Altar of Freedom

A ruleset I heared a lot of good things about, Altar of Freedom is written for 6mm ACW gaming and uses the "Polemos" style basing of 60x30mm for basing.

Now, if you are into micromanaging or detailed regimental level action, you can stop here already because this ruleset is developped for those wanting to play the role of an army commander and fight the whole battle of Shiloh on a 4x4 table.

In this role, your job is to maneuver your brigades (the smallest unit size in the rules, and one base strong) and divisions into the right positions, and preferably at the right time, to swing the battle in your favor.  Due to the brigade being the smallest unit, you won't need an huge collection to start playing some of the scenarios, as some of the historical OOB's even take only about a dozen of mixed sorts (infantry, cavalry and artillery, and one or two generals, like Second Kernstown).  For the rest, the game uses a d6 for the combats, and depending the scenario a d10, d20 or the likes for something called the Turn Clock, on which more later.

As one base represents one brigade, the number of actual models on it doesn't matter, but units will get a strength modifier ranging from -3 to +3 to show in what shape they where during the scenario.  The same goes for the generals, their traits and priority points can differ seriously from one game to the next, as it takes into account a variety of factors that presented themselves at that time.  Oh, and you don't need to track casualties; a unit is either fighting, or has broken and fled the table, so that's no bookkeeping required.

For unit types, you have the usual suspects: Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, as well as Generals. Only the "top" of the chain of command generals are represented, not the divisional level ones, and they each have to have an HQ stand as well. This is a bit of a special thingy for the rules, as this is where any broken troops might rally to.


Going to the rules themselves, whom are about 20 pages, you first bid for each of your divisions in Priority Points.  The division that has the highest score moves first (and for that matter, shoots, fights, etc).  Once done, the next highest goes and so forth, but there is a catch.  The players also bid to control the Turn Clock, a dice that is modified after every division has taken it's actions, and when it reaches 0 the turn ends.  This is quite a nifty way imho to represent the ebb and flow of a battle.

Shooting ranges are really short, at 2" for example for infantry, as ACW battles often involved ,oving close to each other, unleash a few volleys, and hope to drive the opponent off.  The morale, turn clock and scenario combination will rarely, if not ever, see an army destroyed to the last man.  In the end phase your generals move, troops check to rally, recover fatigue... and the bidding starts again.

This is as such, and correctly, a moving game, not a shoot fest like for example Warhammer 40k...

Following the core rules, the appendixes add the fun stuff.  Personality Traits are bonusses (or penalties!) your generals have, at that given time during a scenario.  These can vary for the same general from scenario to scenario to represent how they fared on that day in history.  We also get some design philosphies and thoughts on converting to bigger scales, as well as a (very redundantly added) points system.  You'll see, the author isn't a fan of it, and rightly so.

The next part are the starter scenarios and OOB's for them, giving you a variation of battles in different sizes and number of players they are designed for, and gives and idea of how long a game will last.  There are scenario packs for sale on their website, and I'll buy them one of these days once I liquidated some more larger scale stuff for hobby funds.

A great looking ruleset, and one I look forward to to play at the club one of the coming months.  I already got an opponent, now to paint up my army!