Chattanooga, 1863

On Sunday myself, Dave, Greg and Phil spent an enjoyable 4 hours playing the 1863 battle of Chattanooga using the Altar of Freedom rules. For those not familiar with the rules, they are as set we found several years ago when we embarked on ACW and are specifically aimed at 6mm, where I base of figures represents a brigade. We use bases of circa 30 infantry or 9 cavalry as a Brigade, albeit in most games cavalry are fairly non-existent.

The rules themselves are quite short, running to just over 15 pages of the rulebook, and some of these pages contain illustrations and period quotes so the actual rules are even shorter. They are meant to be played using historical scenarios and are supported by two scenario books. These contain maps and full ORBATS for the battles, plus markers for all the units and generals involved listing the unit strengths and the character strengths or flaws of the Commanders. This is a great help to actually setting up a game plus it makes each game unique and challenging.

As well as the normal nuts and bolts of movement, firing and close combat the rules contain several innovative mechanisms which really set them apart from other rules. Commanders all have a number of “priority points” based on their historic battlefield effectiveness. These are allocated to their various Divisions and during a turn Divisions move according to the allocation of priority points. If you want to go first allocate a high number but then risk other units not going that turn. Linked to this is the “turn clock”, which dictates the pace of the battle. Each turn the “turn clock” is reduced as each “priority point number” is activated, and when the turn clock reaches zero the turn ends. Each side can adopt different strategies for the turn clock depending on their set battlefield objectives or simply the tactical situation during the turn.

We have now played the rules several times and are finally beginning to understand their subtleties. Playing the Union on Sunday Dave and I came onto the table from the North and West and had to either break the Confederate morale or take the Rossville in the south-east by the end or turn 9. We had a preponderance of troops but close terrain to fight through and seemingly never quite enough priority points, but that does force hard decisions to be made. By the end or turn 9 it was a close-run thing. We hadn’t managed to take Rossville but with a final attack we did manage to take a Divisional HQ and break the Confederate morale, winning by the skin of our teeth.

After our first run-out with Altar of Freedom where some people tried to micro-manage units, we have now pretty much got the hand of them and realise that although individual Brigades do fight the results are often fairly inconclusive at Brigade level with the overall strategy of Army and Divisional command being the battle-winning factor, just as it should be!

The models in the photos are all Baccus figures with Leven Miniatures buildings.

Simon