Shiloh - A stubborn east flank!

 The local gaming group played out a classic John Hill "Johnny Reb" scenario this past weekend. The scenario focuses on the extreme Federal left flank at Shiloh under the command of Gen. Stephen Hurlburt vs the assaulting Rebel troops under the command of Gen. Jones M. Withers and none other than Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston. 

The Gamers

Federal Camps

Massed Rebs on the right table edge. Weak Union center.

Rebs on the move. Yanks drinking beer.

Union line anchored on the road. Wiard guns ready for action! 

I ran this scenario using ADF at Nashcon a few years ago with John Hill (which was a highlight for sure!), but I felt it might make an even better tactical scenario using JR2. The scenario essentially pits the already massed and ready to assault CSA brigades of Statham, Bowen, Jackson and Chalmers against the heavily outnumbered Union brigades of Stuart and Williams as McArthur's brigade rushes onto the tabletop.

Union camp.

Union reinforcements arriving.

The Rebels must push into the area around Sara Bell's cotton field in order to flank and destabilize the Federal line, especially the area near the Hornet's Nest. The game begins at the 10am turn and plays through the 1pm turn, with the rough terrain and ravines assisting the Union cause.

The Federals

Ravines

Banjo playing and rabbit roasting! The calm before the storm!

The Federals opted for Stuart to hold out as long as possible while McArthur's men marched to the sound of the guns and formed a defensive line along the main Hamburg-Purdy road. Stuart was eventually routed by ferocious attacks by Chalmers and Jackson. In hind sight it might have been better to have pulled back and formed up closer to Larkin Bell's field. The Union launched several counterattacks, suffering casualties, but delaying and frustrating the Rebel victory conditions.

Many Rebels were equipped with flintlocks, mixed muskets and poor quality artillery (as well as some Union troops), which make early war western scenarios a lot of fun. We called the game about the 12pm turn and the Union was hanging on by a thread. Could they have lasted until 1pm? We will never know, but it definitely would have been close!

We played using 28mm ACW figures, mainly Old Glory, Perry, Dixon, Raven Banner and Frontier. 

Cheers - Cory R.

Snipers! 

The Battle of Shiloh - the Stubborn East Flank at Nashcon 2014

This last weekend I ran a game of John Hill's new rules "Across A Deadly Field" at Nashcon. The cool thing was that I ran the game with John Hill! Well, actually we both ran the game, but we also had support from Patrick Lebeau and Dean West. It was truly a team effort!

The historical situation involved the Rebel brigades of Chalmer, Jackson, Bowen and Statham slamming into the weak, and extremely strung out Federal extreme left flank at Shiloh held by the brigades of Stuart, McArthur, and Williams. The game was played in 28mm using 15mm buildings for ground scale.

John had a terrain mat printed, which is a great idea and a quick way to set up a game! Thanks John! He mailed it to me and I spent a hurried couple of weeks painting a few last units, making fences (about 1,000 toothpicks) and sanding down an insulation board to lay underneath the terrain mat to make 3D ravines.

The rules played fast and furious and we were able to play to a conclusion in a few hours. I really enjoy these new rules and they are definitely my new favorite rules for the ACW. They will be published by Osprey in July for release at Historicon. Here are a few pictures of the game:

Here is the table with all of the terrain ready, but no figures. 

The Rebs advance through the woods. Picture by John Hill.

One of the Federal players (Kermitt H.) studies his options.

The Rebs advance towards the Union position. ACWGamer.com  gave us some rulers to use for the game. Thanks!

The terrain mat had the names of key geographical features printed in it. It was great for observers and the players to use as reference points to explain the battle.

Dean West (with chart) explains the rules to some of the players.

The Rebs were able to drive the Yanks back to their base line and were declared the winner!

John Hill (left) looks over the battlefield.

ACW 28mm "Shiloh" game using Across A Deadly Field

We played a 28mm ACW game recently at my place. We used John Hill's soon to be published grand tactical rules "Across A Deadly Field". These should be available from Osprey in the Spring/Summer of 2014. I plan on writing a more detailed review and after action report soon, but I wanted to quickly share a few iPhone pics of the game. I've been super busy at work, so I probably won't have time for another post until the New Year, so if I don't see you until then..... Merry Christmas! Cory

The game set up and ready to go! Loosely based on Shiloh. Lot's or poorly armed Rebs attacking a few Yanks barely holding on!

28mm Dixon Federals.

The Federal line awaits the assault.

A local Federal counter-attack!

Giving the Rebs some double canister!

The Federals hold the sunken road.

A few more 28mm ACW figures!

I've been on a roll lately painting more 28mm ACW figures! It's nice to get some time at the painting table every day. I'm still painting through my mountain of Dixon's, but I plan on buying some Sash and Saber in the near future. I've been checking out their website and they look fantastic!

I've been building ACW units for the OOB for the Battle of Franklin, 1864. I figure I'll just keep painting until I have them all painted! We'll anyway, here are a few pictures of units fresh off the painting table:

111th Ohio - stationed on the main line of works at the Battle of Franklin. I painted them as a veteran Federal unit with brown leather equipment and faded blue uniforms. The flags are the free Warflags, but I've touched them up a bit and added a little glue to give them that "waving in the breeze" look. This is a 20 man unit for "Johnny Reb 2".

