Command Post Games is giving away 1 FREE Pub Battle game (your choice either Brandywine, Little Bighorn or Marengo) to 3 wise and lucky contestants. You can find a copy of the Quickstart Rules and Tutorials on how to play on the Brandywine pages but you do NOT need to know the game to participate or answer the question.
Pub Battles is a fast, simple, musket era game that emphasizes command decisions. It can be played in teams with only delayed, written communication during the game between players. This question is based on a real situation that came up in one of our games!
Situation
The beginning of the battle of Antietam, Sept 17, 1862, 5:30am. Assume historical starting positions.
You are in command of Hooker’s I Corps with 1 battery of artillery: The Blue Union Army, the 4 right most blocks. No one else has moved yet. Your Corps is first up to move.
You are playing in a team game. The only communication allowed with other players is through written messages that suffer a 1 turn time delay before you can read them.
Your starting orders read:
“March SE down the road to attack the enemy at Mercerville.”
The Question
Mercerville is to your right and directly West. Marching SE is in the opposite direction. What is your best course of action?
Answers
- March SW and attack the 2 Confederates to the West near the river. (far left)
- Write a letter to President Lincoln, asking him to remove McClellan from command for incompetence and give the Army of the Potomac to you.
- March West into Mercerville and then await further orders.
- Release the Hounds.
- March SE and attack the Confederate position just south of the East Woods. (far right)
- Invite your staff to join you in a relaxing game of croquet.
- Make no moves. Send a written request for clarification of your orders & hold your position until you hear back.
- Give the messenger your personal compass and tell him to take it to McClellan.
- March SE and attack the Confederate position in the West Woods. (center)
- Advance and attack all enemy positions at once.
- Sigh and open a new bottle of whiskey.
- Other? -describe
How to Enter
Simply email your answer to: god[AT]commandpostgames.com
Rules
You may only answer once.
Employees and relatives of employees may not participate.
Answers will be reviewed by an independent panel. All best / correct answers will be put in a pool and randomly pulled to determine winners.
International contestants are welcome.
We will send the winners a FREE Pub Battles game. The games do not include measuring sticks. We do ask you to pay shipping. We will send you a PayPal invoice for this.
Entries must be received August 11th through 31st, 2017.
Great offer! I’m doubtful I made a wise decision on my answer but I’m crossing my fingers to win this contest. Games look beautiful and interesting. I’m considering purchasing Antietam. Are these games good for solitaire play? When will the contest be decided?
We have complied the results and randomly selected winners! We’ll announce this soon in a new blog. 🙂
Solitaire Play
Cons
-There is some hidden intell with the blocks. You’ll have to try to pretend you don’t know what those blocks are sometimes and move accordingly. This is pretty minimal as usually you know what they are or it doesn’t matter too much. You also move by Commands in random order, so it is easy to forget about everybody else and just focus on that Command while moving.
-You have to try to forget what the other sides plan or strategy is but you have to do that with any solitaire play right?
-The random turn order helps in some ways. In another way it almost makes it hard. Every pull changes things. It can be a challenge trying to keep your strategic focus in a game just watching your side. Trying to keep both sides in your head at the same time can easily become brain overload. This happens in real command though. All the rapidly changing reports and intell can quickly bury you in analysis paralysis. Or have you constantly chasing your tail and putting out fires. Always responding rather than thinking ahead, establishing an initiative and force the enemy to respond to you.
Pros
-The random nature of the Chit Pull results in many chaotic battlefield situations. This creates a strong story narrative of the battle as events unfold. This is very good for solitaire play. It is often fun just to play to see what happens. It’s like watching a movie in some ways. You can imagine what would be happening in those units blow by blow that resulted in that situation.
-Maybe you had a plan with the other side but now the random Chit pull changes all of that. Now you don’t know what you are going to do with them. That’s good. Now you can just play this side. When it comes around to the other side, it is a new situation that you have to work out.
All in all, I think this game is very strong in solitaire play. That said, we have tried hard to keep the complexity down so that it is easy to find opponents. It works well with Multi-player team play also.
What was the best answer ?
I should have chosen the 7s :”Make no moves. Send a written request for clarification of your orders & hold your position until you hear back.”
May be McClellan didn’t know confederate were in force deeper in south, that they were in position between the potomac (up the hill, east of north woods) and Dunker chapelle.
Because I can’t attack by my self the entire confederate army.
Because I should be support by other corps which i do not know yet
Because the orders show that Macclellan clearly misunderstand the north situation.
Mat, Awaiting orders.