Currently learning...

[Bison]

I had to box up all of my board games for a move.  However I've left out South Mountain, Advanced Squad Leader SK1, and Combat Commander Europe.  My plan is to focus primarily on South Mountain.  The ACW brigade series has long interested me, but I went with the advice of some MMP play testers at Prezcon and picked up South Mountain.  It has both the Brigade and Regimental series rules.  And I was told that the Brigade series has run it's course and the Regimental series is the next focus of ACW battle games.

[GJK]

The CW Brigade Series itself won't see any new games (many of the originals can still be had for cheap).  I've never played the RSS (Regimental) games which are very similar except for the scale of course.  South Mountain looks to be a good one since it is only a single map.  The others in the series have 3 or 4 maps and are just much too large for me.   

The Brigade level ACW games from Dean Essig aren't dead though - he's revamped the rules a bit and now calls it the "Line of Battle" series.  None But Heroes (Antietam) is the first in the new series and Gettysburg is being playtested now.  I have NBH but haven't had a chance to play it yet.  More info on it is here:

http://www.multimanpublishing.com/Products/tabid/58/CategoryID/25/Default.aspx

Check out the CSW folder for it (if you do get a copy), Dean has posted v2.0 of the rules there (still in "beta" but nearly final).

SK1 would be a good one to get into (you probably know that I rather enjoy ASL(SK)).  I have two scenarios from MMP that I'm playtesting this weekend for the SK's (new scenario pack in the works). 

CC:E I owned but gave to a buddy of mine.  I'd had it for years (unpunched, never played) and hoped to get to it some day but he was much more anxious than I was so I passed it along to him.  I've heard great things about that series of games and would still like to give it a try some day.  Let us know if you get around to it.

[Bison]

I sat at the play testing table for Gettysburg for several hours. That thing is a beast of a game.  I think the map was around 4' X 4'.  Of course there are different scenarios that are focused on different parts of the map.  It was really nice talking with the guys about Line of Battle series and the differences between the Brigade and Regimental games.  They were very helpful and full of information.  The nice thing about South Mountain is a few things.  It comes with both the Brigade and Regimental rule sets, so it can be played with both.  It's scale is a good learning scale smaller map and two smaller forces.  The counters for both armies take up less then one counter sheet.  Now of course MMP lists it as medium difficulty, but there are a lot of nuances within the rules to learn.  The other selling point for me is that the series is rated high on the solo play side, so that works out great for me. 

[bayonetbrant]

Please let us know how it plays and how you work your way through the rules.

That said, it's probably in a "0% chance of buying" pile for me, mainly b/c I have no interest in ACW games...

[TheCommandTent]

And we want pictures!

[Bison]

Made it through the first few pages of rules last night.  Holy crap if this is moderate complexity my brain might explode if I ever encounter high complexity.

[bob48]

Interesting stuff Bison, since I've been looking at these games. I was a big fan of the old SPI 'Great Battles' series, and of those, the Sharpsburg game was the best. Its a battle that has always facinated me.

The first game in the series was the battle of Kernstown, and was published in S&T mag. This is the game that really got me hooked on the ACW. Hard to believe that is was some 40 years ago that it was published.

[LongBlade]

Made it through the first few pages of rules last night.  Holy crap if this is moderate complexity my brain might explode if I ever encounter high complexity.

I thought I dropped enough hints at PrezCon. Any rank GMT gives a game needs to add +5 for complexity.

[Bison]

Well it's a MMP game, but the same rule should be applied only multiply it by 10.