A House Divided
J.R.Davis
I bought GDW's "A House Divided" last week, aster having thought
about it for a long time. Looks nice, straightforward, plenty
of options, good counters, BUT:
With average luck, I can't see how the South can win.
In the basic game, they have only eight armies to the north's twelve.
The north gets more as reinforcements, the south doesn't.
North moves first, and has some special movement abilities.
AND north's pieces are better deployed (closer to the front line).
The south seems to have no compensations. The north just groups his
armies a little and then attacks the south whenever he has a numeric
superiority, as he will anywhere on the front until the sougth can
bring his distant units into action. North weill win, improves militia
troops to veterans, and builds more militia. What can south do to stop
this? If he retreats, he loses cities.
Or, have I missed some rules or southern strategies?
Some of the optional or advanced rules seem to favour the south, but
I still can't see they can hold on. Any experts out there?
Cone to that, any advice on playing the game - what are typical
opening moves, etc.
Please?
Thanks,
-jrd
Internal: John Davis - Sysmgr HK10-14 - T4E East end HAL02 - Ext. 3618
External: J.R....@bnr.co.uk - +44 (0)279 403618
Frederick Scott
>I bought GDW's "A House Divided" last week, aster having thought
>about it for a long time. Looks nice, straightforward, plenty
>of options, good counters, BUT:
>
> With average luck, I can't see how the South can win.
>
>In the basic game, they have only eight armies to the north's twelve.
>The north gets more as reinforcements, the south doesn't.
This is a strange comment to make. As long your city points are greater
than the number of corps you have on the board, you'll get reinforcements.
The south starts with 29 city points and thus, will get reinforcements for
a while, anyway. (Even though the north will ultimately get more.) Since
reinforcements must be militia, the trick is to promote you militia corps
to veterans as fast as you can. You get one free promotion each turn.
Otherwise, you must win battles to get promotions. Therefore, two strategies
suggest themselves: 1) Take any easy battles you can get, and 2) don't leave
your enemy any easy battles. Neither side should have any real advantage in
this area.
>North moves first, and has some special movement abilities.
>AND north's pieces are better deployed (closer to the front line).
>
>The south seems to have no compensations. The north just groups his
>armies a little and then attacks the south whenever he has a numeric
>superiority, as he will anywhere on the front until the sougth can
>bring his distant units into action. North weill win, improves militia
>troops to veterans, and builds more militia. What can south do to stop
>this? If he retreats, he loses cities.
>
>Or, have I missed some rules or southern strategies?
Yes, you have. The *major* southern advantage, which far more than cancels
out the norther advantages: the victory rules.
The North must capture all major (2 or 3 city point) Confederate cites to
win the game. However, the South need only take the lead in city points
and/or capture Washington for a moment to win. Once you start playing
around with the game system, you'll discover that this can be remarkably
easy, even when you possess decidedly inferior forces.
The trick turns out to be to always make sure you promote at least one cav
corps on each turn, freeing up your cav militia for rebuilding. Build a large
cav army out west, forcing the north to do likewise. (Although having one cav
corps in the east can be useful.) The cav army should not contain any infantry
to slow it down. Mananuver around with it, threatening to go around the
invading Northern army if he advances in one large stack. Descend on
anything small if he splits his stack up - thus gaining an easy victory and a
free promotion and, hopefully, wiping out some of his all-important veteran
corps.
The North will find that countering these tactics can be very frustrating out
west where there's lot of room to maneuver. That will slow him down. What
you're waiting for is for him to roll a 1 or 2 on his movement followed by
your rolling a 5 or 6. Sometimes, if you're in good enough position, that
right there will be enough for you to slip past him, split up, and jump on
enough cities to win. If not, the other trick is to go ripping through
Knoxville and join up with your eastern army to threaten his northeastern
cities. This can be awfully mean, since even his now unopposed (or weakly
opposed) western forces cannot take cities fast enough to make up for losing
Philadelphia, New York, and Scranton. And if he pulls his capitol garrison
out of Washington to shore up the defenses, you can attack Washington.
Actually, I find that it's almost impossible to win as the North against a
competent Southern player.
>Some of the optional or advanced rules seem to favour the south, but
>I still can't see they can hold on. Any experts out there?
>Cone to that, any advice on playing the game - what are typical
>opening moves, etc.
I've never played the advanced or optional rules, but I've always suspected
that they might favor the North. This is because, I seem to recall that they
tended to decrease the mobility of invaders, making the kind of lightning stabs
that the South uses to win the game much more difficult. Northern invasions
sort of have to be slow and safe anyway, so it probably doesn't matter so much
to them.
By the way, I seem to have lost my optional/advanced rules sheet - is there a
way I could talk someone into posting them or E-mailing them to me?
