Borrowing The Army Campaign: Campaign wargames rules for campaigns in the American Civil War Eastern Theater

My Dear McClellan, if you don’t want to use the army I should like to borrow it

for a while.

– Abraham Lincoln

Borrowing The Army is a pair of rulesets and a map. These rules allow you to refight the major campaigns of the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.

Put yourself in the shoes of Jackson, Lee and Grant and refight history; hopefully you can do better than your historic counter-part.

The campaign ruleset sees you organising your forces in theater, getting your corps and divisions into marching columns at the outset of the campaign. These can maneuver and skirmish their way into position to fight a decisive battle. The campaign rules and map are simple enough to learn, but will give you the opportunity to create your own context for a pivotal engagement.

This is where the tactical ruleset comes into play. These rules focus on cohesion and pressure. How cohesive and functional will your army remain as the pressure of combat wears it down?

They are something of a sequel to my He Did What Heroes Do ruleset, but the maneuver unit is the brigade rather than the division. These are relatively quick to play (you will only need a tape measure and a fair few D6s) and allow you to fight out the battle both sides have created the conditions for.