Barlow's Knoll

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: This campaign mission is one of the easier ones and a quick play at that. I won this the first time out, and although the game allows you 40 turns to defeat the enemy, I needed only 10 turns to wipe them off of the map using purely defensive tactics.

You could lose this scenario if any of the Southern units enter the orange hexes that you are defending. But to your advantage from go, you are already there and can immediately fortify some units. I effectively wasted a turn because I had to move out some troops to move some back in.

Also, for the first time in the series of campaign gameplay, there are regular infantry rifleman added to the mix, which have a one hex greater range then the lowly militia units do (3 hexes to 2 hexes). This allowed me to position the conscripts out front and allow my new units to fire over them in support.

The mission could be lost by a novice player as the AI will flood the center then perform delayed flanks on the extreme left and center-right of the hex grid, but if you set your troops, fortify them and then execute as much mutual field-of-fire as you can muster, this should be a quick mission win.

It is nice to see a mission with the longer range units and one that does not feature artillery. I love artillery and think it is the de facto King of Battle, but playing against it in Gettysburg is a major pain in the britches (albeit I won the last mission with artillery only).

Other thoughts: I like the fact that this game presents the campaign not as either North or South, but both simultaneously. That and all of the historical information provided if you care to peruse it make this a well-rounded effort and a unique shame that the developer, Cat Daddy Games, and the publisher, TalonSoft, are no more.