Historicon 2019 Live Blog - Part Two!
Bonus Post - Little Wars TV Runs Gettysburg in Altar of Freedom
Jul 14 2019 @ 06:22
27 Comments
… by that I mean all of Gettysburg. All of Gettysburg. In the pic below you can clearly see the “Federal Fishhook” position. Gettysburg town is at the top. Culp’s Hill is to the upper right. Cemetery Ridge extends down past the Wheat Field, Peach Orchard, and Devil’s Den to Little Round Top and Big Round Top. In all there are 160,000 men on this table.
Neat little game…
Yeah, not bad for a skirmish table. 😉
That is a lot of tiny fighty men!
6mm … a LOT of 6mm …
Heard s lot of good things about Alter of Freedom
It’s pretty good! ?☺
Have you tried it? Would it work for American Revolution?
160.000 minis on the table? Madness! Lincoln himself must have started the paintjob. He hid paints and brushes in his top hat, right?
No, 160,000 troops. So I’m looking at about 85 stands. Each stand has about 24 figures on them. So that’s about 2000 figures. Call it 8o men a figure ???
A stunning looking table.
And very accurate to. You walk up to it you can immediately identify Seminary Ridge to the west, Cemetery Ridge to the east and south, Devil’s den, Little Round Top, Big Round Top, Culp’s Hill, etc.
I’ll need to see if I can find a copy of the full film only seen the short 3 hour version.
The 4:20 version is the full version. There’s also an EXTENDED version with some deleted scenes, mostly to do with Ewell’s II Corps. No more combat or action, but late-might meetings and such that explain all the missed confederate opportunities on the First Day and the disastrous lack of coordination from the north on the Second Day.
One of my favorite military movies of all time.
Is it not around 6 hours then?
Ehh … 4:30, 4:40 I think. (??)
more disinformation to confuse the enemy on numbers?
I was just talking about the length of the full movie with the few deleted scenes.
After watching an episode of Little Wars TV that used the Alter of Freedom rules I went straight to the website where the author sells them and ordered a copy. I give them a thumbs up. ? I’ve always resisted 6mm, (or any super tiny scale game), but this one spoke to me. I really like it and want to build up both sides of a American Civil War setup. I might even try it for the American Revolutionary War, but I keep thinking of that one at a larger scale. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I like… Read more »
For ACW Baccus and Adler are the way to go . People have complained about the Baccus as the infantry are carrying the Rifles in the wrong hand ( I wouldnt have known myself personally and it wouldnt have made a difference) while marching. Adler are all single figures and people moan about the large heads but I like them. Rapier also sell some and while I like them they might not be to everyones taste but they paint up better then they ook There is also irregular miniatures https://baccus6mm.com/catalogue/AmericanCivilWarACW/ http://home.clara.net/adlermin/page8.html http://www.rapierminiatures.co.uk/page/Range/6mm_ACW.html http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/indexes/6mmindex.htm I dont see any reason why you… Read more »
Thanks for the info @torros
It’s nice to have options.
Now to do some shopping! ???
Altar of Freedom for American Revolution: Not sure, I don’t know how flexible the troop-to-figure ratio is. At the scale we see ON THIS TABLE, even the biggest American Revolution battle would be 1/8 the size. So in he main image above I’m counting about 80 bases (second day of Gettysburg, 70000 Confederates, 90000 Federals, 160000 total). Monmouth, New Jersey (July 1778) would be 12-14 bases, maybe 6-7 on a side (14 bases x 24 figs x 80 men = 26000 men), and that’s the largest land battle of the American Revolution. So unless that ratio is flexible (not sure… Read more »
I’d have loved to play in this game!
I had a tough choice to make between this one and the Freeman’s Farm game. I wound up at Freeman’s Farm, this game filled up WICKED fast and there was NO ROOM for extra people. Popular game, “celebrity” game master, famous battle, I guess.
They played this interactively (ie the audience got to vote on some of the command decisions) with historians from the American Battlefield Trust as the season 2 premiere. They also have a tutorial (only 3 minutes) on how they did it. They played the Battle of Antietam using the same rules in season 1. Their YouTube channel is, unsurprisingly, Little Wars TV.
Great guys. We have an interview with them elsewhere on our live blog and traded plenty of stories in the unofficial “media room.”
After watching the battle on their Youtube channel I am extremely tempted to give the 6 mm ACW a shot.
If you’re going for full battles, or even big PARTS of full battles, and you’re sure you want to stick with miniatures, 6mm would be my choice.
I have two hex & counter games for Gettysburg (Gettysburg 2nd Edition and Devil’s Den). Allows us to play either the whole battle or parts of it in a few hours, without a huge investment in minis time or money.