A confession: I’ve never much enjoyed the American Civil War. Which isn’t to say I don’t have a basic understanding of, or appreciate its impact on the country in which I live. I do. It’s just that delving into its intricacies has never appealed to me. It feels too big and unwieldy. I’ve lived my entire life in the upper Midwest, so I don’t have the ever-present geographical reminders like those in the Northeast. Add to it the wargaming community’s wealth of super-experts, and how the even most innocuous forum questions often devolve into button polish arguments, or worse, state’s rights, well, it seems like more trouble than it’s worth –- indeed, a lost cause. I’ve read Confederates in the Attic, crapped out on <PERSON>’s The Civil War: A Narrative after a couple hundred pages, and someday I do plan to watch <PERSON> "The Civil War". An admittedly mixed bag, but I’m good.
Then, a confluence of events like, say, the snarl of connections between Cairo and Paducah:
- GMT releases a new edition of FTP with a mounted map. Shiny + no willpower + debauched game purchaser.
- Gaming clubmate and pal <PERSON>’s FTP evangelism.
- My overly pleasant interactions with <PERSON> at WBC.
- Direct designer support on BGG and CSW, 15+ years after the game’s release.
- FTP’s staying power as a beloved wargaming staple, CDG or otherwise.
- FTP’s tournaments, online and in-person, as well as an overlarge competitive community. Potential opponents aplenty.
On that last point: Since returning to the hobby five years ago, I’ve found by far the most personal satisfaction in playing the shit out of games and plumbing the depths, as opposed to a one- or two-play dabbling at our hobby’s expansive buffet.
So in and off we go.
And by we, I mean me and my buddy <PERSON> from my wargame club . . . .wait for it, First Minnesota. We’re nearly 20 years late to the cotillion, but whatever. We have Herr Dr. acting as sherpa, providing the broad strategic strokes. He gladly opened up his toolkit of expert’s tips and tricks and let us peek inside. On the self-reliance front, we pored over the rules and dutifully dug up our old C3is. 92
Experienced gamers, us, we say, “This shouldn’t be too bad.” But: There’s a reason Everest is littered with the petrified skeletons of the overconfident and over-rich, all of whom have access to the best gear and guides money can buy. It’s hard thing, that mountain.
And so too is FTP. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Yes, it’s an old-school CDG. Yes, you have your ops/events binary, two-card-to-activate-a-two-leader and on down the line. But that’s where that ends. There are the oft-discussed river rules. I dunno. They take a little doing, but we found them to be totally manageable -- minor threads, accents, in this beast’s tapestry of learning-curve pain. What’s hard are the porous lines and shape-shifting fronts that can only be managed by a thorough and complete understanding of the CRT, and a litany of important but niggling details. Sometimes a single strength point locks down a crossroads. Other times it’s a pebble under a road grader. An ungarrisoned fort has zero strength points, which is different than no strength points. Attacking at both 2-1 and 3-1 have vital combat effects, even though the former gives you no odds modifier. Invading a coastal fort? Yikes. Just use the explanations in 18.0. Have a kill stack? Those are fun until they’re not. Better grind them up or spread them out before the turn ends or they melt away, by a simple function of existing. What does an ironclad do again? Is it the same as a fort without the +2? And on and on and on.
And once you feel like you have some mastery of the rules, then you can begin to dig in on the strategy. At the moment, we have somewhere around 50 hours in the bank. 237