Trying out American Civil War

...as my armies for DBA/M & Art de la Guerre(ADG) are all 15mm miniatures and later also the renaissance armies for DBR & DBArrr, I think you can handle all periods using DBX style rules like the extensions by the Humberside Wargames Society, or like the French vae victis rules. First I did exercise with european armies. But this year I started with a few ACW battles. It works

Well I have downloaded and printed out a paper Union and CSA army by Billy Bones from Wargames Vault. Includes scenery. Cost £5. 

I have cut out and made the Artillery, Limbers, Cavalry (Mounted) and a house. They have yet to be based. So far very pleased with the results.

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The Pictures are of union troops. I still have Dismounted Cavalry, Horse Holders, Infantry, Infantry Command, Skirmishers and Generals to do. Other scenery items include fences, walls, variety of houses, trees and a church.
Also the download includes two sets, one sized about 20/25mm as shown above and the other 10/15mm in size. 

It appears the depictions are based on old ACW sepia photographs. Not sure yet how I feel playing a wargame using photos of actual long dead soldiers! The effect is very good.

Salutations, gentlefolk !

Was in a group of enthusiastic ACW gamers a few years back - we did the 'Round Tops' scenario in _Fire and Fury_ at the Civil War Museum in Philadelphia for four years running, Fourth of July weekend. Wrote up a quick ref sheet, available at:
boardgamegeek.com/filepage/61005/fire-fury-quick-reference

F&F is brigade-level, designed for 'Gettysburg in "real time" (ie, 1 hour of the battle takes 1 hour at the game table), with a reasonably sized space and about 1 player per Union corps or Confederate division'. Problem is, there weren't that many ACW battles - Shiloh, Antietam, Chicamauga, for example - that are both big enough for the scope of the ruleset - smaller actions may come down to a lucky die roll, balanced, and not 'charging fortifications'

Johnny Reb III is regimental level, about 1 player per brigade, covers a lot of the 'minutiae' - F&F has 'artillery', with the Feds getting a +1 DRM for better ammo supply, JRIII has gun types for each battery

If you're painting up a late-war Union army (everybody wants to paint up early-war units in fancy militia units or Rebels in all shades of gray and butternut), note that:
every dye house and woolen mill from Milwaukee to Milan was making cloth for the Union (most re-enactors clothes are from the same 'dye lot' (there not being much demand these days for heavyweight wool cloth in dull light blue)), so the colors won't be strictly uniform.
Indigo is an organic dye, and if you try to overboil the vat to get more color out of the dyestuffs, the resulting cloth will have a greenish hue.
After a month or two of campaigning and 'field maintainance', the uniforms will be even less uniform.

In other words, pick up every variety of blue / dull blue / greenish blue / bluish gray in the store, and have an army of veteran Yanks.

Yours, John

(don't make me dig up all the stuf I posted on rec.games.miniatures.historical :-( )

In HFG, about how many bases make up an army? I'm debating HX, DBACW, or HFG for my ACW games. Heck perhaps using the HX 3.0 might work well. It only goes to 1850 but should be easily extended. 

Thanks Joe