Dismounted Rebel cavalry - I painted two stands to play test John Hill's new grand tactical ACW rules (two stands is a regiment). The remainder of the unit is on the painting table.These are going to part of Gen. Nathan B. Forrest's dismounted cavalry corps.

A recent eBay purchase - a set of 25mm Frontier Miniatures Confederates. I'll likely paint them as western Federals. I really like these old figures.

One last note: In my opinion, the best book on the Battle of Franklin is Eric Jacobson's "For Cause & For Country". It covers Spring Hill and Franklin in great detail. Highly recommended!

Take care and good gaming! - Cory

New ACW Rules from John Hill?

New ACW Rules from John Hill?

This is how I imagine a brigade of Rebs, with a supporting battery, would look deployed on the tabletop.

** 9/25/2013 I've updated this post now that the rules have been announced! The rules will be called "Across a Deadly Field" and are being published by Osprey Publishing. This is exciting news for ACW gamers! They are available now for pre-order and will be available May 20th, 2014!

Click on this link below to have a look:

Across A Deadly Field

The rumors are true. John Hill is indeed working with a major military history publisher on a new set of hardbound, deluxe ACW miniatures rules that will enable gamers to recreate large battles while still using individual regiments and batteries. John has loosely referred to the rules as a grand tactical version of "Johnny Reb III", and the gaming scales do suggest that it is almost an exact "half-sized" version of JRIII. The ground scale will be one inch equals 100 yards and each figure represents about 60 men and most regiments will be two stands. The turn time scale may be bumped up to 30 minutes per turn to accommodate longer battles - but, that is still being thought about. According to John, a key design intent is that no figure remounting will be necessary - just grab half as many stands per regiment while the battery presentation will be the same - one gun figure per battery, with the number of gunners representing the number of gun sections. At present, the new title is still not fully finalized, but one thing is certain, it will not simply be called "Johnny Reb IV", as the new publisher feels that while JR roots will be obvious, it will be important for this game to establish its own identity and following.

With the ground scale exactly halved and the figure scale doubled, this means that a battle that would take a six foot by twelve foot table, could now be recreated in half that space. So, with a little tweaking around the edges, almost all of the main Gettysburg battlefield from just north of Barlow's Knoll to just south of Big Round Top would fit roughly on a 5 by 9 foot ping pong table. I was worried that since the scale was bumped up for larger battles, the game might simply be a simplified version of JR III and that much of the detail might be "dumbed down". Well, John assured me that would not be the case, as since JR was first published, miniature gamers have become much more sophisticated and in John's opinion they can easily handle a lot more detail and complexity than twenty years ago when "Johnny Reb" was first published by Adventure Games. In fact, the new game will have more regimental and battery detail than does JR III. For example, in JR III there are only four types of small arms and five types of guns listed on the Reference Chart - though more types are covered in the rules themselves. In the new game, however, the one page Reference Chart (which seems to be a John Hill trademark), will probably have seven or eight different types of small arms and about ten different types of field guns.

How a "Two Stand" Regiment might look for John's new ACW rules.

One of the unique characteristics of all three "Johnny Reb" rules was its use of hidden order markers that when revealed gave the game a lot of suspense along with a semi-simultaneous turn resolution - and John assured me that all of the mechanics of the new game will still work fine within the traditional JR "order-marking" system - which is still his preferred system. That being said, John has noted that many gamers do not like their game board cluttered with order markers, so the new rules will also have a smoothly integrated action/reaction sequence that accommodates much the same result without the orders chits. John feels that both systems will give the gamer a realistic and playable ACW game - so both options will be presented.

Of course, the obvious question was when will the game actually be published and will "play test" kits be made available like was done for "Johnny Reb III"? John responded that the publisher has a long standing tradition of making sure that everything is presented with a very high end finish, along with a penchant for getting all the details right and they fully intend to give themselves enough time to do that - so, his best estimate is sometime next year. While it would have been nice to have it out for the 150th Anniversary of Gettysburg - the publisher felt it was better to take the time to make it a really superb product. I obviously had a lot more questions about the game, but John concurs with the publisher's desire that they want to make sure everything works as intended, before they talk too much about the game. Okay, I guess we can wait....

I'll continue to pester John about his new rules and I'll post updates as soon as I have more news!

A brigade of Rebs with a battery in support. These are pics of some of my old 15mm Old Glory figs. I'm excited about the new rules, and am thinking about staring a new 10mm or 6mm ACW project specifically for the game.

Interview with Dean West - part 2

Question 2: What can you share with Cigar Box Heroes about the early days of Johnny Reb rules development with John Hill?

During the 1960s I did not play miniatures games. However, the military board game industry emerged during the sixties and I was the first one on my block to purchase Tactics II, designed by Charles Roberts and published in 1962 by the legendary Avalon Hill Game Company. Tactics II was the first military board war game ever published. This game was too theoretical and stark for my taste, but in quick succession AH published Gettysburg, Afrika Korps, D-Day and Waterloo. I played these games extensively (learned Waterloo when on my Honeymoon in 1966).

