From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Bloodiest Day review Bloodiest Day (Spearhead Games) I approached this area movement revisitation of the battle of Antietam with great expectations, and I wasn't too deluded in my hopes. Peter Perla, the designer of this game, takes inspiration by AH's Storm over Arnhem system, and adapts it to the Civil War, with a good presentation and a fair result. The game has an area map of the area surrounding Sharpsburg, 176 counters (bigger than usual) and a rulebook very well conceived in theory (I like the Victory Games approach to rules explanation, with column besides the main text of each page for designer notes, examples of play and other such explanatory notes), but full of unclear statements, if not real mistakes, in several important occasions (and I think that the errata sheet I found in the box is not too clear itself in a few occasions). Anyway, with a little effort, a complete re-read of the rules may be enough to set up and start the game in less than an hour. The system uses area movement (the terrain in each area is not important for movement but only has a Terrain Effect Modifier for combat; the cost in movement points for each area depends on the distance from enemy units; I think that the system works very well in this particular field), three kinds of combat (bombardment, volley fire and assault; for combat you take one of your units combat value, add a few differentials – more for the attacker than the defender – roll two dice and compare your result with that of the other player; if the attacker roll is higher, the defender must spend the difference in flipping units to their spent side, retreating or eliminating them; if the attacker roll is lower than the defender, he loses the leading combat unit and retreat the others; simple, perhaps too simple, and with a lot of unclear points for the assault and for the volley combat, that in my opinion are too biased toward the attackers instead that the defenders; in most of the ACW games I played, the latter are the favored by the rules) and an activation system which try to limit the actions of the Union army (but to a lesser grade than the norm for this particular battle: only two leader, Hooker and Mansfield start the game activate; if Hooker doesn't move or attack in the first impulse, he deactivates; all other leaders must be activated before they may move their subordinate units; for the Union player, McClellan must be present in the same area of another leader to activate him and his troops). The sequence of play is: Union reserve bombardment phase (the Union player has two units that may bombard a few area on the map north of the Antietam creek lower bridge; in my opinion, this rule it's not clearly expressed, but I think it's not too important for play). Activation impulse: each player alternates in activating one of his leaders or moving units in one of his area with an active leader inside or adiacent to one. The Union player has to roll two dice before taking his impulse to see if the turn ends. A good rule to limit the efficiency of the Union army. Rally and Reorganization phase, where both players may turn to Fresh the Spent units (a unit becomes Spent after movement and after a losing combat), and may put back on the board part of the eliminated units. All in all, the system works, it's playable even solitaire, and there are so few turns (only 7) that all the battle could be finished in less than 3 hours. But, I cannot be totally convinced by the final result, in particular for the combat system. I rate this game 6 ½ out of 10.