I played a game of Fury in the West against Terence last Sunday. We selected the first day scenario, and as Terence preferred to defend, I took the Confederates while he assumed command of the Union forces.
A note on the game mechanics. Each unit starts the game with a fixed strength. It loses strength through straggling (which is recoverable) and casualties (which are largely unrecoverable). When a unit moves (unless in line formation throughout), it loses stragglers. It also loses stragglers when it retreats or routs from combat. Casualties are caused by combat.
The game has infantry units (which are the only units affected by straggling), artillery (adds to defence, but largely useless for attacks as they cannot move into enemy ZOC) and leaders (gives combat modifier, and allows infantry and artillery units to move at a reasonable pace). Units have a facing, and if attacked outside its facing, attack strength of enemy units are doubled. Units only move straight ahead, and spend one movement point changing facing. Considering an infantry and artillery unit only has 4 MP per turn (and half that if no accompanied by a suitable leader), you can imagine how slow progress is. Victory is determined by VPs, and you get that for capturing terrain features (Pittsburgh Landing - 100, Shiloh Church-25, 16 Union camps 5 each) causing casualites (2-3 pts each) and complete elimination of enemy units (5pts).
The Union set-up is largely fixed, and Terence made use of his setup options well, and there was no exposed flanks and other weaknesses for me to take advantage of.
My Confederate forces were divided into three lines, with each a different distance from the nearest Union unit. I opted to attack all across the front, and interspaced my lines such that the maximum number of units get to attack on the first turn. This is to take advantage of the first turn surprise rule (2 odds shift for each combat, and doubled Union straggler losses due to combat). The strategy worked well, as I maximised my attacks. The Union right was battered, but held, and it took me the next several turns to completely destroy the remnants, by which time additional Union units arrived to plug the gap.
As the game progressed, I managed to get some really hot die rolls, and racked up Union casualties. While I was also losing large numbers of stragglers, I managed to rest a few units every turn to make sure that they remained combat-worthy. Terence had no such luxury as his Union units had to continuously backpaddle while reinforcements have to move into position, so these units took some straggler losses as well.
By turn 7, I cleared the last stream defence line. Although I do not think I could get to Pittsburgh Landing, I had captured a substantial part of the map, and the camps together with Shiloh church closed the gap in points Terence got for Pittsburgh Landing. I eliminated a number of Union units (more through hot dierolls than good generalship), so I was ahead in this department. We decided at this point to call it a day.
It was my first game in many years, and I had to refresh my memory of many rules. One of the most important part of the game is to determine how many of your units to place in column formation. These units only have 50% combat strength, but do not lose stragglers, so are an efficient way to move units in front while the frontline units rested.
To speed play, we played with the gentleman's rule of not factor counting, so I did make several 19:7 type attacks throughout the game. Terence suggested that in future games, we could make fractional odds a probability of increasing the odds by 1 level. (e.g. 2.33:1 has a 33% chance to roll on 3:1 column.) I think it is a wonderful idea, and we will try it again soon.
One complaint was the small font size used on the counters. We are both (to differing degrees, heheheh) aging men with failing eyesight, and my counters are already fading due to many games played over the past decades, so we had some trouble figuring out which counters were which units. If I find time, I will go make a set of replacement counters in bold 12-pt fonts.
Overall an enjoyable experience. I guess there is a reason why my counters were so worn and faded.