Battle-Cry (1961)

One of the American Heritage Command Decision Strategy Games, highly prized by collectors.

This one is the American Civil War game. Each side has 22 pieces (10 infantry, 10 cavalry and 2 artillery), and the starting positions are fixed. The grid is square, with no diagonal movement allowed. On your turn, you roll two dice for movement, resulting in between 2 and 12 movement points to allocate. Infantry moves 1 per pip, cavalry and artillery 2 per pip (a one-square move still consumes 1 pip). Mountains force pieces to pause (they must stop until the next turn). Railroads link stations and can be used to accelerate movement (one station per pip).

Combat is handled by lining pieces up (horizontally or vertically) to face (or flank) an enemy column. You must have battle strength superiority to resolve the battle, and this is done after movement is concluded. Infantry and artillery have combat strength 2, cavalry has combat strength 1. The rear piece then jumps to the other end of the combined columns, and the entire enemy army is removed. To be used, cavalry must have a piece at the front; artillery, if at the rear of your column, eliminates the enemy army without jumping. Artillery cannot attack by itself. Double jumps can happen, if the jumping infantry piece ends up facing a lone cavalry. An open square must exist to jump to, so some map deployments are "safe" --but not against artillery. However, pieces trapped so they cannot move are also removed as if they had lost a battle, so this strategy can backfire.

You win by completely eliminating the enemy army --but a player may concede earlier when a loss becomes unavoidable. The four player game splits command of each army in two, and is played in partnerships.

A really good game, combining a historical theme with rather abstract mechanics.

The key to the game system is east-west travel by rail. The key city is Louisville, Kentucky. Control of this point on the board allows troop movement by rail not only from east to west and back but also permits invasions quickly, especially in the hands of Confederate forces. Use die rolls early to move Infantry to points on the line in the South and keep Artillery near mountain areas if you are the South. There is an advantage to the Confederacy due to the presence of defensive mountains in Tennessee near the Louisville, Kentucky rail junction. The North is not in positon to come down with forces in strength quickly enough and with average die rolls the South has a small advantage here in what would ordinarily be a very balanced game. A competent confederate player can use his western forces to mop up the Union Army in the west and take what is left of the Confederate Western forces to flank attack Union troops grouped together in the east through Pennsylvania, while remembering at all times to maintain control of Louisville. All attacking forces should never be grouped together. They should be in the area so that an average roll of seven would line them up for a successful attack. This discourages the enemy from attacking or taking a risk due to fear of a counterattack.