Fred
David Gibbs
>
>I bought GDW's "A House Divided" last week, aster having thought
>about it for a long time. Looks nice, straightforward, plenty
>of options, good counters, BUT:
>
> With average luck, I can't see how the South can win.
>
>In the basic game, they have only eight armies to the north's twelve.
>The north gets more as reinforcements, the south doesn't.
>North moves first, and has some special movement abilities.
>AND north's pieces are better deployed (closer to the front line).
>
>The south seems to have no compensations. The north just groups his
>armies a little and then attacks the south whenever he has a numeric
>superiority, as he will anywhere on the front until the sougth can
>bring his distant units into action. North weill win, improves militia
>troops to veterans, and builds more militia. What can south do to stop
>this? If he retreats, he loses cities.
It has been a while, so I'll be missing some details, but...
(In fact, several years since I've played this. It was a good
game. I wonder if it could be done by email...)
The south has compensations in the victory conditions -- he has
to play a delaying game, and only defend when fortified. He
rarely attacks. Basically the south has to retreat, regroup,
and retreat.
>I still can't see how they can hold on. Any experts out there?
>Cone to that, any advice on playing the game - what are typical
>opening moves, etc.
Richmond can usually be held, but nothing north of it, and sometime only
it and a nearby fortress.
Keep a threat near Washington at all times, then the North has to
defend it. (Since I think taking Washington is an instant south
victory.) (I think Richmond is near enough to threaten washington
actually.)
If you have a fairly large stack anywhere, entrench them! Remember
you are fighting a defensive war, so entrenchment works well, where
as North has to attack, and attacking entrenched troops is VERY
difficult.
Try cavalry raids -- this is a wonderful distraction, and can even
bringing you close to winning. Since the south's main concentration
of cities is on the east and west sides of the map, along with the
main concentrations of transport routes -- (I find attacks generally
run down the river (Mississippi?) on the west side of the map,
and down the east coast) the centre tends to be left alone.
So, run a couple of cavalry units up the centre map and starting
capturing all those high-value Northern cities. It will be very
difficult for him to kill your cavalry, since it can move quickly
to grab cities, and if attacked by anything other than pure cavalry,
it can do a cavalry withdrawal before combat -- just run away.
(This can really push the Northerners army maximum down, sometimes
enough that it gets close to a southern win -- plus if North's
maximum is below his current army size, he can no longer recruit
new units.)
Finally, to win (again from memory) North must hold ALL southern
cities of 2 or more -- this means he has to defend all of them,
so he has to split up -- sometimes near the end of the game
this comes down to lightning raid to retake just one city for
the south, and to hold on for one more turn (or two more...)
for a time victory.
In fact, I found this game to be quite balanced, and actually
difficult for North to win, and almost impossible for North
to win early. (I usually can't win as North before the third
"bonus" recruitment turn. (ie turn that gets 4 extra militia)).
-Hope these comments help,
-David Gibbs
(dag...@quantum.qnx.com)
Russ Williams
to be pretty balanced. And I've had the south win all 3 ways
(captured Washington, get more production than North, hold out 4 years).
It's got great replay value because a game can go so many different
ways: CSA aggressively running cavalry into the north, US doing
naval invasions, attacks up/down rivers, etc. Some games have
focused on the west, some on the east. Great little system,
truly elegant rules. (I've never messed with the optional
rules, they just look like clutter to me.)
Russ
thomas wrentmore barnes
How to fix and modify miniatures:
1) Superglue or 2-part epoxy are the best materials for joining metal to
metal. Hot glue is also good, but tends to leave a large blob between
the joined parts. If you are using superglue use just a small amount -it
will bond better. Two part epoxy takes a long time to set, so you will
have to carefully brace the parts you are trying to fix.
RC model stores sell something call Cyanoacrylite glue that is
similar to superglue (and might be the same thing). You can make it bond
faster and fill better if you put a light film of baking soda on the two
parts to be joined.
It goes without saying that your pieces should be free of oil
and paint and should be shaped, if neccessary, with an x-acto knife so
that they fit well.
Polystyrene plastic can be joined with plastic model glue. It
comes in semi-liquid and liquid forms. Be careful not to use too much or
it will melt the plastic around the join.
Soft plastic is a bitch to join, I don't know of any good way,
other than messy hot glue, to join soft plastic to soft plastic.
2) 2 part putty (the stuff they sell at hardware stores that comes in a
blue and yellow strip) can be used to add features to a figure. It is
especially useful for adding clothing. If a figure's limb breaks you can
sometimes use putty to mold a piece of clothing over the break and
rejoin the limb. After it dries, it can be it can be finely shaped with
a jeweller's file, emery board or nail file.
