Antietam Sunrise

[Louisiana_Tiger]

Just to see how it would play out, I changed the weather and visibility slightly on the the morning scenarios and made the sunrise feature last a little longer.

It seemed like the 1 minute between game start and all hell breaking loose at the edge of the East Woods precluded either army from making any sort of preparatory moves before becoming heavily engaged. Just a few more minutes of darkness, followed by a gradual shift to slightly better vision, adds a tremendous amount of suspense to the scenarios. The enemy may be moving or attacking but you really can't see where or with how much until they are much closer.

I created a "Foggy Dawn" weather that limited vision to 150 yards that lasts 5 minutes and is followed by 20 minutes of Cloudy Dawn with vision reduced to 300 yards. At 6:15, the sun is fully up and vision is at the scenario's original max of 900 yards.

The result the first time I played as the Confederates, it was exactly how the opening phase near the Cornfield occurred historically. After about 10 minutes of eerie quiet, visibility became good enough to see the Union attackers, who had made it to the edge of the Cornfield. Needless to say, firing commenced immediately and both sides were fairly shot to pieces within 20 minutes and had to call in reserves.

I am interested in seeing how it plays from the Union side next, particularly if an alternate attack plan is used.