Greetings from Italy

[flyingsuppo]

Greetings,

I am an US Naval Commander currently stationed in Naples, Italy, and an avid gamer.  I spent that last three years working in the Pentagon, developing new concepts for Naval sustainment. During my time there, I had the luxury of working with the fine strategists at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), and was introduced to historical war games.  I dabbled with miniatures prior to working with CNA, such as FFG's X-wing and Imperial Assault (IA) board games.  I still enjoy those games very much, but I'm almost done painting my inventory of IA miniatures, so I want to embark on a new adventure/project.  I've decided to star my journey into historical miniature wargames by focusing on the American Civil War since I have always been enamored by political factors thats shaped both armies. 

I would appreciate your recommendations on how to get started in this new hobby.  I'm not sure how many miniatures I should get or what equipment I will need in order to host my first game.  I will need enough figures to field both sides of any engagement since there are not any miniatures clubs in my area.  I'm leaning towards purchasing Fire & Fury's Regimental or Pickett's charge rules, but am open to suggestions.    I would prefer a set of rules that would allow gameplay with minimal setup as my family and I are living in some tight quarters.  My hope is that I will purchase a large game table once my family and I return to the US, so I may be able to expand my collection/capabilities in the future.  But for now, I need to plan to play with limited space. 

All the best,

CDR D. Lovgren

[fsn]

Hello.

Nice to have some class in the forum. Sometimes I feel sooo alone.

I don't do rulesets - I write my own - but I'm sure you will set off a nice debate.

ACW is a great period to start with, it's my "go to".

Time to get painting! There are skilled brushmen on here who can give you lots of good advice. My advice, work out your own style. There will be those who advise priming in white, some will say black, and some will say grey.

Good luck. Please post photos of your efforts.

[Ithoriel]

Welcome to the forum!

An impressive résumé in any circumstances and especially apt for a forum such as this.

I've not played an ACW game for decades but have been tempted by the "Bloody Big Battles" rules, by Chris Pringle, which aim to fight major engagements without needing a ballroom to set up in and which cover the period.

Chris is a forum member and hopefully will be along later to tell us both why we should be using them!

[fred.]

Welcome Commander!

10mm Pendraken figures are a great choice for gaming in a smaller space. You can still get enough figures together on a base so that it looks like a unit of troops. Quite how many figures you need does depend somewhat on the rules. But it is worth noting that nearly all rulesets can easily be adapted to use smaller bases and shorter move distances and ranges.

The Pendraken army packs are a good way of starting a project, they give you a range of figures (infantry cavalry, guns and commanders) which you can easily add to in the future.

Equipment depends on the rules, but dice and tape measure are always needed, and often some markers are useful (these are very dependant on the rules). Terrain is also important to give that look to the battle. From what I have seen of ACW battles, trees, fences and hedges seem key, with not too many buildings needed. Here 10mm is a good choice because terrain is not too bulky.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Hello and welcome

[T13A]

Hi

Welcome to the (sometimes) madhouse Commander!

The ACW is a great place to start with miniatures and the Fire and Fury rules is one of my favourite rule sets. That said they do take up a lot of space to lay them at their best and you need a lot of figures which may not suit your current situation. However have a look at this blog for some ideas: http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2020/02/01/playing-brigade-fire-fury-2nd-edition-in-10mm-i-did-it-my-way/

If you fancy having at look at computer generated rules for figures try these: http://carnageandgloryii.com/   The author is based in Connecticut.

Good luck.

Cheers Paul

[mmcv]

Welcome! Lots of new faces this week. Good to have you on board.

ACW is definitely an interesting one. A good thing to consider is what scale of game you want to play. E.g. do you want to play out small actions between a few different regiments or huge battles between corps.

Bloody Big Battles is a good one for 19th century warfare and has many free scenarios for ACW. I've played the Gettysburg one and found it very enjoyable. It gives you a very much grand scale of the whole battle on a 6ft by 4ft table (though could be trimmed down a bit if needed).

Black Powder is another popular ruleset for gunpowder eras and has a "Glory Hallelujah" supplement aimed at ACW battles. It can be quite flexible for different table sizes as can easily reduce the movement distance and unit size to fit a smaller space.

I've not played any of the ACW specific rulesets myself so will leave that to others to recommend.

As far as starting your first game, I'd suggest starting small. It's all too easy to plan a massive project and take forever to get anywhere with it. Might be sensible planning a small action with maybe 6-12 units per side (depending on the rules) and put that together first then expand from there. That way you have enough to put on some small games and then decide from there where you want to go with it.

The army packs can be a good place to start giving you a mix of units to experiment with without having to plan out exactly what you need up front. That way you can experiment with how best to base the units to get the look and size you want without ending up with a huge mountain of lead to work through!

[Leon]

Welcome to the Forum Commander!

[Chris Pringle]

Welcome aboard, sir!

Since my "Bloody Big BATTLES!" ruleset (BBB) has been mentioned, I feel obliged to say a bit about it. It's been used in classes at the US Naval War College - maybe that's a recommendation?
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2017/01/wargaming-at-us-naval-war-college.html

You say you want minimal setup because of tight quarters. That could be a reason NOT to get BBB, or at least, not to use it for the big battles with richly detailed terrain (Gettysburg, the Wilderness, etc). These all fit on a 6'x4' table but demand a respectable-sized collection of hills, woods, roads, buildings etc. An alternative is to draw or print a battlemat which is then easy to roll out and pack away, but that also takes some time and effort to create.

