Battle Cry (Milton Bradley game)

Battle-Cry is a combat board game set in the American Civil War that was published by the Milton Bradley Company in 1961 as part of their popular American Heritage series.

For other similarly named board games and video games, see Battle Cry (disambiguation).

Description

Battle-Cry is a two-player board game between units representing the Union and Confederate armies. There are also special rules for a 4-player game.[1]

Components
  • square-grid map is of the Eastern United States at the time of the American Civil War.
  • 44 playing pieces (22 blue, 22 gray)
  • rulebook
  • two six-sided dice[2]

Set up

Each player begins with 22 color-coded counters (10 infantry, 10 cavalry and 2 artillery), which are set up on the map on specified starting locations.[1]

Movement

The active player rolls two 6-sided dice; the resultant total can be allocated as movement to any units. Infantry moves one square per dice pip, cavalry moves two suares per pip. Any unit reaching a mountain square must stop for the rest of the turn. Units at a railway station can each use 1 movement to immediately move to the next station.[1]

Combat

The attacker lines up a column of pieces either horizontally or vertically to attack an enemy column. In order to begin combat, the attacker's column must have numerical superiority, calculated as 2 points for each infantry and artillery unit, and 1 point for cavalry units. All units in the defending column are eliminated, and the rear-most unit in the attacker's column is moved to the front of the attacker's column.[1]

Victory conditions

The first side to completely eliminate all enemy pieces is the winner.[1]

Publication history

Battle Cry was published as a cooperative effort between Milton Bradley and American Heritage to mark the 100th anniversary of the American Civil War.[3] It was one of a series of four collaborative games that the two companies published.[4] Although the designer was not credited, box cover art was by James Walker.[1]

Battle Cry was reprinted in the 1970s.[3]

Reception
  • In the paper La simulación histórica y la historia militar, Antonio Catalán called the American Heritage series, of which Battle Cry was one, a significant development in the study of conflict through simulations.[4]
  • In the essay The War in Cardboard and Ink: Fifty Years of Civil War Board Games (published in the 2014 book The Civil War in Popular Culture: Memory and Meaning), Alfred Wallace noted that this game "was almost certainly the best-selling game on the Civil War."[3]
  • The website The Player's Aid noted that this was "a really good and fun game." The reviewer found that "while the game is simple on the surface, there is definitely some hidden strategy and tactical acumen needed to be successful."[2]

Other recognition

A copy of Battle Cry is held in the collection of the Strong National Museum of Play (object 116.3755).[5]

References
  1. "Battle-Cry (1961)". Board Game Geek. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  2. "Chess with cannons! – A Review of American Heritage Battle-Cry A Civil War Game from Milton Bradley (1961)". The Player's Aid. 2016-03-21. Archived from the original on 2020-12-03. Retrieved 2021-02-08. In case you didn’t know the American Heritage series was Milton Bradley’s series of “war” themed games released in the early to mid-sixties. The sixties editions came in oversized boxes and featured large mapboards and plastic miniatures.
  3. Lawrence A. Kreiser Jr.; Randal W. Allred, eds. (2014). The Civil War in Popular Culture: Memory and Meaning. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813143217. Archived from the original on 2021-02-08. Retrieved 2021-02-08. Battle Cry and Civil War came out in 1961, during the Civil War centenial. Battle Cry, produced by Milton Bradley, was almost certainly the best-selling game on the Civil War, and was available at many mainstream stores during the war's centenial and the nation's bicentennaial.
  4. Antonio Catalán (September 2017). La simulación histórica y la historia militar [The historical simulation and military history] (PDF). Universitat Jaume I (Thesis) (in Spanish). p. 70. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-02-08. Retrieved 2021-02-08. Tambien en los años 60 y 70 Milton Bradley diseño una colección de juegos a medio camino de los abstractos con tema bélico, y juegos con diseño propio, se trataba de la serie American Heritage Games146, con hechos significativos de la historia americana, como Battle-Cry (Guerra Civil), Broadside (Guerra naval del XVIII), Dogfight (combate aéreo I GM) o Hit the Beach (desembarcos en el pacífico durante la II GM).
  5. "Board game:American Heritage Battle Cry Civil War Game". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
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