 begins to be felt around the world it has sadly intruded into my wargaming space with the suspension of hostilities amongst our gaming groups. And now that we are in lockdown the thought of a total suspension is almost unbearable, especially since I have missed a couple games that has meant that I have only played three games this year, so I have resurrected an campaign idea I had way back in 2013.

The game is based broadly on the Stategy and Tactics game “The American Civil War”. I remember purchasing this some time back in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s and I still have the map and the magazine (somewhere) but the counters are lost and the rules long since disintegrated.

Back in 2013 I was thinking about running an ACW campaign and around that time I had started playing the game Lux DUX on the iPad and the simplicity of their maps appealed to me. I figured with a simplified map and with the basic rule mechanisms that I could recall from the S&T game I could make a pretty good game that would provide a strategic background to tabletop games. So I quickly drew up this map:

I then set about writing the rules, loosely based on the S&T game, the object of which was for a game where the United States player sets out to destroy the Confederate military forces either by destruction of their field armies in battle or by destroying the supply grid. The result of that work can be found here.

The idea of just how to play this as an alternative to table gaming while we try to avoid this insidious virus is to use the strategic component as a play by email campaign. The table top battles give way to a combat resolution system that balances the differences between opposing forces with a die roll. This required a cut down set of rules which are here.

Hopefully I can get this up and running in the next few days and our group members can play a game of sorts. I will provide reports on these pages.