The picture to the right is from Ray's 6mm battle, and the gorgeous game mat comes from the fine work of Eric Hotz.
Players in two different countries, using two different scales, have sent in some great photos of their Cedar Creek games. After the break, check out the full photo galleries to see Ray & Lon's 6mm scenario in Melbourne, and Sergio's 15mm version in Rome!
The picture to the right is from Ray's 6mm battle, and the gorgeous game mat comes from the fine work of Eric Hotz.
1 Comment
As 2013 winds to a close, Altar of Freedom has been available for three months and many exciting developments remain ahead. What's on tap for 2014? Our massive Western Battles supplement, Atlanta is Ours, remains on track for a January 2014 release. The 18 largest battles of the Western theater will all be featured in this single PDF! The format of this book will be "print friendly," with white page backgrounds. Also in January, our original Eastern Battles supplement will be fully updated with "print friendly" white backgrounds and a number of errata corrections, fixing some mistakes and misprints. Our Free Downloads page has already been updated with a PDF to review the errata updates for All Quiet Along the Potomac. Back in 2012 I was gearing up for a big Shiloh anniversary game and found myself wondering what scale ships to buy to go along with my 6mm troops. The USS Tyler and Lexington famously cruised the river during the battle, lobbing shells at the oncoming Confederates as Johnston's army neared Pittsburgh Landing. The actual effect of the Union gunboats remains debatable, but any war-gamer worth his salt wants to have them on the table! And like any respectable gamer, I knew the only solution was to buy models in two scales--1/600 and 1/1200. I've posted a picture gallery here to compare the two scales. My 1/600 ships are gorgeous sculpts from Thoroughbred, while the much smaller 1/1200 models are Houston's ships, distributed by Stone Mountain. You're free to judge for yourself, but in a 6mm grand tactical game, I much prefer the size of the Houston ships. For exclusive Ironclad gaming (our club enjoys Peter Pig's "Hammerin' Iron" rules), we love using Thoroughbred. Click on any photo in the gallery below to expand into a larger image! So how do first-time players feel about Altar of Freedom? If you'd like to read a nice recap of an Altar of Freedom game written by an independent player, visit Sergio's blog, "Drums & Shakos." He played the Champion Hill scenario with two friends, and they were able to refight the entire battle in three hours--not bad for their very first game!
Sergio's blog report also offers his observations and thoughts about the gameplay. Plus, he has a great blog with lots of other games and eras you may find interesting. He kindly gave me permission to link directly to his blog, so check it out for yourself! --GRW How many miniatures will you need to play the 18 battles included in our "All Quiet on the Potomac" supplement? Great question, and we just uploaded a PDF chart to answer it in detail. All scenario requirements, including table size and miniatures, are listed in the free PDF. --GRW ALTAR of FREEDOM will be at Cold Wars this November, featuring the Battle of Seven Pines in 6mm scale. Our rules allow the entire two-day battle to be fought quickly, in under three hours, on a gorgeous 6'x4' table! Sign up at Cold Wars to play Saturday morning, or just stop by to check out the game and see if Johnston can checkmate McClellan at the gates of Richmond.... Based on the volume of emails in the first week, the most popular questions are related to 15mm scale conversions. Many Civil War gamers (myself included!) own 15mm miniatures, but this game is quite clearly designed for 6mm to accommodate big battles on modest tabletops.
Can you play ALTAR of FREEDOM in 15mm scale? Yes, you can. A game appendix discusses the measurement conversion and illustrates how I've based my own 15mm Fire & Fury troops on cardboard movement trays. Six infantry stands (24 figures) represent a full brigade of troops, which could range from 800 to nearly 3,000 men. A single gun represents multiple batteries, depending on the scenario. But to be perfectly honest, I feel strongly the game looks and plays best in 6mm (or 10mm) scale. The condensed ground scale allows you to play the entirety of Gettysburg and Antietam on a 6'x4' table. By converting to 15mm, you will require larger tables, and even then, the ground scale looks quite distorted. The game mechanics play just fine, but it demands a great deal more visual abstraction. Rifle range, for example, will appear extremely short compared to the miniatures themselves. --GRW Today is the 151st anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, and also the official release of ALTAR of FREEDOM! This feels like the culmination of a very long, very rewarding journey which began two years ago. At that time, I wanted to play a massive Gettysburg scenario for the 150th anniversary of the battle but could not find a suitable rule set to cover the entire battle in a single session of gaming. Two years and several thousand 6mm miniatures later, the project is ready for others to enjoy--hopefully as much as I enjoyed developing it. --GRW |
Archives
December 2021
|