Fury in the West

In April 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant moved the Union Army of the Tennessee deep into Confederate territory near Pittsburg Landing in southern Tennessee. On 6 April 1962, Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston commanding the Army of Mississippi launched a surprise attack that caught Grant unawares, and threw the Union army back with heavy losses. After a day of heavy fighting in which General Johnston was killed, his second-in-command, P.G.T. Beauregard, faced a difficult decision: force his exhausted Confederate troops to try and finish off the Union army, or rest until the morning and hope that Union reinforcements would not arrive before then.^[1]

Fury in the West is a two-player board wargame in which one player controls the Union forces of Ulysses S. Grant, while the other player controls the Confederate forces of Albert Johnston. If the Confederate player can force a gap in the Union forces and take Pittsburg Landing on the first day, this will prevent Union reinforcements from arriving on the second day, and make a Confederate victory more likely. If the Confederate player is unable to prevent reinforcements from arriving, the Union player is likely to win.^[2]

The sequence of play is the "I Go, You Go" alternating series of turns typical of wargames of the early 1970s: first one side moves and fires, then the other side does the same. This completes one game turn, which represents one hour of game time.^[3]

The Basic game, designed for new players, uses only the simplest units and strategies. The Advanced game add rules for artillery, column formation, attacks from flank and the rear, prisoners, night combat, and surprise attack by the Confederates.^[4]

Two new rules in both the Basic and Advanced games make the game unusual for its time:

1. Any time a unit moves, it loses a certain number of "stragglers", reducing its strength. (The number of stragglers is doubled if the movement is due to a forced retreat.) A unit that does not move for a turn regains one point of strength as stragglers rejoin the unit.^[2]
2. A unit's zone of control only extends to the three hexes in front of the unit, not the three hexes behind the unit. This makes each unit more vulnerable to attack from the rear.^[3]

Optional rules include: random initiative changes to determine which player moves first each turn; changes in set-up and reinforcements; gunboats; changes to stacking rules; the effect of leaders on combat; long range artillery fire; fog of war,^[2] timed moves, alternate Confederate setup, variable reinforcements, bayonet charges, capture of artillery, and multi-player rules.^[4]

Victory conditions depend on casualties inflicted, prisoners taken, officers lost, and possession of key strategic points.^[4]

Four shorter scenarios are offered, two for each day of the battle. The fifth scenario covers both days of the battle.^[4]

Stephen Peek designed Fury in the West, which was published by Battleline in 1977. Two years later, Avalon Hill purchased the rights to the game, revised some of the rules, and published it with box cover art by Rodger B. MacGowan.