Stripped down for parts: The Late Unpleasantness: Two Campaigns for Richmond

 

The Late Unpleasantness: Two Campaigns to take Richmond (Compass Games, 2019) is a two-game package that models the Union’s two attempts to seize the industrial powerhouse of Richmond in the Confederate heartland. In Gates of Richmond, one player controls the Union forces under George McClellan, whose efforts floundered against Robert E. Lee’s numerically inferior forces, now remembered as the Seven Days’ Battles. If It Takes All Summer picks up the story two years later, Ulysses S Grant’s overland drive southward in 1864, and incorporates the Wilderness and Cold Harbor in the overall action.

The Late Unpleasantness is not a new release, but I was fortunate to land a copy (I believe it’s still in print, but these things can be hard to find in Australia), and I thought it was only fair to share it with those of my readers who like this sort of thing.

The movement in The Late Unpleasantness is point to point, the scale in individual divisions. The difficulty is rated at 4 out of 10, and the solitaire suitability as 5 out of 10 (there is some hidden information regarding unit strengths and dummy units). 

The rules for the two games are printed in a single rulebook (for a total 36 pages in length, including front and back copies of the counter sheets, the actual rules for each game run to around ten pages, with another four pages for the scenario details).). The first half covers Gates of Richmond, and from the staples in the centre start the rules for If It Takes All Summer. While there are some variations between the game to reflect the two very different situations, the bulk of the rules are identical – the two games play out in the same manner – and reading through the whole book you will notice the high level of redundancy. Personally, I’m okay with this; I think it makes sense to duplicate the basics so you only have to read one or the other half of the book to get down to playing straight away.

The rules are very straight-forward; there aren’t many surprises here, but the game specific rules should make for a very different experience from one game to the next without too high a learning load. An experienced wargamer would be able to pop the counters, run through the rules once and be playing inside of an hour. The only thig that might slow that progress is the popping the counters part, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

The maps for the two games are more functional than artistic, but they get the job done. They each incorporate space for a turn track and to accommodate the deck of cards for the game, which make for a smaller game footprint. I can appreciate that not everyone likes point-to-point movement for wargames. I think that, at a divisional scale and given the territory covered, the decision to use point to point movement makes perfect sense in this instance.

Each location on the two maps corresponds with a town or landmark extant at the time, so the links between these correspond to the roads that divisional forces would have had to use simply to get form one battle to the next.

Terrain is reduced to the colour of the location point – white for clear, blue of a river or bridge point, and so on. Supply points for the two sides are marked by a coloured circle with a flag and a supply symbol (split white/black circle). Other terrains are singular to the battle in question, and are identified on that game’s PAC.

Each map is 34” by 22” with a portrait orientation. Neither is particularly sophisticated, so there are only a few terrain modifiers to consider when moving troops (such as river crossings). In short, the map isn’t going to get in the way of the action, except in ways that it will. Point-to-point maps tend to have natural choke-points, which often only come to light after a game or two. I don’t see this as a design flaw; it can make for some interesting challenges.

There are two counter-sheets. Each has one set of unit counters (both sides), as well as markers specific to that game. A lot of the counters are administrative markers (strength point trackers, out-of-supply markers, etc.), and these are spread over the two counter sheets. The counters are printed on reasonably good (white-core) card-stock, but the die-cutting has left them a little difficult to punch. I’d recommend using a craft knife on the linkages to ensure the counters don’t get too frayed at the joining corners. This is the one thing that might slow you down from jumping straight into a game.

The counters are 7/8”, big and readable. The unit pieces are named for their commanders and are readable, with clear numbers, and well laid out. The officers’ portraits are a little tiny, but do add some verisimilitude to the overall appearance of the counters. Being divisional level, the counter density for the game will be low, and there are no stacking restrictions (except in regard to supply wagons).

Troop strength is tracked two ways; number counters that sit beneath the unit counter can be used to indicate the current strength (the markers are numbered like strength points in block wargames, and you simply rotate the chit to indicate the current strength as it takes hits, with the current number meeting the top edge of the unit). There is also a Unit Strength Tracking chart (one each for Union and Confederate forces, double-sided for the two battles) for an at-a-glance summary of the state of the player’s forces. Apart from the component listing, the rules don’t seem to refer to the Strength Tracking sheets again, but their use seems fairly self-evident as a mnemonic device for the players.

The Players’ Aid Cards are printed on a reasonable weight of cardstock, with two for each game (one for each player). The front of each card presents a brief sequence of play, movement allowances for units, a Recon Table, the Combat Results Table and a list of modifiers, and an Effects Table for the situations peculiar to the game; the Magruder Effect (Richmond Works) for Gates of Richmond, Wilderness/Totopotomoy Effects for IITAS. The reverse side of the PACs each have a detailed Combat Sequence run-through, and a Terrain Key, listing DRMs where appropriate.

The two games in The Late Unpleasantness are card-assisted games. Each comes with its own deck for use by both sides in the battle. The cards are illustrated with portraits of the major figures from the battles and pictures from the era, and themed to events or happenings from the battles. They’re printed on good cardstock, but I’d recommend sleeving them nonetheless.

Each player starts with a hand of eight cards, and each one draws two cards in the Events phase of the round, with the Union player drawing first (ten-card ceiling; players discard cards rather than taking less on their turn). The cards can be played at any time during the round, except during continuing combat – yes, combat can go longer than the initial altercation. The cards are pretty self-explanatory regarding how and when to play, and some are down-right amusing. Some cards are suitable only for use by the Union or Confederate player, but if discarded, your opponent may play a card that allows them to rifle through the discards and take a card of their choosing, so be careful. None of the cards are game killers, but the right +2 DRM at the right time could shift the balance at a crucial point.

I truly cannot wait to try out The Late Unpleasantness. I was planning on waiting for a break in someone’s schedule to first play it with another human, but I think I’m going to have to roll it out sometime this week and play it two-handed. I’m a sucker for an ACW game and this it just too much of a temptation.