In college, my interest in Horse & Musket warfare was far greater than my interest in studying for my classes. I read every book in the Ball State University library on the Napoleonic or French Revolutionary wars, and bought many others besides. I hoped to someday design a Napoleonic miniatures game that was heavy on tactics but still fun to play and challenging.

A Polaroid picture of a  Johnny Reb campaign game in Dean's basement 20+ years ago.

After marrying, becoming the father of twin boys, landing a job as an adjustor at State Farm Insurance Company, and graduating from college–in that order–I became interested in trains and scale model railroading. My problem was that there were no good hobby shops in the area. Late in 1969, I heard about a hobby shop only sixty miles away, in Lafayette, IN that was rumored to be a scale modeler’s dream. I took off work and hurried over there, to find that “The Scale Model Shop” was everything it was rumored to be. The proprietors of that special place were John Hill and Norris Darrell.

“The Scale” was a terrific hobby shop where a “serious” scale modeler could find about anything needed to build model railroads or war game terrain. I visited the shop often. Initially, my friendship with John and Norris was founded on mutual interest in modeling Colorado Narrow Gauge railroads. But as the months rolled by, it became apparent that we also harbored a mutual interest in war games. Soon, we were talking more about military history and less about trains. I learned that John owned his own board game company, Conflict Games. Conflict Games publications included Verdun: The Game of Attrition, Kasserine Pass, Overlord and Bar-Lev. All were designed by John (Several of these games have recently been reissued by other companies). Over the course of a year or so, war gaming, modeling, and historical research replaced model railroading as our primary mutual interest. However, our interest in very detailed model railroad scenery has been a major factor in our insistence on very realistic wargame miniatures boards. John has even taken this penchant for detailed wargame boards into his latest board and miniature game design - "Shiloh Dawn" for Pacific Rim Publishing.

A preview of the map from John Hill's latest project "Shiloh Dawn". 

Squad Leader and Johnny Reb were invented almost simultaneously in John’s basement roughly between the years 1971 and 1978. Both were developed and play-tested under John’s leadership by a dedicated group of war gamers who were also amateur historians. We even had one professional historian in the group, Professor Gunther Rothenberg (Gunther eventually wrote several well-received books on Napoleonic warfare). Squad Leader was already under design when I joined John’s gaming group sometime in 1972. We played the earliest versions of the game on John’s basement floor using Micro-Armor tanks and vehicles. Terrain was cardboard cutouts or chalked in. As the design developed, unit counters representing infantry, heavy weapons squads, and officers were introduced. The use of counters to represent infantry formations made the battles seem more realistic and interesting. An Allied player soon learned to fear the arrival on the battlefield of a column of Micro-Armor SdKf 251s with Feldgrau unit counters stacked on them.

Another 20+ year old Polaroid picture of a Johnny Reb
scenario played in Dean's basement.

 Occasionally, we needed a break from WWII play-testing, and as the Horse & Musket guy on the team, I volunteered to bring my Napoleonic figure collection to John’s basement and to host a game using my homegrown rules. By 1973, I had amassed respectable forces of French and Prussian 25 mm figures manufactured by “Der Kriegspieler”, and had hobbled together a half-assed set of Napoleonic miniature rules based loosely on the Napoleonique rules written by Jim Getz (Empire) and Duke Seifried - "Uncle Duke". Just like any war gamer past or present, I’m incapable of playing anyone else’s rules without first modifying them to suit me. John’s the same way, and so every time we played my game we made changes and found problems until finally John decided that we could do better and so John and I embarked on the design of a horse & musket miniatures game. Thus the Johnny Reb project was born. After some discussion, we decided to base our rules on the American Civil War (ACW). We decided on the ACW because we had access to tons of research material, all in English, and we could also visit the battlefields. Another reason is that it would be somewhat easier to design a game based on our Civil War because the troops and tactics were more generic. Unlike the Napoleonic Period, we would not have to struggle with the complicated problems inherent to depicting “national differences” in tactical doctrine, maneuverability, or temperament of the many European belligerents.

A picture of John Hill's "Battle of Resaca"
scenario from Historicon 1997.

Both Squad Leader and Johnny Reb were considered at the time of their publication to represent major advancements in recreational military game design. Squad Leader was published by Avalon Hill in 1977, and quickly became the best-selling military board game in history up to that time. For his achievement, in 1978 John Hill was awarded the "Charles Roberts Award" for "Best Tactical - Operational Game" at the Origins II convention. In 1980, the subscribers of Campaign Magazine selected "Squad Leader" as "the Best Game of All Time". Johnny Reb was finally published in 1983 by Adventure Games, and quickly gained great popularity among Civil War miniatures players and in 1984, John received the H.G. Well's award for Johnny Reb as "The Best Miniatures Rules of 1983".  

Play testing for the Johnny Reb tournament at Origins 1986.

If you guys are still interested, in my next submission I’ll try to describe some of the Johnny Reb mechanics that were considered innovative when the game was published twenty-nine years ago.