This technique is especially nice for clothing and armoring
those perenially nearly-naked female figures you get. If you want your
barbarian queen in something other than a chainmail and brass bikini get
out your putty and put her in REAL armor.
3) Flags, capes and draperies can be made from toilet paper or facial
tissue. Cut the t.p. to the shape you want (or double the length and wht
width you want for a flag) and then drag it through a dilute white glue
solution. Then, VERY carefully, arrange the soggy t.p. in the way you
desire. Heavier paper can be used to simulate heavier fabric, but won't
look quite as good.
Flags should be folded over a piece of wire, a spear or lance or
a peice of piano wire and left to dry in the position you want the flag
to be in.
After the flag, or whatever, dries, it can be fine detailed with
a pair of scissors or an x-acto knife to get scallops or swallowtails.
The flag can then be carefully "crinkled" by hand to get it look like
it's waving and then painted.
4) Weapons can be made by hammering flat pieces of piano wire and then
shaping them with a file. Only the tip of the wire need be flattened to
make a simple spear. Swords take more effort. If the figure comes with a
drilled out hand to hold the weapon it's easy to glue the weapon to the
hand. If the figure's hand isn't drilled out, you will need to make a
socket by careful boring with the tip of an x-acto knife blade. Plastic
miniatures can have sockets drilled by carefully melting the plastic
with a piece of hot piano wire or a turkey skewer. Too much heat in too
small an area will melt the plastic.
Glaive heads can be made from folded over paper or folded over
foil from toothpaste or medicine tubes which are then glued.
5) Shields can be made from thin cardstock, matteboard, polystyrene
plastic sheet or balsa wood, depending on how thick you want your
shield. These can then be gently curved (at least for "heater shaped"
shields) and glued directly to the figure's shield arm.
6) Pouches, belts, straps and scabbards can be made from heavy paper or
carefully cut foil from tubes and then glued to the figure. This takes a
bit of planning and effort and some trial and error to get right. Build
up buckles and flaps by adding a new layer of foil or paper rather than
folding one layer over itself.
7) Backpacks can be made with paper or foil straps, as above, with a
lump of putty for the body of the pack and a fold of paper to simulate
the top flap of the pack. It takes a bit of effort to get the pack to
look right.
8) If a delicate part of a miniature breaks (like the spine or limb of a
fine-boned skeleton figure) make a "splint" from a peice of toothpick to
help join the two broken parts and then use one of the techniques listed
above to hide or disguise the splint.
9) With lead miniatures you can "customize" identical figures by
carefully moving their limbs and heads. This requires VERY careful
bending with either the fingers or with a gently held pair of pliers.
Keep the figure from being damaged by wrapping the jaws of the pliers
with a bit of cloth and not pressing too hard. Be careful! Lead will
break if you bend a head more than about 10% out of its original
position or a limb more than about 25%. Fix as above.
Fancier conversions, which require drilling and pins to join the
figure's parts together are possible and can produce truly unique
figures, but are far beyond the ability of a beginner.
You can also use an x-acto knife to pare down weapons that are
too large, or carve small areas of a miniature. Faces are especially
good for modification. With sufficient time, you can turn a helmeted
head into a bare head, a bearded face into a beardless face and a
monster into a human.
After a while you will start to find neat little items or discover new
uses for old items that can be used to modify or convert miniatures. For
example - a bit of cotton teased into a strand could simulate a horse's
tail or a whisp of smoke, if properly dyed. Or, a small rounded button
might be pefect for a shield once the shank is cut off. Look around for
gravel, twigs, interesting bits of grass and foliage, Xmas decorations,
watch parts, bits of toys etc. that might be used in miniatures
conversion.
Also, a paint job can hide a lot of inconsistancies. If you want
to do the Mexican War in miniature, but all you have is Napoleonics -
paint the Napoleonics to look like U.S. and Mexican troops! At 3' no one
but the most anal of uniform geeks is going to notice the difference.
Most historical miniatures don't vary that much in their uniform within
about 25-50 years of each other, sometimes even more.
tom.
David Kohr
Williams) writes:
>AHD is one of my fave boardgames. [....] Great little system, truly
>elegant rules.
>
>Russ
I think it's a great system, too. Does GDW have any plans to release games
on different subjects using the same system? (I think a strategic-level
Napoleonic game could be very good.)
--
Dave Kohr CS Graduate Student Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561 Home: (217)359-9350 E-mail: d...@cs.uiuc.edu
"One either has none or not enough."
Gary Hladik
>I think it's a great system, too. Does GDW have any plans to release games
>on different subjects using the same system? (I think a strategic-level
>Napoleonic game could be very good.)
Strategy & Tactics used a highly modified version of the "House Divided"
system in their issue 141 game, "Hannibal: The Second Punic War". It wasn't
very historical as published, but it was fixable (yes, I'm still "fixing"
it). :-)
Come to think of it, "A House Divided" isn't terribly historical, either.
