From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: review Williamsburg (Ivy Street Games) I like the games of this small one-man DTP company. I like the system, I like the situations this man (Hampton Newsome) choose to reproduce for us wargamers. I love them. In this case, we have a battle not otherwise simulated in the past (at least for what I know), a sort of fighting retreat of three (or 4 if you add the DH Hill division as reinforcement) confederate divisions under attack by two to five different union divisions in a densily wooded and heavily fortified area around Williamsburg in May 1862. The system, the graphics and the general effects are similar to Ivy Street's previous ACW effort, Stonewall at Cedar Mountain (already reviewed here on Grognard), so I will repeat several of the sentences used in my other review. Each commanding counter has a rating for combat (0) one for effectiveness (used to make several different morale checks) and one for movement; the combat radius is 3 for all units. The same ratings are used even by the combat units, which have two different counters (one is for the reduced unit) but the cavalry, that has only one counter (because they have only one kind of formation). Infantry and artillery units have two sides, one with the combat/unlimbered value, the other with the marching/limbered formation. The system use an initiative chit drawing method, very widely used in today operational or tactical designs. Simply, you put one chit for each division plus two chits for the artillery units (they may be activated two times each turn)in a cup or an opaque container: when you draw the chit for a particular division, you may activate all the units of that division. Each division must obey to the order she has on the order track for that turn and to change the order it may occur up to two turns (more if your divisional commander is isolated, i.e. more than 18 movement points from your army leader). The orders are attack (you have to attack at least one enemy unit if you can), advance (you have to move at least one hex toward the enemy, without entering EZOC), retreat (you have to move back), hold (you stay where you are or move one hex without entering EZOC). Combat may be bombardment (very simple, with your artillery units only, based on distance, up to six hexes, normally to retreat the enemy or make him test for rout) or combat assault: in this case, you roll a die adding/subtracting several modifiers (Combat ratio, flank/rear attack - yes there is also facing -, combined assault and defensive support). The CRT is bloodless and to eliminate a unit you have to force it to rout, then exploiting the favorable modifiers to reduce and eliminate it from play. Rout is more easily obtainable and several mechanisms of the game revolve around the effectiveness check (used for rout, retreat and trying to obtain a different individual order for your divisional commander, if the situation requests it): you roll a die adding the effectiveness rating of the unit/leader and if the result is greater than six, you pass the check; otherwise, you fail it, paying the consequences. There are two scenarios (but the three turn training scenario is not exactly a scenario, as it doesn't have victory conditions), with three different conditions for the Confederate player, which determine the result: he draw a victory conditions card, that dictates his strategical options and decides his fate regarding reinforcements and length of play. In general, the Confederate must hold his positions, while the Federal player have to exploit is two prongs attack to make an hole in the Southern defenses and reach Williamsburg with at least a few of his units to obtain a major victory. You have a few more units to move and control in this scenario, in respect to Stonewall at Cedar Mountain, but the situation was, in my opinion, more balanced in the previous effort: here, the Federal player is not in a likable position, as he doesn't have superiority at the start and he may obtain it perhaps early in the afternoon, with only 5/6 turns at the most to play, while the Confederate player, if he draws a card with the DH Hill reinforcements readily avalaible (4 infantry brigades), may also pass to the offensive, trying to destroy Hooker's division (which is separated by the other Federal forces by dense woods and swamps), while defending the other flank with the other two divisions against a not so superior enemy. Anyway, the game is fun to play, the flow of the game is really smooth, without unclear rules, and the length of the scenario is probably under three hours. I rate this game 7 ½ out of 10.