Daniel Thorpe - 07:00pm Oct 7, 1999 PST (#3845 of 3848) 
Trampling out the Vintage 

Someone was asking about the new DTP effort on Sherman's Atlanta
campaign: Trampling out the Vintage (TotV) by Paul H Rohbaugh. I don't
think there was a full reply but, as my copy just arrived, here goes... 

Game is published by Kerry Anderson's Micro Game Co-Op and components
are typical Co-Op fare: it ships in an 8 1/2" x 11" plastic baggy (not a
zip-lock - I think these are sold for preserving comic books) and
features an attractive full colour cover sheet with an atmospherically
blurry picture of some Civil War soldiers marching under a humongous US
flag. Rules booklet is a true booklet - two tabloid sheets folded and
centre-stabled to make eight pages. Rules layout and font usage is
professional and attractive (reminds me of the old GDW Series 120
booklets). There is one double-sided chart sheet, also nicely organized
with shading and good font choice for readability. There are 140
unmounted, single-sided, full colour counters. Leader counters have
little portraits, as is becoming de rigueur. Two copies are provided
since there is room on the sheet. The 11" x 17" map is a bit more
subdued than some of the Co-Op's efforts, but doesn't suffer for it;
quite attractive with a green background and lots of SPI-style forests.
Chattanooga is in the top left corner and Atlanta in the bottom right
with the railroad between them and the various river barriers major
terrain features. A nice touch - the hex grid ends short of the paper so
there are no ambiguous half hexes.

All components are sharply printed and look professional. Though the
paper stock for the map and charts is a little thin, I really think the
Co-Op does the best looking components of any of the DTP shops (Berg's
hand-drawn maps for BSO are definitely eye of the beholder stuff). Kerry
uses the Co-Op as a means of advertising his graphic skills, and I think
the effort shows. 

Scale is division units with corps and army leaders; 4 miles per hex and
three weeks per turn. System looks in many ways more sophisticated than
Balkoski's GCACW series. Each side rolls to activate modified by the
chosen leader's ratings. High roller gets to activate that leader for
movement and combat. There are rules for forced marching and out of
command units, fortifications, cavalry raids, and random events. Units
do not show losses; these are recorded on a casualty track and cost
victory points and reduce army morale. Given the time scale this seems
reasonable and certainly streamlines play.

All in all this looks like a nice little operational treatment of an
important campaign last covered, if I am not wrong, by a now very old
Battleline title. Will post again after I've played a game or two - the
glue can is already out! 

Daniel 

PS: I asked Kerry about the title and he told me that it comes from a
song and that the anticipated mainly US market would pick up on it. It
was chosen by the designer who is American. 

PPS: In the interests of full disclosure I helped with some last minute
editing and proofing of the rules for which Kerry, an old buddy, gave me
a credit in the rule book. But I have no financial stake in the game or
the Co-Op.