Chamberlain
An American Civil War
Modification for “Blücher”
written by Ross McGee & Charles Hamack
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
- Abraham Lincoln - 16th June, 1858
Chamberlain
Introduction:
In April 2016 Ross posted a scenario for the Battle of Antietam and some
accompanying rules changes / proposals in order to use the Blücher rules for
the ACW. These garnered some interest and over the last few weeks of June
2016, Chuck and Ross (along with some playtesters) have been working
together to bring you “Chamberlain”.
What follows are the alterations to the rules that we propose in order to allow
players to use Blücher to re-fight the battles of the American Civil War. You’ll
note that there are very few actually changes to the core rules and those that
are, are made solely to fit the with the ACW. Most of the changes come thru
the use of unit traits (both existing and new).
We hope that you will enjoy the rules. If you have any comments or
suggestions we are always open to here them please post them on the Blücher
forum.
The rules are named for Joshua
Chamberlain, commander of the 20th
Maine during their defence of “Little
Round Top” at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Chamberlain
Rule Changes:
The following rule amendments have been made purely from a playability perspective.
So many of the ACW battles were fought in wooded areas that we felt that without
modification this would remove some of the enjoyment from the game. Most ACW
units were far smaller and therefor easier to handle in broken ground than those of the
Napoleonic period.
Page 20 - Terrain Effects:
Woods no are no longer considered difficult going (i.e. movement is not affected by
wooded areas).
Page 47 - Obstruction:
Infantry may fire at units in woods and in the same way as artillery. The wording shall
be altered to read:
“Artillery and Infantry lines of fire may pass through obstructing terrain, but then it
only continues another 1BW from the point at which it touched that terrain. If it can
hit the target within that remaining 1BW, then it does so, but such fire is called
obstructed and penalized.”
Page 51 - Penalties:
The bullet points for infantry shall be altered to include:
• Firing at a unit that is obstructed
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Unit Traits:
In order to get the feel of the Civil War we have introduced the following unit
traits.
Rebel Yell!: Veteran Confederate Infantry
Effect: +1 dice when attacking (Blücher Shock)
Yankee Hurrah!: Veteran Union Infantry
Effect: +1 dice when defending (Blücher Steady)
Rifled Musket: Rifle Musket Armed Infantry
Effect: +1 dice when skirmishing
Sharpshooter: Infantry units with attached sharpshooters
Effect: Allows the unit to move and shoot (Blücher Mobile)
Hit & Run: Cavalry
Effect: Allows cavalry units to fire in the same way as infantry.
After doing so they must withdraw to a range of 2BW from the target unit
The following unit traits are no longer used: Mixed, Conscript, Firepower, Shock,
Steady.
All other units traits remain the same.
Chamberlain
Confederate Army Units:
Veteran Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 7
Traits: Rebel Yell & Skirmishers
Regular Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 6
Traits: Skirmishers
Green Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 5
Traits: Impetuous
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Confederate Army Units:
Veteran Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 7
Traits: Rifled Musket, Rebel Yell &
Skirmishers
Regular Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 6
Traits: Rifled Musket & Skirmishers
Green Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 5
Traits: Rifled Musket & Impetuous
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Confederate Army Units:
Heavy Artillery:
Ammo: 5-4-4-3-2-2
Traits: Heavy
Light Artillery:
Ammo: 5-4-4-3-2-2
Traits: None
Horse Artillery:
Ammo: 5-4-4-3-2-2
Traits: Mobile
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Confederate Army Units:
Cavalry:
Elan: 4
Traits: Hit & Run, Mobile
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Union Army Units:
Veteran Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 7
Tr a i t s : Ya n k e e H u r r a h &
Skirmishers
Regular Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 6
Traits: Skirmishers
Green Infantry (Smoothbore):
Elan: 5
Traits: Impetuous
Chamberlain
Union Army Units:
Veteran Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 7
Traits: Rifled Musket, Yankee
Hurrah & Skirmishers
Regular Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 6
Traits: Rifled Musket & Skirmishers
Green Infantry (Rifled Musket):
Elan: 5
Traits: Rifled Musket & Impetuous
Chamberlain
Union Army Units:
Heavy Artillery:
Ammo: 6-5-5-4-3-3
Traits: Heavy
Light Artillery:
Ammo: 6-5-5-4-3-3
Traits: None
Horse Artillery:
Ammo: 6-5-5-4-3-3
Traits: Mobile
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Union Army Units:
Cavalry:
Elan: 3
Traits: Hit & Run, Mobile
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Designer Notes:
When designing this modification our mantra was to “keep it simple” and, where
possible, “keep it the same”.
While there were obvious technological improvements introduced between the
wars, the battlefield tactics had not really caught up with the weaponry available.
During our discussions and play testing we considered multiple permutations of
bonuses relating to Rifle Armed units (infantry & artillery). Almost all of these,
when put into practice, made the units far too powerful and removed a great deal
of enjoyment from the game. We opted to give infantry units armed with rifled
musket a +1 dice bonus for firing at skirmish range and have discounted any
bonus for rifled artillery (we found that altering the artillery bonuses turned them
into “Sherman Tanks” rather than “Sherman’s Artillery”!)
We also considered the alteration of ranges; however again we found that these
altered the gameplay in unexpected ways (Sam has already covered this very
topic in various posts on the forum) and so we decided to leave them as is. Adding
in different ranges also increases the amount of things players must remember
and we wanted to keep this to minimum. Also most engagements still took place
at similar ranges as the Napoleonic era, and continue to do so to this day.
A final note, these modifications are not written in an attempt to rewrite or
“correct” anything that are in Blücher rules themselves - not that we feel the rules
need any corrections - and we would request that those types of comments are
directed to Sam Mustafa (Le Grand Fromage) in the relevant section of the
Blücher forum.
Ross (happ45) & Chuck (chuckhamack)
