Gilbert Collins
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
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For many of us 'old grognards' the 1958 and 1964 version of Avalon Hill's “Gettysburg” will always be a fond memory of our introduction into our fascinating board wargaming hobby. For me this certainly holds true, and my relationship with this game has waxed hot and cold over the years. It's hard to believe that this game is over half a century old! With the recent passing of Mr. Charles Roberts, the games original creator, I just had to take a 'second look' at this old classic.
It's not my purpose to start analyzing the flaws in the games order of battle and order of appearance, or discuss the almost impossibility of re-creating the historical battle down to the hour. What I would like to do is simply demonstrate what can be done to revive this old classic for those of us who still have the game and own the later edition of “Gettysburg 1988”.
I must say that I never really warmed up to“Gettysburg 1988”. While I liked the inclusion of the missing artillery units and a more accurate movement system, I disliked very much the miniscule map board and the simplified combat. The new counters were very well done indeed, and I always had wondered what these new counters would look like on the old 1958 board.
So, while fooling around with this idea, I got to thinking about adapting the game to Mr. Roberts original concept in the 1958 edition. For those of you who are not familiar with this I should explain that in the original design of the game the playing pieces were moved utilizing a small cardboard template in a miniatures fashion. The super imposed square grid was only used for an optional 'hidden movement' rule. This miniatures type movement allowed players to move units wherever they wanted, independent of the grid and thus place their artillery brigades and infantry divisions to conform to the map board terrain.
So while I continue to experiment with this concept I thought I would include a photograph or two just to show you what can be done. At present, I'm fooling around with the concept that infantry units can move 2 inches on the board and 5 inches should they remain totally on a road. Utilizing the counters from Gettysburg 1988 makes the game look rather attractive.
Pictures are in the images gallery.
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Kim Meints
United States
Waterloo
Iowa
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Gilbert
As soon as I got the 88' edition way back when and saw those countersd and how close to the 64 version they were I went and bouget 4 extra sets and stuck them in with my 58 & 64 editions.
Yes they completely change the look of the older vwersions and I feel even make them look nicer then the 88.
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