I hope your pards started a Hooters brawl to honky-tonk music, resulting in the inevitable Westerns trope of head being bust through wall to see Hooter's changing room.

I've been playing more Gettysburg on my PC. I fought Devil's Den where I held command of Brigadier General John Henry Hobart Ward's brigade of six regiments, a few parrot cannon and two sharpshooter companies. With this small force I had to hold off an attack four times greater in size. The only good news was my defensive position, a boulder strewn little rise with a woodland to its right and a creek to its left.

The battle lasted a little over an hour and was a real nail biter. The 124th New York truly 'died hard' that day. Other companies buckled under intense pressure, broke and ran only to reform down the hill and enter the fray again. But the 124th stood and took everything until only a third of its original size. As the Confederate attack pushed on my right through the woodlands as the parrot artillery played merry hell on the Confederate lead elements pushing back my sharpshooter skirmish screen, I began to discern the true nature of their attack. Increasingly frustrated by the shot whipping down through the wooded slopes from my regiments firing from behind fences, the front of their attack gradually narrowed and swung down to a direct assault on the bouldered little peak itself. Here an interesting little detail played into effect as the Confederates managed to actually scramble very slowly up the boulders, taking enfilading fire from a sharpshooter regiment, and gained the top, now firing down onto the 124th. Housed in roughly equal cover the 124th still held on, though all the artillerymen around them were cut down.

It was then that the broken 86th New York, stung by the sight of their brothers falling, rallied for one last weary charge up the hill to scramble through the boulders and push the confederates back down. Colours flying, they took another mauling but managed to prise the rebs from their positions and regain the summit. Though another two Confederate companies appeared ready to make another attempt - one I surely couldn't resist - at this point the game decided that I'd done enough in holding the rise and awarded me a minor victory.

Man, this is a hell of a game. Locked into your saddle you only have as much visual information as your real life counterpart had. Though you can opt for an easier 'Total War' experience. I held a little way between the two, allowing for a little freedom of movement up to 100 yards from my position, but locking the fog of war so that Confederate units still alarmingly appeared out of nowhere. For AI, it utterly trouces Total War, as it does for nailbiting tension. You feel utterly spent after a battle!

And multiplayer, especially 4 vs 4, is just the best. Really.