It is a lot of fun, though. :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Hladik, Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale, Ca. USA
ga...@duts.ccc.amdahl.com
Frederick Scott
>In article <1otb3h...@im4u.cs.utexas.edu> ru...@cs.utexas.edu (Russ
>Williams) writes:
>>AHD is one of my fave boardgames. [....] Great little system, truly
>>elegant rules.
>>
>>Russ
>
>I think it's a great system, too. Does GDW have any plans to release games
>on different subjects using the same system? (I think a strategic-level
>Napoleonic game could be very good.)
In fact, they did exactly that, years ago. It's called "Soldier King", and
it's a four-player game.
It featurs infantry, light cavalry, and heavy cavalry instead of just the
infantry and cav as with "A House Divided". The light cav gets most of the
movement and withdrawl bonuses I think, although the heavy cav gets a few.
The heavy cav has the same attack values as the light cav but has the
advantage of a "double attack" (throwing two dice) on the first attack round.
The militia (called "levy", in this game) mix is different, with all three
types having more than one levy counter available. Crack troops are called
"Guard" (predictably) but it basically means the same thing.
(Alas, all of the above is from memory - I own the game but, like with my
advanced "House Divided" rules, I seem to be missing my rules sheet from it
game as well. Can anyone post, E-mail, or fax me a copy? Pulease?!?!)
The game board is divided into provinces, of which each power starts with
two. You conquer a province by simultaneously possessing all the cities in
that province. Each city has two numbers printed on it. The first, larger
number is its value if you possess the province. The second, smaller value
is its value if you possess the city but not the province.
Unforunately, the game is badly play-balanced. The island continent is longer
than wide with the Red and Yellow countries on either end. The Blue and
Green countries are placed in the middle (without there being much extra
booty than normal within their grasp) and generally are difficult to win
with.
To rectify the situation, I created a larger map with 6 countries using the
same rules and the "House Divided" counters as well. "House Divided" cavalry
equated to "Soldier King" light cav, and the Dark Blue (Union) and Grey
(Confederate) countries can not use heavy cav. The naval rules - not used
in "Soldier King" - are used in my map by rolling a 6-sided die at the
beginning of every turn. One country (not favored by any other advantages)
gets a naval invasion on a 1-3. Two other countries (that I thought could use
slight advantages) get an invasion on a 4 or 5, respectively. If a 6 is
rolled, whoever possesses the province designated the "pirate province", gets
a naval invasion. (OK, so sue me - I thought it was neat!) Unforunately, I've
never been able to get enough players to playtest it more than once or twice,
but I think it would work a lot better then "Soldier King" does.
Fred
CASPER,DAVI./PPE
>Dave Kohr writes of GDW's "A House Divided":
>
>>I think it's a great system, too. Does GDW have any plans to release games
>>on different subjects using the same system? (I think a strategic-level
>>Napoleonic game could be very good.)
>
>Strategy & Tactics used a highly modified version of the "House Divided"
>system in their issue 141 game, "Hannibal: The Second Punic War". It wasn't
>very historical as published, but it was fixable (yes, I'm still "fixing"
>it). :-)
3W's "Give Me Liberty" (American Revolution), while not exactly the same
system, is OK, but has a few problems with clarity of rules.
Dave Casper
Ed Allen and Avi Rappoport
A few years ago, when I wanted a system like A House Divided as the
basis of a miniatures campaign, and I couldn't find Soldier Kings, which
was out of print, I went and wrote a game based on the system with a
fictitious map like that of Soldier Kings. I later got a copy of
Soldier Kings and had the opportunity to compare the two. Mine was
more complex and more flexible. I included several of the rules from
A House Divided in ways that allowed for varying the countries, did the
recruitment and supply more like that in A House Divided, added in sailing
ship naval rules for naval transport and supply of land units and naval
combat and fleet movement. Boy was that a run-on, would edit it if I wasn't
using this stupid editor. Anyway I called the game Vom Kriege and played
it several times with friends in numbers ranging from 2-5. I eventually
did a second map with a lot of islands to try it with an emphasis on the
naval stuff instead of the land action predominating. People around here
seem to like it pretty well, and I've toyed with the idea of giving it
some wider distribution. Publishing it seems too expensive a proposition
and it is heavily derivative from A House Divided so I'm not sure about the
ethics on whether I'd be infringing copyright. I expect I would at least
have to rewrite the rules alot, to remove most of the directly derivative
wording, so that it's not direct plagiarism. But I might be able to
put it out in some form of shareware kit of Macintosh text and graphics
files so that other people could print out copies, make their own counters,
etc.
Anybody interested? Should I go to the trouble?
Ed Allen
edan...@well.sf.ca.us