A shot of the scenario on turn one.

“Across A Deadly Field” (ADF)  is John Hill’s new set of grand tactical American Civil War rules that will be  published by Osprey. They are scheduled for release this July and will make a great addition to any ACW gamer’s collection. .  The scale is one inch equals 100 yards (two inches in 25mm) and each figure represents 60 men, and each turn represents 30 minutes.  A battery is represented by one model gun on a base with each crew figure representing a section. These rules were designed to fight large scale sweeping actions, where each player can handle multiple brigades or divisions, but still leave room for regimental detail and impactful small actions. With you ADF you will be able to refight the big battles on your table top like Shiloh, Chickamauga and Gettysburg, but still feel all of the glory of the 20th Maine’s charge at Little Round Top!

I’ve been a “Johnny Reb” fan for years, having cut my teeth on Adventure Games’ “Johnny Reb” back the 80’s. I’ve watched the game evolve from the original tactical “Johnny Reb” (JR1)  and GDW’s “Johnny Reb” (JR2), to the more grand-tactical game of  the  Johnny Reb Game Company’s “Johnny Reb III. “Across A Deadly Field” is not Johnny Reb IV and it is definitely it’s own game, but it is still part of the JR “family tree” of rules and there are many core similarities in the way units move, shoot, check morale and charge. That being said, there are also a lot of differences. The scale is essentially double the scale of JR3. The core game system game will be familiar to all JR players, but ADF has it’s own new rules, and nuances that make it stand apart.

One of the changes, due to the new scale,  is that your old four stand JR3 regiments can be used to represent two regiments! Yes, you just doubled the size of your ACW collection! Now you can fight those BIG battles on your table!  I’m actually using my old JR2 units, so I’m getting 2.5 ADF units per old JR2 unit. This does mean that some of your regiments won’t have standards, but that’s something I can live with. There is also an option in the rules to use three stands per ADF unit, with the middle unit being a command stand of two figures. This is for those gamers that don’t mind painting a few more figures and that want to have flags in every unit. The choice is yours!

A Federal battery belches canister at the approaching Rebs!

I was honored to be one of the play testers of ADF. It’s was fun watching John work as the rules continued to evolve. I can tell you that John has really made an excellent  game and has taken “Johnny Reb” to a new level. As a JR fan, what continues to amaze me are the new and innovative ways John has developed and changed the JR game system. He takes things in unexpected directions, puts in the historical research, and always creates a top shelf product. Yes, the game is somewhat complex, but I feel it is very rewarding and represents best on the table-top the tactical ACW situations I have read about.  Here are a few examples of the changes in ADF:

There are no order chits needed to play ADF. John had created an intuitive system, where each unit of the “active side” can take two actions per unit per turn. The “actions” are essentially the functions of the old order chits (Fire, Form, Move, Charge, etc.).  Choosing the right action and the timing of those actions can be critical in the game. John has also added in a “Rally” action, where a unit must spend an action to rally, and it’s morale can get worse if it fails. This can be a real nail bitter in a game! Also when rallying, depending on the roll,  units can improve / decrease one or two morale levels and/or lose or gain a figure.

After the “active” unit takes an action, the “inactive” player may respond with an action if it can see the opposing unit. An example might be that the active 1st TN spends an action to move, then the 50 OH spends an action to fire at the 1st TN, and then the 1st TN spends it last action in the turn to return fire. The turn then shifts to the opposing side. Make sense? This leads to a lot of player vs player interaction on the table-top. I really prefer these type of games over the “I’ll be back in 30 minutes after you are done with your turn” style of games. The lack of chits also leads to a much less cluttered miniature battlefield.

One of the criticisms of JR has been that the charge process is over complicated. John has tinkered with the charge process in ADF and has streamlined it to three core steps.  It is a much more “user-friendly” version of the old JR multi-chart charge process. There are also new and improved charge impact resolution tables that make charges even more decisive. It was obviously necessary to streamline the regimental charge process for a grand tactical game, and not only the charge process, but  the rules in general (from the play-tester portions that I’ve seen) have been written in a way that is clearer and more organized than previous editions.

I plan on writing a more detailed review once I actually have a finished copy in my hands! Right now I’ve been working from charts and bits and pieces that John has sent me. I can say that the presentation of the rules I’ve seen looks amazing and is up to Osprey’s usual high production standards.

The Rebs at the start of the scenario. It would prove to be a bloody day!

Well, we recently played a game of “Across a Deadly Field”. The scenario was based on John’s and Todd Davis’ Johnny Reb 3 “Shiloh – A Stubborn East Flank” scenario from issue #37 of Scott Mingus’ excellent “Charge!” newsletter. I didn’t have the exact order of battle and table space to run the scenario in 28mm  exactly as published, so I improvised! Shiloh, over simplified,  is basically a scenario where a bunch of inexperienced, poorly armed  Rebs are attacking a bunch of slightly better armed, but surprised Yanks. The terrain is horrible, with woods and ravines and only a few open areas of fields. The Rebs have to push the Yanks back and capture the rear area of the Federal deployment area.

We played four turns, and with each turn representing 30 minutes, that gave us two hours of scaled  battle! Here is a high level recap of  our fight for those that are curious how it turned out.  – The scenario opened up with the Rebs pushing hard, but being hit and shaken by Federal artillery. There wasn’t much flanking available to the Rebs due to the river and ravines, so it ended up being pretty much a head on attack! The rebs decided to rush in since their weapons weren’t the best in a stand-off firefight. The move and counter-move system kept us engaged in the battle the entire time, which was great! The Union player had to make some hard decisions to fire at opportunity targets at long range as their reaction, or wait for better opportunities. The union line was waiting for the Rebs and was able to withstand the attack. The rebs had some success in the middle however and were able to coordinate some charges to send a few of the Yanks running, routed to the rear! We had a great time and agreed that the game was a lot of fun and that the Yankee line would hold. It took a little adjusting to get used to the differences with JR, but once we got into the swing of things, we quickly picked up on the rules.

I have a lot of 15mm figures, so I think next time I will use those and refight a massive battle! I’ve even contemplated painting 10mm figures just for ADF so I can really maximize my table top space! Right now I’m busy painting more 28mm ACW for ADF.

So what does the future hold? Once ADF is released John is planning to release two scenario books to support the game (Eastern and Western battles). From what I’ve seen so far, it looks like John and Osprey have hit a homerun with ADF and I anxiously await its release! Also, some of the core JR gamers will be out at the cons this year running ADF games. Look for those guys. They are a great group of friendly gamers that will be happy to explain the rules to you and let you get in the game if there is a command open!

Here is a link to preorder the rules from Amazon at a great price:

The Federal line awaits the Rebel assault. Each two stand unit represents a regiment.

One of the Federal units routed from the middle of the line. I’ve painted a lot of morale markers to keep down on the pipe cleaners that always seem to litter the table.

Here is a link to Wargames Vault if you are interested in purchasing “Charge!” issue 37 that contains the Shiloh – East Flank scenario:
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/118088/Charge-%2337

Take care and good gaming – Cory R.