Alan Snider  - Dec 18, 2006 1:16 pm (#16406 Total: 16542)  

SPI's Dixie has just gotten a bad rap. It's a good little game. 	 
S&T #54 Dixie

Clayton Baisch and I did manage a complete game of 'Dixie' the other
night, and Clayton is pushing hard for some additional days off so we
can pull the SPI campout (weekend full of old SPI classics). 

GAMENIGHT, Dec 16/2006: Clayton Baisch and I sat down to try S&T #54
Dixie, Clayton taking the Union Side and myself as Rebel Commander. We
played the first scenario: The War for Hemisphere Security 1936. 

This game is heavy on the Command/Control issues; with movement, combat,
dieroll modifiers, reinforcements/replacements, Corps
formation/disbanding, and recovery from disruption are all paid for with
an allotment of "administration points' given to each side at the
beginning of each turn. This tends to make for some really tough
choices. 

Setup works like so: Starting with the Confederates, both sides
alternate placing forts until the are all on the map. Then the
Confederates set up and finally the Union depolyment. This allows the
Union to see the complete Rebel setup prior to placement which can have
some interesting advantages. On the bright side for the Rebs, they know
that they must protect their resource hexes and that the Union will
attempt to target Montgomery, Atlanta, or Shreveport in the pursuit of 3
captured cities (or 5 resource hexes) for the victory. 

The Rebels were somewhat surprised right out of the gate as the Union
did a HEAVY deployment up near Washington, where the South had left a
bit of a spartan defence of Richmond. The thoughts running through my
head was "drats!- will Richmond fall on turn 1?". Fortunately, with
difficult access due to rivers, not enough strength was brought to bear
and the situation turned into more of a siege situation. Much of the
battling for the first 4 turns centred around the approach to Richmond,
and the frantic Confederate response to send aid to the area. 

The main accomplishments of the Confederate side was to shift troops
from near Atlanta up North to aid the meagre forces battling there, as
well as to shore up the defence of the resource hexes by moving
divisions together for being converted to corps. I also brought on as
many replacements as possible to get the entire Confederate army on the
boards as soon as possible. 

On turn 5, Richmond finally fell, and the Rebels managed to pull back
and begin to form the next line of defence just north of Columbia, SC.
This is also when the Confederate did some judicious counterattacking as
the previous battles had left several Union Corps without any arnour
protection which makes them quite vulnerable to attack. Both in the
rough just north of Atlanta and north of Columbia; Union corps were
disrupted and destroyed respectively, catching the Union off balance,
making it much more difficult for them to rally for the next turn. The
Rebels also managed to get the initiative for the first time as they had
won the +/- for losses received on that particular turn; whcih allowed
the Rebels to take a double turn outting a little more hurt on the
Union. This time the attacks centred around the resource hex area north
of Dallas. 

The Union reeled for about 2 turns, attempting to stage for a turn then
head straight for Atlanta (Nashville and Richmond had already fallen).
As the Union attempted to plod through the Appalachian range, there were
a few more battles on the approach to Atlanta, which required that the
Rebels reinforce that city. 

On the final turn, the Union got to the gates of Atlanta and broke
through, pushing back the Jeb Stuart tank div and an infantry div and
disrupting both. Additionally, the attempt to defend Atlanta, opened the
door for a single Union tank div to slide into Shreveport. It seemed
that the Confederate defence fell apart on the final turn, although it
is possible that a bit more judicious placement of a corp to protect the
approach to Atlanta with a ZoC could have made the difference. 

A fun smaller game, but with MANY difficult choices, and who doesn't
like a game that comes down to the final game turn to resolve the
conflict? We are now looking forward to trying another sceanrio (there
are 3), as well as adding the additional rules and counters courtesy of
Joe Miranda (planes, marines, paratroops).