From: James Harnsberger Subject: A little more description about "This Hallowed Ground" {Preface: "This Hallowed Ground" is an Axis and Allies-like game about the American Civil War}. Let's see. "This Hallowed Ground" is area movement, with the map covering the usual territory - as far north as Penn., Ohio, Indiana, and Illnois, as far west as eastern Texas, OK, Kanasas, and a tiny bit of Nebraska. There are three levels of troop quality among infantry: recruit, veteran, elite. Only the winners of battles get to upgrade some of their troops, depending on leaders present. Turns are seasonal (four of them a year), and each turn you roll for command points to determine how much you can do. There are a variety of naval units in the game: riverboats, troop transports, raiders, frigates, ironclads, and cruisers. They all vary in movement factors, bombardment factors, and the number of hits they can take before sinking. The only things I see new here are as follows: 1. When a leader is in a battle, you draw a leader card which determines the particular general present, who adds or subtracts from attack and defense rolls. You don't know who you'll get in charge, injecting more uncertainity into battles 2. Random number of recruits available per turn: both the Union and the Confederates roll 2d6 for recuits, implying both sides had equivalent manpower pools (I don't think so!) 3. In combat, at the start, you calculate the number of bombardment factors each side has. There are no artillery units in the game - each side's infantry (no matter how many infantry units are present) is assumed to possess 1 bombardment point intrinsically. Additions are made based on the presence of a leader and ships in the area who support. This implies that the Union and Confederacy had similiar numbers of cannon, which is also than I can normally tolerate. I guess this sounda kinda negative. It's actually the sort of game I wanted: area movement, plastic pieces, lots of die rolling. I'd only make a few adjustments for history - it's not supposed to be some kind of simulation (I've got plenty of Civil War games for that) - but I wouldn't like to start North and south on totally even ground (as the game practically does). I got it for my birthday, and if I was using my own money, I might save 50 bucks for an auction at a con instead. Still, with some changes, I like it. And as I said before, I want to get some tanks rolling across northern VA ala Dixie sometime real soon. -Jimmy