Monday 1 April 2013

What is.. Gettysburg?

Gettysburg is a board game that was released in 1958 which re-enacts the battle of Gettysburg that took place during the American Civil War . The battle is considered one of the most important for the civil war, and many historians believe had it gone differently, America may have become a drastically different country. It is the first board game to be based on an actual historical battle.



It is essentially a miniatures game played on a board representing a map, split into numerous squares. Players controlled units such as infantry, cavalry and outposts. Players used range cards to determine how far they could move and then to check their firing range. Units could rotate on their centers before checking with a range card, which was placed along the front side of the rectangular pieces. You got better odds hitting from a flank. Artillery had double range of infantry or cavalry.

The games original release had no playtesting, causing subsequent reiterations to be released. With the most recent one featuring the now common hex grid, which confined player movement, as opposed to the previous square grid which had no impact.

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