Stripped Down for Parts: Flanks of Gettysburg: Little Round Top, Culp's Hill – July 1863

 

Flanks of Gettysburg: Little Round Top, Culp's Hill – July 1863 (Compass Games, 2024) is a company-level game that looks in closer detail at the action of July 2, 1863 during the battle of Gettysburg, when Lee sought to turn and roll up the extended flanks of the Union line of battle. These two actions, both relatively small in light of the overall battle, were nonetheless significant, and could arguably have led to a reversal of fortunes if even one attack had succeeded.

Flanks of Gettysburg is a John Poniske design, and represents an evolution in his company-scale exploration of American Civil War battles, proceeded by Fire on the Mountain: Battle of South Mountain September 14, 1862 (Legion Wargames, 2022)  Belmont: Grant's Baptism of Command, November 7th, 1861 (Compass Games, 2017 – featured in Paper Wars #87), neither of which I haven’t yet got to try out, and Ball’s Bluff (Legion Wargames, 2015), which was my first experience at tactical ACW wargaming.

As usual, apologies for the poor lighting. This photo doesn't do justice
to the box art.

The first thing that strikes you about the box is the cover art. The painting chosen to adorn the front to the Flanks of Gettysburg is The Famous Charge of the Twentieth Maine 2 July 1863, by acclaimed twentieth-century American military artist and illustrator, H. Charles McBarron Jr. It depicts the famous bayonet charge by the Union forces against the hard-fighting and by then exhausted Confederate soldiers of Hood’s division at Little Round Top. The painting (actually only a partial representation, but it does deliver the point) sits below a partial map of the town of Gettysburg from the period.

Box back. It's a nice, sturdy 2-inch box.

I like Compass Games' approach to their back-of-the-box information. This hasn't always been the case, but they have exhibited a much more standardised approach to this in the most recent seven or eight games I’ve bought. The details cover the technicalities of the game, rating the game’s complexity (Medium, in this case), Time Scale (one turn is around 30 minutes of game time), and Map Scale (30 yards to a hex), Unit Scale (40-50 men here), then goes into the playability factors, including Number of Players (1-2), Solitaire Suitability (High), Average duration (2-3 hours) and Recommended Age (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wargame that didn’t suggest 14 or older).

The Rulebook for Flanks of Gettysburg is printed in full colour on a kind of half-gloss paper (not true matt finish, but not so shiny as to make it difficult to read). It technically runs to twenty pages, but the layout person has adopted the European convention of numbering from the page after the cover page. I used to work on corporate publications with a German layout and print-prep guy who always did this; it used to drive me nuts at first, but there are more worthy hills to die on*.

The Table of Contents offers the chapter numbers only, which is a tad disappointing – I personally prefer page numbers for finding a rule quickly – but I suppose it may be better to leave the page numbers off than to have references that don’t end up corresponding to the correct pages in the final publication.

Sample page from the rulebook.

On that point, I was watching the Compass Town Hall from October 3^rd, and I mentioned in the comments that Flanks was arriving that day, and Brittani-Pearl read my comment and mentioned live that I would want to download the current living rules before getting into it. Doing a quick and dirty comparison of the two documents, I can see why that could be a legitimate warning – some of the explanation have been tightened up and cross-referencing to other related rules is much more thorough, but I don’t think the rules as they stand would be unplayable. Anyone who has gamed for any length of time will have come across much more difficult-to-navigate rules-sets than this and and still managed to get a game going (insert the typical “Damn kids, get off my lawn” rant here).

I’ll just note one more thing here; the two games are essentially single scenario games. The scenario set-up details are chapters 4.0 and 5.0 of the rules (starting page 6), in a fourteen-chapter rules set (including chapters on Optional Rules and Designer Notes). This struck me as odd, but it actually makes a lot of sense, at least considering how I learn a new game. After giving the rules a once-over, I will tend to setup a game (usually the easiest scenario) and push some counters around with the rulebook open in front of me. The rules layout not only endorses this approach; it actively encourages it.

PAC (double-sided, left) and the Terrain Effects Chart and Unit legend (right).

The game comes with the following: one Player Aid Card (double sided), one combined Terrain Effects Chart and unit counter decoder, and two Set-Up Cards, one for the Union player and another for the CSA player. I’m a little disappointed with the inclusion of just one PAC to be shared between the players. It’s less impactful on me as I tend to do most of the rules-adjudication with most of my regular gaming partners, so it makes no odds.

