This site is dedicated to the great Civil War Pentagame

Designer's Notes

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dedication
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To my father, Samuel Lee Smith, and to my uncle, John Eugene Smith, who taught me to love American history.

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THE ORIGINS OF ACROSS FIVE APRILS
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This game system had its genesis way back in the early 1980's. At that time, I was a staff game designer for SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.) in New York City and was developing A Gleam of Bayonets, Rich Berg's game on the Battle of Antietam. In order to test that game's command control system, I went back to the old SPI Blue and Gray quad-game, Antietam. Using the smaller game I was able to test the command system over and over again because it played so quickly. Out of this experience grew the idea of creating my own Civil War "quad" game.

I grew up on SPI quad games, especially Blue and Gray and the Napoleonic series. I and a group of friends played them consistently and enjoyed them a great deal. They played very quickly, were easy to learn, and allowed you to play a wide variety of battles without having to go through the hassle of learning a whole new set of rules. Across Five Aprils is a game in that spirit.

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THE GAME SYSTEM
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Across Five Aprils is a simple game, but nonetheless has a number of novel features. The most important of these is the Phase Marker system, which portrays a fundamental truth about the nature of Civil War battles (and, indeed, about the battles of any era).

Battles are, by their very nature, highly confusing, chaotic affairs that make it difficult for even the most able of commanders to keep track of everything that's going on, and to maintain effective control of their troops. March delays, misunderstood orders, and lost or delayed messengers all conspire to ruin a commander's best-laid plans, making it particularly difficult to coordinate

maneuvers and attacks involving multiple formations. Typically, the units engaged in a battle will spend the most of their time out of combat, either marching from one place to another or Just sitting around awaiting orders. Thus, most battles are characterized by periods of fierce combat interspersed with long lulls during which relatively little fighting takes place.

Traditionally, wargames have ignored these facts and given players a highly unrealistic degree of control over their units. Maneuvers involving multiple formations are coordinated perfectly 100% of the time, attacks can be planned down to the last combat factor, and, in general, the tempo of combat is simply much too fast. Across Five Aprils avoids this pitfall by means of its semi-random sequence of movement and combat, which better simulates the fundamentally chaotic nature of battle. A fortunate side-effect is that Across Five Aprils plays very well as a solitaire game.

The other rules systems are fairly traditional, but some have important twists. The combat resolution system, for example, uses traditional odds columns, but both players roll a die, which creates 36 possible combinations. Add in the morale modifications and you have a combat system that generates a broad range of outcomes. Note, however, that regardless of the dice combination, the result is usually a step loss or two and a retreat. The results are attritional, not decisive, which reflects the actual results of Civil War combat—lots of casualties, but few decisive engagements.

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THE BATTLES
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In deciding which battles to include in Across Five Aprils, I looked for balanced situations that would make good, fun games without requiring lots of Exclusive Rules. For the sake of variety, I wanted to include both large and small battles, with the additional motive of offering players a broad range of playing times bull run and ben-tonville were chosen because they were—respectively— the Civil War's first and last "gameable" major battles (The Battle of Five Forks occurred after bentonville, but the Confederates had little chance of winning) gettysburg and shiloh were natural choices because they are perhaps the two most famous battles of the entire war pea ridge stands out as the most important battle fought west of the Mississippi River Ironically, I had designed the Across Five Aprils system to simulate battles with communications and leadership breakdowns, such as occurred at Antietam and Chancelorsville, yet we only included battles that did not require such rules.

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THE FUTURE
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On the bull run map you may have noticed that there is a second Retreat Compass, and a number of Entry Hexes that are not used in this, the first battle of Bull Run These have been included in anticipation of a future expansion of the Across Five Aprils system Assuming that Across Five Aprils is successful, we will publish a second series of battle games that will include the Second Battle of Bull Run, which will be played on the same map

At present, the only battles that we know for certain will be in the projected second installment of Across Five Aprils are 2nd Bull Run and Antietam, the other three have not yet been determined However, we will include several battles (such as Antietam) that had communications and/or

leadership failures in order to exploit fully the capabilities of the Phase Marker system Once you've played Across Five Aprils, you can just imagine the possibilities, give Stonewall Jackson a separate combat phase marker to allow him to attack twice per turn, have certain movement phase markers "activate" only on a die roll, and so forth The possibilities are many and they will be simple, realistic and fun Of course we'll also include some battles which don't require such rules—as long as they make for a good game

If you've enjoyed Across Five Aprils and would like to see a second series of games, drop us a letter and let us know Feel free to comment on the five games in this series, and make suggestions as to those battles you would like to see in the next series Send your replies to the same address given for rules questions on page #2 of the Basic Rules Booklet.

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IN CONCLUSION
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We hope you enjoy Across Five Aprils If you do, much of the credit goes to Kevin Boylan, the game's developer, and to the corps of playtesters who have spent so many hours tweaking each game.