Stripped down for parts: Brothers at War, 1862

 

Charles S. Roberts Award nominee: Best American Civil War Wargame

Brothers at War, 1862 (Compass Games, 2022) is, as the name would suggest, an American Civil War game. And I can already hear people mumbling, “Hmmm, another ACW game.” If it’s not your thing, feel free to stop reading now. Brothers at War, 1862 is a regimental-level hex-and-counter wargame by journeyman game designer, Christopher Moeller. Moeller is responsible for the Napoleon's Eagles: Storm in the East (Compass Games, 2020) and the upcoming Napoleon’s Eagles 2: The Hundred Days (Compass Games, 2022) and the subject of Compass Games’s first “proper” Kickstarter campaign, the fantasy-themed wargame Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen (Compass,  2024) which is slated. 

Moeller has a day job as an artist for the Magic: the Gathering (Wizards of the Coast, 1993) behemoth. That’s all I’m going to say about that. I now realise that he was also the creator of the Iron Empires graphic novel series which I really enjoyed reading, and which got an RPG treatment in Burning Empires (Burning Wheel, 2006); and I'm now embarrassed that I hadn’t made the connection right off the bat.

Brothers at War, 1862 is a brigade command-level game, with a chit-pull activation mechanic. I'll cover that in the review. I’ve only come to chit-pull activation games in the last four or five years, but to my mind it makes for a much more dynamic game-play, especially for tactical games with an emphasis on manoeuvre. But I’m not here to discuss the design merits of the game; you’ll just have to come back for the review. Here I want to consider the apparatus of the game, the beauty and the magnitude of what comes in the box.

The box is of 2-inch depth and sturdy construction; Compass’s boxes – at least the ones I’ve been acquiring lately, are generally pretty substantive and have a good fit without becoming vacuum-seal tight.

I Like the box-art for Brothers at War, 1862. It’s evocative while staying kind of generic, which is fair, considering the geographical separation of the battles covered in the game*. The game covers four battles from the Civil War – Antietam, Fox’s Gap, Mill Springs and Valverde – and this is declared on the right hand of the box-cover, which features a drop-banner showing portraits of commanders crucial to the actions covered in Brothers at War, 1862.

The back of the box conveys clearly the parameters of the game, declaring the scale; turns are roughly twenty minutes long, the hexes are 100 yards across, the command-level is brigade, but the pieces are regimental, so with each activation you’ll likely be ordering two-to-four counters (again, putting an emphasis on manoeuvre). The back also clarifies not only the four battles represented, but that there are at least three scenarios to play for each battle (Antietam has four).

The box-back also gives us a teaser of the map-art and the counters, with the representative counters printed to their true size (¾-inch). We’ll circle back to these shortly.

Both the Rulebook and the Scenario book are printed on nice, heavier weight gloss paper, but not too shiny, so it’s eminently readable under lights. The rules for Brothers at War, 1862 well-presented and very readable, with worthwhile illustrations clearly spelling out perennially difficult issues for tactical games like line of sight. I’ve read through the rules once – I like to give the rules a second read before I try out a full scenario – and I didn’t hit any red-flag details. If it’s presented clearly enough for me to understand out of the gate, then in my opinion the designer, developer and any editorial folk involved have done an outstanding job.

Rulebook sample page: Line of Sight examples.

All five sheets of counters printed on good grey-core stock and not too thick to fit into my 2mm radius Oregon Laminations clipper Four of the sheets are ¾-inch used for units, brigade commanders, draw chits, off-board artillery tokens and other sundry pieces. Before I go any further, I should point out that the placement of the units in the sprues is an approximation of how they were printed. As I carefully lifted out the first couple of counter-sheets, nearly all the middle counter-strips fell out of the first two or three sheets. This isn’t a criticism; they’re just very well-cut. I was surprised they’d managed to all stay in place through the box’s various shipments. But when you come to unboxing your own copy, don’t be too cavalier with the counter-sheets. You’ve been warned. There is a fifth sheet of smaller (five-eighth, I think) markers which are all so well cut, but not so that they fall out of their frame.

Union forces

The units are clearly presented, and feature two states for the unit on the front and reverse sides, rather than a step-loss. Infantry units are either formed or unformed; cavalry either mounted or unmounted, and artillery batteries either limbered (prepared for movement or unlimbered (battle-ready). The brigades are marked clearly using a common colour bar across the brigade. The identifying colour bar also appears on the battalion commander’s marker, and on the draw-chits used in the activation of units in a turn.

