A Second Look at Mark Herman's Rebel Yell: Chancellorsville

Back in July, I posted here on my first thoughts about Mark Herman's much discussed ACW game, Rebel Fury, published earlier this year by GMT.  It's a fairly simple, divisional level game that covers six battles:  Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, The Wilderness and Spotsylvania.  The mechanics are very similar to Dan Fournie's ancients game, Baetis Campaign, published in C3i magazine earlier this year and reviewed here.

Chancellorsville (henceforth referred to as Cville) uses the same map as the solo introductory game, Fredericksburg, which frankly was not a lot of fun.   Cville promises more sport for the Union as half the federal forces begin on the south side of the map, at Fredericksburg,  under Sedgewick, while the other half enter from the north map edge under Hooker.   The Union has the initiative for two turns, as per the game's Turning Movement rules, but after that the Confederates inevitably get to move first because of their superior generals, Lee and Jackson. 

Playing solo, I found it posed an interesting challenge for the rebs:  how many divisions should I pull out of the entrenchments across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg to send north to try and stop Hooker?   In my solo game, the answer was just enough to slow the Union forces on either end of the map.   As you can see below, the Union came close to their victory conditions, establishing a road route from south to north that is entirely more than two hexes removed form any Confederate unit, while likewise clearing the rail line south from Fredericksburg from Confederate influence.    I got close, but not close enough.

However, if you look at the little red cross "Casualty" markers in the photo below, that is history repeating itself with a vengeance, as both Jackson and Lee became casualties, or at least enough of their HQ staffs to render them hors de combat.  Herman has a clever rule whereby one can use a commander's combat rating, called "battle stars", to influence a fight, but there is a good chance that the commander will become a casualty.   As the Confederate player, one has to resist the temptation to use the commanders in combat roles.   For the Union player, at least in this scenario, Sedgewick and Hooker have less ability to influence a combat outcome, so it's best leaving them in maneuver mode so they can enable their units to cover more ground, and for the Union, maneuver, as I learned, is the key to success.  

Judging by this podcast, not everyone is sold on this system, but I like what I've played of it so far, and I would be interested to retry this scenario to see if I could manage a Union victory.  

Rebel Fury offers beautiful maps, well produced components, and an intriguing variant on the IGO / UGO movement mechanic.  Definitely worth a look for ACW boardgame fans.

Blessings to your die rolls,

MP+

First Look at Rebel Fury by GMT and Mark Herman

Hello friends:

Not a lot of activity here due to time constraints but the gentler pace of summer beckons, I devoutly hope.   Some gaming and painting happening nevertheless.

Recently I had a chance to open and play a recent tabletop game purchase, Rebel Fury: Battles of the American Civil War by legendary designer, Mark Herman, and published by GMT Games.   It promises to be the first in a series of games using the same rules and mechanisms.  It's a somewhat abstract game, at divisional scale, but with an interestingly fluid turn sequence rather than the traditional IGUGO approach.

I only had the chance to play the introductory scenario, Fredericksburg, using the solitaire rules, which is basically a chance to learn the basic game system and not have a good time as the Federal player.  

Here's the initial setup.  The glossy counters on the river are the pontoon bridges.   Most of the Federal force is well back and the limited number of turns (four if I recall) mean that the Union divisions will be committed piecemeal.   In the solitaire rules the Confederates don't move, they just sit in their entrenchments and blaze away.  It's a stark realization of what a foolish battle plan this was.

The game uses a fairly conventional ZOC mechanic which can favour the attached if the attacker can get a supporting unit into the same ZOC as the defence, which can work in the first attacks if the Union is lucky with die rolls.   Here French and Getty were able to dislodge one of McLaw's units and force their way onto the Heights.   However, in most of the attacks, when one attacker is destroyed or forced to retreat, its adjacent friends have no support and their attacks will inevitably fail.

At the end of the game, the Union had two divisions inside the Confederate positions, which was a better result than I expected, but the US needs five units inside the Confederate lines to win the game.

I replayed the game without the solitaire rules, which gives the Union more freedom of maneuver, but it's hard to outflank the Confederates because in the two-player scenario they get extra units which can enter the map from the south and fill in the lines.   So other than learning the combat mechanics, the Fredericksburg scenario is as much fun as a root canal.  Even so I liked the mechanics, and found the combat resolution quite simple once I mastered the basic system of modifiers.   There is command and control, but it's not overly constraining.   Herman's basic idea here, I think, is to help players understand what brittle instruments Civil War armies were.  Divisions can burn out quickly and players should husband their forces for decisive strokes and broad flanking maneuvers.

I look forward to playing the Chancellorsville scenario using the same map, it promises to be much more interesting.

Blessings to your counters,

MP+

Finished First Playthrough of Burma: The Forgotten War

I’ve finished my first solitaire play through of Mark Herman’s Burma: The Forgotten War from C3i Nr 35.  Here’s a quick look at how this game and it’s Empire of the Sun system is card driven.   Both sides get four cards in each of the four turns, but at the start of Turn 4 the Allies get a US B29 unit and through a successful Strategic Warfare turn have reduced the Japanese hand to three cards.   Of these, the best card is Col Tsuji, which if used as an Event card gives Japanese land units a boost but doesn’t allow any of the (still substantial) Japanese air units a boost.   The other two cards, if used as Offensive Cards rather than events, don’t activate that many units (the large number top right hand corner plus the HQ value of 1).

On the other hand, the Allies get four cards, all of which can be used as Events, in which case the number of units activated equals the Logistics value in the text of the card plus the HQ value of 1.  So the Allies can punch hard against the Japanese in the last turn.

And the final result at close of play.  The Allies have totally broken the Japanese lines.   One Japanese air and land unit at the top right is isolated and out of supply,  and their are only two Japanese land units left defending Rangoon.  The Burma road from Jarhat in North India can be traced all the way to Kunming in China, India is militarily safe (though politically a little wobbly) and China is still very much in the war, so one the Victory Points are added up, it’s an Allied decisive victory.

Somebody on Twitter (I refuse to call it by E Muskrat’s name) quipped that game designers are too fond of the word “Forgotten” but truth be told this is the only WW2 game I’ve ever played on the Burma campaign.  I have an MMP game on Burma which I haven’t tried yet, but I think that has a crunchier land war focus, whereas Herman gives you a good sense of the limited options available to the Japanese and the limited resources the Allies had to prosecute this theatre.   In another game I might explore the Chinese subgame more, where the Japanese can just defend on the map and use more cards for Chinese offensives (abstracted) which can drive down China’s ability to stay in the war and thus possibly yield more VPs.   Any Japanese cards that can be played to destabilize India are also worthwhile, as that does limit Allied replacements for their land units.

Good to play a hex and counter game again.  I recently purchased Mark’s South Pacific: Breaking the Bismarck Barrier 1942-43 game (C3i Nr 30) which also used the Empire of the Sun system, and now that I know the EoS mechanics I can give it a try before I try the big game.

Cheers, thanks for reading, and blessings to your die rolls.

MP+