A House Divided - Game Review

I picked up a copy of A House Divided by Game Designers' Workshop.  This is the 1981 edition of the game and I got it for a song along with a copy of another game.

So, I enlisted one of my co-workers, Bryan, to try this out with me.  I read the rules, sorted out all the chits and we sat down to give it a try.

Here is the game board with our starting units ready for battle.

I took the Union forces and Bryan took the Confederates.  This is one of the first chit type board games I've played and it is the first one Bryan has played.

The first couple of turns were spent by the Union trying to build up forces and the Confederates engaging in small skirmishes around the board.  After a couple of turns the Confederates started to focus on pushing into Union held ground out West.

It seems that I let my guard down and the Confederates made a strong push out west moving to attack 3 cities in one turn.  When all was said and done, It turned out that the South had taken enough recruitment cities to drop the North's max army size below the South's.  This ended the game with a win for the Confederate forces.

The really sad part was, I lost the war in January/February of 1862.  I'm really not proud of that, but kudos to Bryan on his cunning, and quick victory.

I really enjoyed the game and with a few turns under my belt (and a better understanding of how army size affects the game), I think I will provide a better general the next time around.

I won't make any judgments on the components as this is almost 35 year old copy and is several edition behind the current edition.  

I'm glad I picked this up and will be looking to give it another try soon.