Civil War Express (2009)

Civil War Express is a strategic level game of the American Civil War. While designed to be completed in less than one hour, players will find most of the crucial elements of the conflict contained in the rules. The complexity level is low to moderate with the intention of making the game more accessible to new wargame players.

Civil War Express includes rules for leaders, the Emancipation Proclamation, conscription, European diplomacy, blockade runners, cavalry raids, the occasional political crisis, supply, railroad movement, fortifications, the 1864 presidential election, and naval expeditions. All of this history packed into just 60 minutes of fun!

The game uses a simple differential (+1, +2, etc.) battle system with plenty of opportunities for both sides to attack and maneuver. The playing pieces represent army units and cities. The terrain tiles depict the area from Florida to Missouri and the Rio Grande to Baltimore. Special movement rules cover mountains, invading the North, and the limited transportation network in the Trans-Mississippi region.

An expanded 2nd Edition is now being playtested.

The original version of Civil War Express was a Do-It-Yourself game that used some components from Settlers of Catan and an ordinary deck of playing cards. The expanded "2nd Edition" uses specially crafted components.

The size of the original prototype was limited by the number of hex tiles available in Settlers of Catan. I have decided to expand the number of hexes (and increase the number of army units available to both players) to fully develop the potential of CWEx.

Unfortunately, this change will make it impossible to play the new version using just the stuff from a single copy of Settlers. I intend to include a paper game board, a set of scoring markers, and a full set of cards with each "2nd Edition" playtest kit. The playtesters will only be required to provide their own wooden (or plastic) army tokens.

These changes will actually help to reduce the complexity level of the newest version. The expanded version will have a shorter instruction booklet and streamlined rules. Many of the slightly "clunky" mechanics will be removed (partly due to the format change) and the game will be less fiddly. In addition, I plan to incorporate many of the suggestions offered by the playtesters. These changes will make the game easier to learn and easier to play.

This CWEx microbadge is now available.