American Civil War Free for All (closes July 10th)

WELCOME TO TRASHDOME!

This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting (i.e. voting for) it. Please make it clear for when I check the bets later. You have until Sunday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.

To celebrate (or commemorate if you are a revisionist) the anniversary of Vicksburg and Gettysburg this week's Trashdome has five games that deal with the grand strategy of the Civil War. There are others, but these are some of the better known ones and a mix of different approaches.

American Civil War (Eagle)
A House Divided (GDW, Phalanx)
For the People (GMT)
Lincoln's War (MMP)
War for the Union (Clash of Arms)

Although you should be familiar with some of the games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;

Five games enter! One game leaves!

I can't comment on any of those titles, but having grown up a half-hour from Gettysburg, I feel that it is my duty to report:



139th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Civil War reenacting: like LARPing, but with fewer rules and more whiskey.

So you reenact the Civil War, how come you haven´t played any of these games? You more into the tactical/operational stuff?


I was 10 when I visited Gettysburg, and loved the dispaly of the battlefield with all the lights showing what was happening where. That was not something I had seen at home.

I still have a soft spot for the battle, although it's been gamed and written about to death

I'm a long-time roleplayer, but I didn't even know what boardgames - much less wargames - were until a couple years ago. I'm looking forward to hearing what people have to say in this thread so I know where to get started.

(And I totally remember that light display thing! I only saw it once, on a field trip, but I loved it too.)

I think the Electric Map has been retired. It was a history exhibit all its own and was very expensive for them to keep running.

S.

I've only played one of these games...heck, considering I'm pretty well versed in Civil War history, it is amazing I've only played A House Divided. Good---basic---not necessarily with a ton of flavor of the Civil War...but fun.

As far as maps and Civil War battles---for those of you interested Civil War Animated has a bunch of cool maps where you can grasp better how the battles unfolded...sorta like the old Gettysburg map. Check it out...pretty cool stuff. For similar (but much, much smaller map) Wilson's Creek Battlefield in Springfield, MO has a good one.

I'm looking forward to Guns of Gettysburg by creator of Bonaparte at Marengo...I hope it works.

I was at Gettysburg in May with my 8th-grade class and the electric map has been retired. The new visitors center now features a movie and something called a cyclorama which is a 360 degree artistic rendering of Pickett's Charge. We didn't see those two since they required paying for tickets and we didn't have that much time.

The only game I've played is the Eagle Games' The American Civil War. I bought it at GenCon 5 or 6 years ago and told them I was buying it for my classroom (I was), so they sold me two for the price of one and both Glenn Drover and another designer autographed them both for me. As far as the game, it's not great. For a three-dimensional model of troop movements and timeline to show my class, it's pretty nice.

SleightOfHand12 wrote: Civil War reenacting: like LARPing, but with fewer rules and more whiskey.

I used to do Dark Age re-enactment. Like LARPing but with proper metal swords

The Cycolrama is ancient as hell too and was down for restoration for a couple of years. It's one huge oil painting (in sections of course) that wraps the whole way around the audience and essentially tells the story of Day 3 as you work your way around the painting clockwise. Kind of a pre-motion pictures motion picture. If I recall correctly they struggled to keep the Electric Map up and running through the Cyclorama's restoration period so that they wouldn't be without both of them at the same time.

A lot of the covers you see on Civil War history books are excerpts of the Cyclorama, likely the most recognizable is original cover of The Killer Angels.

S.