John Coley - 01:33pm Mar 10, 1997 PST (#116 of 126)
Currently Playing: No Better Place to Die (The Gamers), Roads to
Gettysburg (TAHGC)

Gentlemen, 

Allow me to rave for a moment about Command/XTR's Across the Potomac. I
played this for the first time yesterday at the Windy City Wargamers'
meeting in Chicago, and had an absolute blast. For those of you not
familiar with the game, it's a double blind simulation of the Gettysburg
Campaign in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania in June/July 1863. You
play on two identical mapboards (we played facing each other with a
screen in-between, ala Battleship), and have to announce the location
and, very roughly, the composition (i.e., whether or not cavalry is
present) of your forces that are in enemy territory (basically ANV north
of the Potomac and AoP south). In your own territory you need not reveal
any info unless your hex is adjacent to an enemy force containing
cavalry (in which case you simply have the reveal the above info,
"infantry force" or "cavalry force") or "probed" by adjacent units
(forcing you to reveal the number of units in the stack). Limited
command points and weather rules add to the period feel, and simple
combat mechanics add to excellent playability.

But what I loved most of all is that this game provide that rarest of
rare opportunities in ftf gaming, the opportunity to try to fake out
your opponent. For example, at one point late in the game most of the
ANV (me) was sitting in Frederick, MD, while the AoP (my honorable
opponent) was sitting directly east across a river (can't remember which
river. Sorry...) It was raining , so neither of us could cross enough
units for a climactic battle. So I peeled off a division and sent it
north to Taneytown. He took the bait and--knowing that I had detached
infantry, but not knowing how many--chased my division with two Corps.
Upon realizing what he had done (after they had attacked my division
thereby making their presence and numbers known), I immediately sent the
bulk of the ANV straight for Washington. He had no choice but to pursue
with the reduced AoP, leading to the climactic two-day Battle of
Rockville, in which the AoP suffered greatly.

Now, admittedly, things might have played out differently had the end of
the session not been looming, but the point is (besides the fact that
the game was tense, very fun, and required a minimum of rules
consultations) the system really allowed us both to try to manipulate
what our opponent thought as well as forcing us to guess, based on
limited information, what he was up to. This is a rare thing. The
difficulty in creating FoW is perhaps a limitation of the medium that we
all agree to accept (despite our grumbling), but it's nice to see the
occasional game like Across the Potomac that succeeds so well in this
department.

Rave mode off. 

JC