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MOVES 40

S&T 75

MOVES 47

MOVES 52

MOVES 54

S&T / Moves notes


From Moves issue 46

This appeared in Works in Progress column, page 22.

The Day of the Generals

The Day of the Generals

So far, this is the working title for our
TSS-system Antietam game. (It is, of course,
subject to change - so keep your eyes glued
to this spot.) We're still waiting for our maps
to come in from the National Archives, so
it's been OB time for the past few weeks. This is a tough "numbers" battle, as recordkeeping was not at an all-time high at Sharpsburg. The intrepid Dr. David Martin has been doing some top-level research for us, and we think we have some pretty good figures on most of the units, especially the batteries. We will probably be going to 50 men per point (instead of the usual 100 per), as there were a surprisingly large number of regiments with fewer than 100 (and even fewer than 50) men. This will bring about a
slight revision to the Fire CRT, but little else will be changed from Bloody April (out end of August) which is now the state-of-the-art TSS-system format. The Union command structure has been worked out, with a nice method for relaying - and delaying - orders. So once the maps come in we'll be all set to go.
                                                          --
Rich Berg

From S&T issue 75 (July/August, 1979)

This item appeared in Outgoing Mail column, page 35:

Antietam Creek

We at least have a tentative title for our Sharpsburg/Antietam game, as you see above. It is always subject to change - and we my yet go with "Gleam of Bayonets" in keeping with the literary trend of its forefathers TSS and Bloody April (which will be out in August). Aside from that we have suffered some minor delays in getting started, as grinding out an accurate regimental-level OB is not proving to be easy. This was a campaign in which Confederate records are not merely spotty but virtually non-existent, at least as far as our normal research techniques can discern. We are following a lead provided by one of our outside researchers, the very capable Dr. Dave Martin (whose excellent work into Gettysburg Orders of Battle will soon be available as part of the Bloody April sections on revision to TSS), and we are truing to track down an unpublished manuscript by Ezra Carman, which is purported to have good OB info. In addition to this, we are also awaiting the arrival of our Carman-Cope maps for the Library of Congress - a series of 14 giant maps depicting the battlefield and all troops situations, as well as the Bowlby revisions to that map. We have enough of a map without them to get started (using the OR Atlas), but I'm still stuck with only a 50% OB. As far as the system is concerned, we will be going with most of the revised-TSS system that appears in Bloody April, adjusted for the specifics of Antietam. Our major problems here are elevation and command control. I'm pretty sure I have the solution for the latter - a nice system which enables the Union player to control his army yet still recreates McClellan's absurd delays _ but the former is still a problem. Oh yes... because of the small size of many of the Confederate units we will be reducing the unit scale to 50 men per strength point (and adjusting the CRT accordingly). There are going to be some BIIGGGG units!!               Rich Berg                            

As you can see, Mr. Berg, wrote these before Bloody April had hit the shelves. The less than enthusiastic response to the extra chrome in Bloody April forced some delays, but by all accounts, the game was largely completed on time. But due to the crash of SPI, it would be four more years before A Gleam of Bayonets would be published! Luckily for all concerned, the GBACW project gave us lots of smaller battles to work through while we waited!

I will be putting together all the "Works in Progress / Designer Notes" articles I can find in a pdf file.

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