Photos by Russ Gifford
It was the first hugely popular game
with three maps and 2000 + counters.
It was the first of the grand-tactical
games for SPI, meaning it was the first for most of the gaming world.
More
than a ‘move-fight’ it included not only defensive fire, but ncluded
incremental strength losses, ranged weapons, man-to-man combat,
multiple formations, and also morale. This game revolutionized
the board gaming world.
And all of this was a year before Squad Leader!
Inside the System
Essentially TSS was
miniatures game in a board game box.
Terrible Swift Sword deservedly won the 1976 Charlie Roberts Award
for the “Best Pre-20th Century Boardgame.” When they moved the game into the
detergent box in 1977, they added a page of errata that smoothed out the
rough spots. (Specifically, they separated the morale into a separate number
instead of tying it to the strength of the unit.)
Looking back, was it that great? Yes. It was also important because it grew
beyond what it started out as.
Changes as the TSS-system Aged
In 1979, Berg followed up with Bloody April, the Battle of Shiloh.
Shiloh was more cramped, and it lost the ‘grand’ feel of TSS. But it
did add some important pieces to the puzzle. The 1978 S&T game Stonewall
used the system and proved it could transfer the excitement to the single
map gameboard, too.
In 1980, SPI tapped Eric Lee Smith to create a series of
TSS-system
games to fit on single maps. The result was the superb Great Battles of
the American Civil War (GBACW) series. It fostered some important
changes.
Differences between 1st Edition TSS and GBACW
GBACW allows all units in stacks to fire their weapons - which was
very important for guns. The cannons were naked in TSS if they had no
infantry support, but they couldn't fire if the infantry stacked on top of
them! This worked fine in TSS, since the guns were generally in
bombardment mode. But the single map games of the Great Battles put
the guns on the line. (Thus, the Counter-Battery phase is also gone from the
GBACW sequence of play.)
Another big change: By 1980, SPI’s steps into full color maps now allowed
the creation of multiple levels of elevation. Now the ability to have true
hills becomes part of the battlefield, and thus line of sight becomes
important. The new rules handle this well.
The biggest change in the
GBACW system was the adoption of an
addition made by Berg in Bloody April. Brigade Combat Effectiveness
(BCE) – essentially a brigade level morale system – was instituted to
correct the problems that grew when the original errata split the morale
from the combat unit’s strength points.
With the original morale tied to the strength point level, it automatically
prevented 'overuse' of troops beyond their endurance. A 1 SP or 2 SP unit
would originally have fallen to a 1 or 2 morale unit. Thus, they’d rarely
stand through Defensive Fire since they’d have to roll a one or two to stay
on the field. They’d rout away rather than die in droves. With the creation
of the separate morale level, units could take more punishment, and ‘gamer’
commanders would unrealistically push a unit into total obliteration. This
would not happen in real life - at some point in taking losses, the
remaining troops say 'uh uh - not us!'
So Berg created BCE for Bloody April, and Eric Smith put it into the
GBACW system. After a brigade reaches a certain number of casualty
losses, they do a brigade retreat, then check morale. Fail, and the whole
brigade routs away. Even if they pass the morale check, or when they
eventually rally, they will no longer enter an enemy zone of control, never
initiate melee, and have a -1 on all combat fire. An elegant and realistic
answer to the situation!
More importantly in game terms, units that fail BCE costs their side big
victory points! So, as a unit approaches BCE status, the prudent player
pulls them off the line, and waits for a night turn to return some
stragglers into the ranks, giving them a chance to be used a least a little
at a later time.
These rules were mostly for the GBACW gamettes – smaller, playable
games for Pea Ridge, Wilson's Creek, Cedar Mountain, Jackson at the
Crossroads, and Battle of Corinth, etc. But by 1983, SPI/TSR Eric
Lee Smith put all the experience in the small games to publish another
monster – Gleam of Bayonets (Antietam). (Smith had done much of the
development work before the fall of SPI.)
Completing the Circle
In 1985, TSR completed the re-germination by issuing the second edition
Terrible Swift Sword. All the battle-tested GBACW system rules were put
back into TSS, with an expansion that included almost everything from the
original game. The result is nearly perfection for original TSS players.
Except - the TSR bastarizaton of the second edition maps grates on the
nerrves. The physical components of the map - so striking and so vital in
the original editon - disappointments and appauls people. But even this
failure succeeds as it expands the playability of
the game, bringing the multiple height levels into TSS. The unit
counters now include color-coding for divisions and color bands to mark
different brigades. It is very workable - despite the clashing color scheme.
Final Thoughts
Richard Berg changed the GBACW to an impulse system in 1988,
then issued Three Days of Gettysburg for GMT using a chit pull system
for orders. It took anotherr 2 editions of this to smooth it all out, and
the rules are now listed as
‘4.x’ (for 4th generation) rules. But the original and the resulting
clarification for the second edition are easily as playable, and as
exciting, as they were in 1976! Thirty years on, the system still shines -
and is played by many many people today.
© 2005, by Russ Gifford