The PAC is the only double-sided card in the package. The front incorporates an abbreviated Sequence of Play a breakdown of Firepower and its effects, a reminder about stacking (up to four Fire Points total) with examples, a reminder about Facing in the games (top counter-edge is the front and must face a hex-side square-on, either side is a flank, and the three rear hex-sides are rear and the unit cannot fire in those directions without first turning), an abbreviated table of Movement costs, and an action sequence for Melee combat. The reverse side offers instructions for Rallying unit, the uses of Officers, a breakdown of Victory Point values, and guidelines for Sharpshooter units, Headquarters chits, and for the Union player, the Engineer Warren piece, which I can’t wait to see in action.

The single Terrain Effects Chart is fine – in fact I’m surprised room wasn’t made on the map-sheets for a TEC, but that may become clearer when I actually get the game to the table The TEC also incorporates legends to explain all the details related on the various counters.

Set-up cards covering both games.

The Set-Up Cards do double duty for the two games. One end of the card serves for the Culp’s Hill scenario, while the other end serves for the Little Round Top action. At first glance, the cards can seem a little disorientating, but I think they will play well. The cards include details of when regimental chits are added to the draw cup through the course of the game. I'll come back to the draw cup and chits in a bit.

Culp's Hill map-board.

Now, to the maps. The two maps depicting the battlefields were prepared by the notable ACW cartographer and game designer, Rick Barber. Mr Barber, who passed away in 2021, knew Gettysburg well. He had rendered the landscape of the battle in map form for several games, including A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Flying Pig Games, 2022) and his own Summer Storm: The Battle of Gettysburg (Clash of Arms Games, 1998). These maps are hand-drawn, and remarkable documents in their own right.

Culp's Hill map (detail).Culp’s hill is the bigger battle of the two, with eighteen
regiments fielded across the two sides.

I’m a fan of Mr Barber’s work; he also created the map for Mr Poniske’s first company-level ACW game, Balls Bluff, and these two maps are works of art. It took me a little while to come around to his preference of colour palette, but I’ve come around to it. It highlights both sides’ counters on the board, and changes in elevation are clear without being too jarring. The starting points for regiment beginning on-board and the Objective hexes are also clearly represented on the map without being too distracting.

Little Round Top Map-board (apologies for the glare).

The maps are printed on a light card stock instead of the familiar heavy paper stock. I was a little concerned that they wouldn’t lay very flat out of the box, but they are really quite good, not needing any serious back-bending at the fold at all to get a workably flat surface, even without a plexi overlay. I believe Bill has said in a recent Town Hall that all of Compass’s unmounted gameboards would be printed on this material hereon in (leave me a note in the comments if I’ve got this wrong).

Little Round Top map (detail). The flags mark the set-up points for on-board-at-start
regiments, while the gold stars mark Victory Point locations.

The play here is a chit-pull system that lends itself well to solitaire play. Chits representing attendant regiments are placed in an opaque container (not included with the game – I use an oversized coffee mug with a rounded bottom, wide enough to get my whole hand into), and units are ordered in the sequence of their chit being drawn from the cup, when all the chits have been drawn, units ordered, and actions resolved, the round ends. The retrieved chits then go back into the draw container, along with the chits for any reinforcements appearing in the subsequent round, and the first chit for the next turn is drawn. A lot of games and game-systems use a chit-pull mechanic these days, but my introduction to this device came with Ball’s Bluff, so FoG already feels somewhat familiar.

Counter sheet 1.

Counter sheets 2 & 3.

The counters are 5/8” and both clear and attractive, prepared by another familiar artist, Bruce Yearian. The unit are identified by their colour (a lighter and a middling shade of blue for the Union and light grey and butternut for the CSA, to distinguish the two separate game sets), each with a coloured stripe under their company and regiment details to make it easier to identify their formations, while the leader sport little portraits. A nice addition is the visual historical note against some of the portraits denoting if that leader had been wounded or killed in the battle. 

Detail of Union counters, Little Round Top (pale blue, left), and Culp's Hill (darker blue,
right). Leaders and companies are marked by their matching coloured bands.

The counters are easy to read, with a single Force Points factor and a pip system for morale (most are two or three pips, with some at just one. The identifying colour band is replicated on the draw chits, making it easier to identify which troops are currently being ordered. All in all, a lot of thought has gone into making the game playable, so the functions of the play don't take away from the verisimilitude of the experience. 

The whole box and dice.

Lastly, Flanks of Gettysburg comes with enough dice to carry you through the game (eight in all, four white, four black). 

I’m a latecomer to tactical ACW games, but I haven’t yet met one I didn’t like, so I don’t think it will be long before Flanks of Gettysburg makes it to the table. Look out for a review in the next month or two (I have a bit of a back-log, but I can see this game sneaking to the front of the queue).

 

* I think this must have bugged somebody else at Compass as well because the Living Rules’ pagination begins with the cover page.