While overcoming a bad bout of flu, I came up with an idea in my fevered mind for a method to fight large battles with a limited amount of troops without having to scale the forces down beyond that which my miniature rules use. The idea is simple: to break down a major battle (say, Bull Run) into many smaller battles that could be fought on the table size with the amount of figures I had available.
I've developed a set of rules that uses cards to allow the maneuver of Corps (and their component Divisions) against an enemy Corps, generating battles with the components of the Divisions (e.g. Brigades) over a "rolling" map of the battlefield. It generates battles of various sizes between the two sides (usually like 4-15 regiments per side, ranging from 2-4 brigades each) over terrain the players choose to fight over.
Cards are either terrain cards, command cards, or unit cards. Command cards are needed to perform actions with units. Supply cards are useful for a number of things, from increasing support of an attack or defense, rallying routed brigades or shuffling individual brigades around. Unit cards are the forces the players work with. Terrain cards are the boards (which in total make up the whole battlefield) that can be laid down to expand the initial battlefield to the left and right of the current battlefield.
A side will never have enough commands to do everything they want to do, so they will have to prioritize their goals.
Its still a work in progress, but from the feedback I've recieved from my playtesters, it show promise as a game itself, not just as an relatively easy way for me to generate linked miniature battles (mini-campaign).
Here is a sample of the generic Unit Card design (using Union units).
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| Click to enlarge (ver 1.0) |
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