AAR 1

From: Richard Barber <rbarber@netrax.net>
Operational GM

Generals -

Spent the week catching up on everything that got put on hold while we ran the Op/Campaign (you know, work, sleep - the little things!) but finally got a chance to drop a line to the group at large.

First off, I want to commend everyone on a game well played!! This was the biggest gaming event that I've ever been part of, in terms of actual gamers involved, and by far the most fun! Given the logistics we all took on in trying a game of this scope, I think things went amazingly well. Everyone was involved, at least for most of the time, and all demonstrated both skill and gaming 'manners' that you don't always run into in a group so large and diverse. Whatever disagreements may have come up were quickly resolved and the game gotten on with; to my knowledge no one went home harboring any grudges or 'sour grapes' for the way in which any question was resolved.

The Tactical Judges were a lot of fun to work with, and I think did a great service by all the players. Everyone remembers it when they think they've been the victim of a 'bad call', but we often forget the reason why when things go as smoothly as they did last weekend. Jodie and Pete, as usual, did a magnificent job on the logistical and administrative side (and you Yankees should perhaps be just as glad that running the Con usually keeps him from actually rolling dice against you in 'anger'!) I just hope you all had as much fun playing the game as we had in running it - to me the picture that sums that up is of us trying to roll up the terrain at ten of twelve on Sunday, while the majority of you were still clustered at the other end of the table, with the action spilling over onto the chalk tray, furiously rolling the dice trying to get in just 'one more turn'! :-) A pleasure, gentlemen, and I hope we can do it again!

In spite of some rough edges (mea culpa, for the most part) and a late start caused by my freelance schedule of late, I think the Op/Game went well, and hope ya'll do too. I think it added an aspect of the campaign that usually doesn't enter into a tabletop minis game; I was glad to see that there were still surprises coming out of the woodwork on July 1st! In spite of the late nights at my end it was great fun seeing both of your operational plans working themselves out in front of me; the experience certainly gave me a lot of answers that I'll be able to fold into this sort of thing if we ever run it again. My big regret was that I wasn't able to get it up and running a couple of weeks earlier - then we could have run a single turn every 2 or 3 days, allowing ample time for any and all to get as 'wordy' in their communications as they'd like without anyone having to lose sleep in the process.

In spite of the hurried nature of things, however, I think that for the most part everything worked out pretty well. Both sides got a real taste of what it was like to have to operate in a situation of very limited information (about the enemy, and sometimes your own side as well!) Your cavalry gave you a slight idea of what was up, but both sides arrived on the field having essentially misjudged the other's intentions - an all too common occurrence in the 'real world', and guaranteeing that this wouldn't be just another 'same old Gettysburg'. Watching the situation continue to unfold from the 'Op/Room' was fascinating!

Now a couple of AAR observations:

First, at one time or another at least one soul on each side raised the question about whether or not elements of the opposing Army might have abused the speed limit on part of the PA Highway system, so here's a couple of things to consider: From EITHER Harrisburg OR Frederick, the distance to Gettysburg is almost exactly 35 miles! While there was some good marching by units of BOTH sides, none of it fell outside the range of historical possibility (and none matched the historical march of Sedgwick's VI Corps, which covered a similar distance in roughly similar time, and over at least initially worse roads!) I might also point out that while a single Division on the road is limited only by the vagarities of its OWN activity rolls, once you've achieved a 'Column of Corps' each Division is then at the mercy of the AR's of EVERY Division ahead of it! While there's certainly always room for movement allowances and terrain costs to be tweaked slightly to achieve even greater realism, I think they worked out pretty realistically as done.

Supply Wagons - While requiring you to keep track of at least that one Army Wagon forced you to at least mind your logistical 'tail' to that extent, were I trying to be 'realistic' in the historic rather than gameplay sense I should have deployed at LEAST one wagon on the Op/Map for EACH Division, plus a couple more per Corps (the Army level trains for each side should have taken up maybe 7 or 8 hexes alone!) This certainly might have rendered the Confederates' flank march around to the east a lot more difficult, if not impossible, but then again would have stretched the UNION Army out a LOT longer on its approach march from the south! (If you Yankees think you HAD problems getting up the Emmitsburg and Taneytown Roads as it was, consider that in SUMMER STORM, each Division on the road is represented by THREE counters - Leader, wagon and one Infantry unit - set 'em up THAT way on your op/map and see what it looks like!) :-0

The Rebs may have had their share of communications problems by being as dispersed as they initially were (both Hill and Ewell were several turns OOC with 2 of their 3 Divisions for most of the Op/game, and poor Lee had to wait about 8 hours to find out that Ewell had taken the 'leeway' granted him and attacked Harrisburg - Meade found out by VERY pointed telegraph from Halleck within a couple of hours!), but at least they didn't have Divisions tripping over each other for the most part. IIRC, old Boney had a maxim or two on the subject of dispersion vs. concentration...

Chips - Here again we have a good mechanism that 's open to unintentional abuse. I've been reading what some of you have written, and I think some of the complaints are well founded. At the very least, their use should be a bit more strictly laid out. When used properly, they add a very realistic bit of 'Fog 'o War', which is sometimes difficult to attain in a minis game. While I think you should be able to deploy a good number of 'dummies', I think it only fair that every 'out of sight' Brigade should be represented by a Chip if it's actually on the tabletop (i.e., no hiding Divisions as a single Chip!) That raises complaints about giving away too MUCH info, but may be needed as a compromise to avoid the sort of abuse possible the other way. One problem here was that while to the north the table stretched on for quite awhile, on the south edge where a lot of the action was a lot of area quite close to the action wasn't represented on the table, enabling/requiring any units that wanted to move to or through those areas to revert to the Op/Map. One possible solution would be to allow units to revert to the op/Map even if ON the table, as long as they're a certain distance from the enemy (have to be an Ump's call, that one).

DUM points. Another diamond in the rough that at least partially worked to accomplish the purpose intended. I think it forced you to consider a few things that usually don't crop up in a mini's game, and judging by your responses most of you at least liked the idea. The main problem was that it was a work in progress; Pete had adapted what I had written earlier to a 'simpler' form, and due to my arrival time we didn't get a chance to reconcile the two versions. One problem was that the number of boxes I had allowed for each Brigade was based on the size as well as morale of a brigade, while Pete's version had most effects cost the units the same number of points(which greatly benefited the larger Brigades) Most of the effects were intended to be multiplied x the unit's Brigade morale factor (BMF) which, being a function of the unit's size would have kept a lot of the effects proportional.

I think the method we used allowed units to recover (erase) those points a lot faster than I had intended, but once underway that's a bit hard to change. I also think that units got far too big a 'bonus' for capturing enemy flags, etc. Those SHOULD have been included, but as we did it allowed you to completely cancel the negative effects you were accruing, which was hardly realistic. (I don't care how many MOA's your boys may be winning, fatigue and casualties count for a lot more!)

Also, given that we simplify the bookkeeping process as much more as is possible, I think that the checking of Cohesion points should be done at least every 3 hours, not 6 or more. It was far too easy for units that should have been dropping in their tracks to keep 'fresh' only because the time to add up the points was still a turn or two away. From my experience with SUMMER STORM, I believe that once you're familiar with the process (and it was a first for all of you here) the slight amount of actual 'bookkeeping' becomes second nature, and is well worth the additional aspect of generalship it brings into the game. Any comments or suggestions are more than welcome!

In case any of you are now possibly interested in SUMMER STORM, I'll post something tomorrow about it - just gettin' too late in these here parts, Buckaroos!

-Rick Barber (Jed Hotchkiss)