From: LESLIE SPAIN Subject: Re: COA Army ofthe Heartland > I am interested in COA Army of the Heartland, Has anyone played the game, > and is it worth purchasing, > > Thank You > Rodney > > Rodney, I purchased this game from someone on the list and proceeded to play the Fort Henry/Donelson scenario twice. I'll come back to this after some general comments. My opponent and I found the game system to be interesting and detailed. As Brandon stated, the game is played at an operational level where few ACW games attempt to cover. We found the system to have some good ideas with some focus on leadership and 'reaction' movement to combat. There are additional rules which cover river movement and supply which influenced this theatre. The maps and other components are excellent and the game will reward some study. However, we found the Donelson scenario to be flawed in that there is NO way in the context of the rules that the Union side can recreate what Grant actually did. Specific rules prohibit movement of river craft carrying troops past fortifications or to land in hexes other than towns. These rules make sense overall except Grant landed on top of Donelson historically. The scenario requires the Union side to take Forts Henry and Donelson while providing the Union player less troop strength than the Confederates. Historically IMO, one of the reasons Grant was able to accomplish what he did was that the Confederates were in a real quandary as to what to defend. The Union player is allowed no flexibility in objectives, and thus simple concentration by the Confederates wins the day. Let's see.....the South has more troops, better leaders (on the whole), and better logistics in that they are retreating on their own lines. The scenario also gives the Confederate almost as much riverine strength as the Union forcing the Union player to use a good percentage of his scarce assets tying down an easy Confederate countermove with his gunboats into Union territory. In the game the Union player is not permitted to build shore batteries in the same way as the Confederates are. In this scenario, this was a significant item. To sum this up, we found the scenario victory conditions to be unrealistic and with all the other game products competing for attention, we put it aside. After all those negative comments, let me say that I am not going to get rid of this game because one scenario was poorly developed. As I stated, the game has some features we found interesting and worthy of further study. At some point, I will pick this one back up and try it again. Hope this helps, Les Spain