CSA forces and other markers.

Smaller markers.

All in all, the counters are gorgeous, and feel nice to play with. I’ve recently moved up to working with a 3mm plexi sheet – something I never saw the need for until I got it – and 25cm tweezers with a fairly broad gait, so it will be interesting to see how well they accommodate the ¾” counters.

Game maps for the four battle covered.

The maps achieve a balance between artistic merit and usability. To my mind are fairly utilitarian, but still attractive to look at and play on, not at all stark or schematic. It’s my understanding that Chris Moeller did all of the art for the project, including maps, counters and play examples for the rulebook. The guy has some serious artistic chops, but he also has the designer’s understanding of both what is necessary, and what will work in a play surface.

Antietam map. This map accommodates all four scenarios.

I’m only featuring the Antietam map here; I’ll show more detail pics when I get to reviewing the game, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it that they are all great. Elevations are shown in a colour scale and kept to a manageable four. Elevation affects things like line of sight and artillery deployment, so manageable is good. The way the maps have been prepared betray an emphasis on playability, which I can’t fault. I’m eager to start pushing around some counters. The hex-grid is a mere 14 by 20, with each hex coming in at 1½ inches, side to side. Stacking rules in Brothers at War, 1862 are two units to a hex, but this way you don’t have to stack them; you can have your units side-by-side, with all the important information available at a glance.

Set-up guides for scenarios 1 and 2.

The scenarios are presented in four chapters, coinciding with the four battles covered in the game. Each receives a brief introduction, along with some situation-specific rules for that set of scenarios. The details for the units at play are collected on the Scenario Charts for each side, for each battle. These will hep you track the regiments within each brigade as well as the other ancillary units, like independent cavalry, artillery batteries, and each brigade’s skirmishers. The cards should remove the need for some of the marker clutter inevitable in this kind of tactical game (I’ll look at this in more detail in my review).

Activation tracking and Brigade management cards.

Player Aid Cards.

Cards play a big part in the game. Brothers at War, 1862 is a card assisted game; the cards held by the player may, in a given situation let them shake off a disordered penalty, or offer an extra dice in combat. Nothing game-breaking, but it makes for a nice feeling when you’ve got the right card at the moment you need it. The deck is used for all four games, so the there’s nothing too situation-specific. The cards are of the standard I’ve come to expect from Compass Games; some might argue they’re a little on the light side, but I personally don’t have a problem with them. They are also nicely and simply illustrated, in keeping with the overall feel of the game.

Card samples.

A handful of cards are also used for managing the Off-Board Artillery. Some batteries are located on the map – depending on the scenario – while others are held off-board. The fact that they’re off-board doesn’t mean they’re immune to hostile fire; that’s where the need for BBA management comes in. While I’m talking about artillery, I want to mention something that I would normally leave for the review, because it’s a mechanical point rather than a physical one. I just want to note something because I think it’s neat. The range rating for the artillery counters may seem a little short, usually # or so hexes. That’s the effective range; long range for artillery is double the range stated on the counter, and extreme range is triple. This is the first time I’ve come across this in a game, so maybe someone else did it first, but this just seems an elegant way of managing the potential difficulties of escalating ranges in tactical artillery.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Compass game without one erratum note
slipped in before shipping. This isn't a criticism.

By everything I’ve seen here, Brothers at War, 1862 promises to be an excellent tactical simulation of four separate and diverse situations that occurred during the second year of the American Civil War. The observant reader may have noticed that I’ve persisted on using the complete title – Brothers at War, 1862 – throughout this article. It’s my understanding that Mr Moeller has stated his intention to make this into a series of games, with new additions covering other years of the war (so he presumably has at least two more in mind). I’ve used the complete epithet to, in my own small way, encourage this endeavour. Based on this one, I’d really like to see, at least, a Brothers at War, 1863 (BaW ’61 and ’64 would also be most welcome).

This has been a by no means exhaustive look at what looks to be an entertaining  and educating game; I jst wanted to share some of my excitement overt it. Brothers at War was one of my most anticipated games of 2022 even before it received a Charles S. Roberts Award nomination. I’m really looking froward to getting this to the table. I want to dive into this as quickly as I can and get a review out for you for your consideration. From everything I’ve seen – and read – of it so far, I’m left with little doubt that it will meet my expectations.

 

 

* The back box-cover noted that the cover art is actually a nineteenth-century painting, The Battle of Antietam by the Swedish-born American artist and illustrator, Thure de Thulstrup, which he completed in 1887, 25 years after the actual battle.