"Gettysburg: The First Day" Gets Pre-Order Date: A Board Wargame About the American Civil War

Publisher 4ies, also known as 4Games, announced that on June 2, 2026, at 12:00 PM Moscow time, pre-orders will open for the board game "Gettysburg: The First Day," designed for 1–2 players.

This is the first game from the Blind Swords series in Russian and the first wargame in Russia dedicated to the American Civil War. The work on the text turned out to be more extensive than the team expected. It's not just a translation, but a true immersion into the era.

When 4ies began translating the game, they were captivated by the authenticity and historical accuracy of "Gettysburg," the logical mechanics, and the amount of detail the authors worked on to approximate real events.

"Gettysburg: The First Day" operates on a chit-pull system. Tokens for divisional commanders, the commander-in-chief, fog of war, and vicissitudes of war, as well as random event tokens for each side, are placed in a bag.

One turn represents half an hour of real combat. During a turn, players take turns drawing tokens. If a division token is drawn, one of its brigades is activated. An event token can be played immediately or held. A fog of war token triggers effects that can last the entire battle. And vicissitudes of war can cancel the next activation or event.

The winner is determined by key points occupied on the map and damage inflicted on the opponent.

"Gettysburg" is not a classic wargame where players have to wait a long time for their opponent to move all their pieces. It's a dynamic game where the player doesn't know which unit will be activated next. In addition, random events constantly occur: the death of an important general, incorrectly given orders, random skirmishes, running out of ammunition, and much more.

A video of the board game unboxing can be watched on the Pushing Cardboard YouTube channel.