Thunder at Dawn - The Battle of Wilson's Creek by Revolution Games

Here is the setup for the revolution Games Thunder at Dawn, the Battle of South Mountain, near Springfield, Missouri, in April 1861.  This series designed by Hermann Luttmann is fantastically simple, with only 16 pages of game rules, some brief game-specific rules, beautiful components, fog of war, and lots of challenges and decisions to make.  The system is called the Blind Swords system, and there are now several ACW games in this series.  Starting this campaign very soon!  

SPI also did Wilson's Creek in one of the S&T magazines back in 1980.  Here is a comparison, with the SPI Wilson's Creek map.  

And here is a quick comparison between the counters.  

The SPI game was one of the first in the Great Battles of the American Civil War series, and it also contained a very short rulebook and brief game-specific rules.  I am hoping to play both to compare and contrast the two.  

More to come!

Battle of Monmouth - GMT's Battles of the American Revolution

 GMT's Battles of the American Revolution is an operational/grand tactical game series of... you guessed it... various battles of the American Revolutionary War. The graphics and maps are nice, and the rule book is 16 pages.  Specific battle rulebooks are also short, with minimal additional rules.  each battle has a lot of decision-making for both sides, and some mechanics that allow for great replayability.  Below is my playthrough of the Battle of Monmouth, a 14 turn campaign game.  I have Brandywine set up and ready to go now.  

Sorry, the last slide should be game turn 14.  Game end.  

June 16th on Saipan

 Below are descriptions of the 0500, 0700, and the 0900 turns of June 16th.  As you can see, the Marines have widened their beachhead, have captured Aslito Airfield, and are in the process of clearing the southern part of the island.  By the end of the day, the southern third of the island should be cleared and the Marin es positioned to push up the island into the mountainous areas.  This will be a tough fight for the Marines as the Japanese are in rocky and rough terrain, dug in, and in caves.  

Company Scale System - the Battle for Saipan

 So I have been playing Compass Games' CSS System Saipan: The Bloody Rock.  Adam Starkweather designed this one as well as he MMP Grand Tactical Series, and both are very similar.  Both are awesome designs.  The chit pull system is the heart the game, but how to get the chits in the cup is the blood that flows.  Each division (or brigade sometimes) has a certain amount of dispatch points that are accumulated by a combination of die rolling and dispatch rating.  This rating is the measure of the ability of the division's command and control.  Sometimes you have enough points to do what you want; many times you don't. It's an interesting game system.  And the Marianas Campaign Battles, Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, are very fun to play.  Yes, the Marines will probably win.  But the Japanese have a lot to play with, and can deal some hurt on the Americans.  Here are photos of the progress of Day 1 on Saipan.  Each day has 9 turns, every two hours, from 0700 - 1700 with 2 night turns.  

Now on to day 2!  My plan for the Marines is to take the Aslito Airfield and clean up as much of the south as possible.  The Japanese must continue to fortify their fall back positions in the hills there in front of the 2 MARDIV positions.  This area will see some tough fighting over the next few campaign days.