However, there are quite a few small scenarios freely available from the BBB group on groups.io. Shiloh is surprisingly small - about 3'x2' - and wouldn't be too hard to do a custom battlemat for. Then there are smaller actions like First Bull Run, Champion Hill, Cedar Creek ... feel free to join the BBB group and check out the scenarios.
https://groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles
They'll also tell you how many troops you'd need for a game. (Unit strengths are given in 'bases'; a 1" base would probably hold 4 to 6 10mm figures, depending on the figures and your aesthetic preference.)

Lots of reviews quoted on the BBBBlog:
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/search/label/Review%20of%20BBB

Plenty of good rulesets out there. Good luck finding one that suits your taste and your situation.

Chris

[jimduncanuk]

Hello Commander

If space is a premium for you there are a set of rules entitled 'Portable xyz' for a number of periods by a chap called Bob Cordery.

Typically they use a small number of small sized castings, 10mm or 15mm and a small gridded (like a chessboard) with simple rules.

An example is here.

http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2020/11/waiting.html

Bob has a number of books covering his varied periods which are available on Amazon and such.

Worth a look.

Jim

[FierceKitty]

Welcome aboard, and please call in at the Capodimonte on my behalf!

[Jonny]

Hello!

Can't really offer any advice myself, but I look forward to seeing how your projects go.

Jonny

[Techno II]

Welcome Commander.

Cheers - Phil.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Welcome sir, Rule 1 - ignore FSN - Nobby

[Leman]

Welcome to the forum. I too would highly recommend both Bloody Big Battles and also Altar of Freedom (available from Little Wars TV - also do a variety of wargame related videos on You Tube) for rules which allow the largest battles of the war to be recreated in a relatively small area. Peter Pig produce a good set of rules for the river and sea actions called Hammerin' Iron, using 1:600 models, land unit blocks, terrain and other accessories. Incidentally a number of us use 6mm buildings with 10mm figures and here I would recommend Total Battle Miniatures and Leven Miniatures.

Andy

[paulr]

Welcome aboard Sir

Plenty of good advise already, 6mm buildings with 10mm troops is particularly useful when working with limited space. You can have several smaller buildings in the space that 1 opr 2 10mm scale buildings would need

Little Wars TV has just started a series on Wargaming for beginners which may be very well timed for you, it is aimed at the Viking era but a lot will translate directly to ACW

Feel free to ask any specific questions you may have, the friendly bunch here will happily come up with multiple contradictory answers

[flyingsuppo]

Everyone,

Thank you for your suggestions and recommendations.  I'm impressed by the quantity of responses I have received in a very short period of time.  Your welcoming comments and insightful assistance has made me realize that this group is truly special, and I am glad to be a part of it.  I look forward to researching Bloody Big Battles, Altar of Freedom, and Portable xyz further.  I also plan to subscribe to Little Wars TV. 

Just another quick question: I noticed that there are miniatures in different poses, to include charging and shooting.  Do I need an equal number of bases in both poses?  Will I be swapping them out during gameplay based on their actions? 

Thanks again for the warm welcome.

[mmcv]

You could go for different poses and swap them out but I suspect that way madness lies! The poses are more to give you variety for the aesthetic of your units. Generally rules won't dictate figure poses, they'll be more concerned with representing formations with number of bases or status markers.

As far as figure poses go it's more a case of how you wish to represent them, some people like having all the troops in a single pose, whether it's in action or at rest, while other people like a dynamic mix for variety.

Historical wargaming tends to be quite flexible and forgiving to the gamer given the vast range of figures available in different sizes and encourages more of a DIY attitude than you would find in game sets from a single manufacturer.

A good first step would be to look through a few rules (and find videos on them if possible for a taste) as that'll help decide how you want to put your armies together, e.g. how many bases do you need per unit, what formations need to be represented, how many units a side for a standard battle.

A lot of rulesets are aimed at bigger figures and spaces so don't necessarily be deterred of a ruleset requires 300mm wide bases and an 8ft table, quite often there'll be means to scale that down to reasonable kitchen table sizes as well. What size of table do you think you'll have to play on?

[sean66]

Welcome Commander.
if you are just starting out both time and space will be limited.
if you download the rules below they are a quick and easy 4 page ruleset for the ACW.
http://www.oldgloryuk.com/data/free_rules_downloads_pdfs/simple_acw_rules_for_regimental_level_games.pdf

This will help you to.
1 decide if its the way you want to go (with minimal cost)
2 decide on the figures you'll need (the rules are for 40mm figures but with 24-28 miniatures a unit. (so a bag of miniatures will give you the unit, and a command bag will give you enough figures for 2-3 units command).
so a good starter place would be 2-3 units each side and a few small artillery pieces either side. I'd wait to get cavalry and start building up your forces till you have decided
that you are interested enough to move the project to a bigger project (this will happen trust me)
Quick terrain can be simulated by using matchsticks as snake fences (I know out of scale but for a start )
also because you are in Europe you can go the VAT free option on the website (just remember to put your civilian address down not your APO. otherwise your figures will take a journey to US first before coming to you.
Regards
Sean

[Orcs]

Welcome to the forum Commander.

I generally use Black powder with the Glory Halleluiah supplement. That way you only need 3 bases for a standard unit or 4 for a large one.

However i like the original Fire and Fury rules so have based my 10mm using Fire and fury base sizes (5 infantry or 2 cavalry)and then got Leon to supply Sabot bases so I can use them with my friends Black Powder armies that are based on 30mmx 30mm squares.

Army packs are a good deal to start off with. If you know the bases sizes you want Leon can supply those at the same time. He will also produce Custom sizes if you need them. the ACW range has been redone recently and is lovely.