Antietam
For Men to Live Through
by
Command Post games
Antietam: the very name should be talked about in hallowed whispers. The United States has seen many wars and tons of battles. However, this is the place where there were more American casualties in one day than any other battle. The date of September 17th, 1862 should be known by every US citizen. The names of Burnside's Bridge, the Sunken Road, and especially the Cornfield have resonated down through the years. The Cornfield, Miller's Cornfield to be exact, was a blood bath for many hours during that fateful day. More than one person described the corn stalks as being sliced right off as close to ground as possible, as if some large being had used a razor to cut them clean. Unfortunately, it was actually canister and musket balls that did the job. The odds against the Confederates were close to two to one. If McClellan had actually used his army as an iron fist instead of disjointed fingers the history of the American Civil War might have been entirely different. This game by Command Post Games gives us a chance to refight the battle.
This is what Command Post Games has to say about the game:
"In this game, you will lead an army through a key historical battle in the musket era. With multiple players, you will run part of the army (Corps or Wing) on a team with other players. Unlike most games, you won’t have God like knowledge and control of everything. Like real generals, you will often not know what the enemy has, where they will attack from, when they will move or even when your own troops will move.
How do you win?
You win by sacking one of the enemy’s baggage trains or by inflicting 50% losses on their army first.
How does it work?
As you fight, your units take hits, fall back and become ‘Spent’. Spent units are vulnerable and easy to kill. You can unpack a baggage train to rally them back to Fresh, but unpacked baggage trains can no longer move. If the enemy sacks one or your baggage trains, you lose!
What makes this fun and very tense, is that all the pieces remain hidden on upright blocks. You can’t be sure which ones are fresh or spent, elite or poor grade troops. Where are the baggage trains?
Each command moves in random order by chit pull. This is very chaotic, just like real war. Who will move first? You can use your HQs to try to jump ahead or delay your move. Is it better to move first or last? It depends. Do you need to plug critical holes in the line or seize key terrain before the enemy does? Do you want the enemy to go first so that you can fall back and delay their advance? Or do you want the enemy to attack first so that you know where to commit your reserves? All combat is saved till the end of the turn. So, movement during the turn is very fluid and up for grabs. Timing is everything.
In this battle, the Confederates are badly outnumbered and hard pressed. Their backs are up against the wall of the uncrossable Potomac River. They have better troops and good defensive terrain initially. If they are knocked out of those positions, their defense can unravel very quickly.
Rated Most Realistic & Accurate for:
• Command & Control limitations
• Fog of War -hidden units and chaotic move order
• Logistics -deployment crucial to victory and keeping your forces able to fight.
Used to train officers in the US military and in military academies around the world.
What the Professionals Play
Great for teams and solitaire play.
• Period style map.
• Kriegsspiel style, hardwood pieces.
Options
Divisions: Much faster setup and play time. Great for playing out at restaurants or pubs: Pub Battles!
Brigades: More precision and accuracy for troops & terrain. Playing with brigade blocks will take about 2-3 times longer.
Brigades blocks Only: Optional upgrade for players with Divisions. Includes updated rules & scenario."
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| The Cornfield |
These are the options for the game that you can order:
You can order the game with either a canvas or paper map. It can also be ordered with just the blocks and stickers. In this case, as in all of their games, if you can afford it go with the canvas map.
It can come with either divisions of brigades. Trust me, brigades is the way to go.
This game, and its siblings, used to be called Pub Battles. The name has been changed to Musket Battles. I prefer Musket Battles. It pretty much sums up exactly what you will be getting or looking for on the web.
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| Another view of Miller's Cornfield |
The number of pieces that come with the game is not overwhelming at all. What is amazing is how wonderfully they have been manufactured and look. The canvas maps could be used with a frame to decorate your game room and believe me it would be worth the price of the game.
The Musket Battles Rules of Play is in full color; it is also ten pages long. It comes with tons of examples of play to learn the system. The type is of a good size and is in triple columns on the pages. The Antietam folder is really only five pages long. The first two give you the information on this battle. Then there are two pages that can be photocopied. One has the Divisional breakdown of each army and the other has the brigade breakdown. In the center is the sheet that has the brigade stickers for the blocks. On the back page is a picture of Little Mac and Robert E. Lee. To round out the paperwork is a photocopied black & white copy of the battle map. The stickers themselves are little pieces of artwork. They are very easy to pull off the page and are easily maneuvered onto the blocks correctly. The blocks are also well done and are all uniform in shape and size without any flashing.
What you get with the game certainly passes inspection from an art point of view. However, as usual the gameplay is the thing.
The Musket Battles simulations are of the Kriegspiel variety. They are meant to simulate 18th and 19th century warfare. This part of the blurb from Command Post Games deserves to be read again:
"Rated Most Realistic & Accurate for:
• Command & Control limitations
• Fog of War -hidden units and chaotic move order
• Logistics -deployment crucial to victory and keeping your forces able to fight.
Used to train officers in the US military and in military academies around the world.
A much cheaper option than a full Field Maneuver Wargame is the Command Post Game. Instead of actually calling out the troops, this wargame simulates the same thing by tracking the units on maps. The first great, codified version of this is credited to von Reiswitz’ “Kriegsspiel” in 1812. The Prussians developed this as a way of preserving and passing on the vast experiential command knowledge gained by officers from the Napoleonic Wars.
The new generation of officers growing up in the peace that followed, learned how to maneuver, plan and write orders by playing command post games. How well can simple command post games on paper simulate the reality of war? History lists Kriegsspiel as a huge contributing factor in the victories of the Franco-Prussian war that followed.
Good command post games allow us to learn real world lessons, directly applicable to the real world in at a highly accelerated rate. Meaning: you can learn things from a game in a few hours that would normally take you 10 years of working experience in the field to learn. They can be incredibly powerful learning tools.
You get out what you put in. Train hard. Train for real."
"Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics". I am not sure who first said it, but it is true, nonetheless.
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| They also have Ancient Pub Battles |
You can see from the above that this is a simulation and not a game. You are put in the boots of a general or Field Marshal of the time and this simulation attempts to put you in their place. This means that you will have to deal with all of the question marks and Fog of War that the real generals had to. You also have to take into account Moltke's "Friction". This means what happens when two forces collide and all of your well-planned thoughts for the battle go out the window. To me, the Musket Battles series succeeds in everything the designers tried to do and simulate. You have to worry about moving your troops in column during road movement if you want to get somewhere fast. This of course leaves those same troops vulnerable to attack. Flanking, Line of Sight, and Baggage Trains are just a few of the things and pieces that you have to deal with or remember the rules about. The rules are relatively short and well written. I really like the fact that when in doubt about things both players or player is expected to be an adult and act accordingly.
Thank you, Command Post Games, for sending me this beautiful copy of Antietam to review. If your games can teach reality of the battlefield to an old dullard like me, they can teach anyone. Please peruse their site to see all of the excellent games they produce.
Robert Peterson
Here is a review I did about the Gettysburg module of Musket Battles:
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