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Question; Are the units organized similar to ACW in that an Army has seperate Corps that can be ordered around independently (As well as divisions) Also, are individual leaders selected for each Corps division and Army?

Can the player select which brigades are assigned to a specific division?

In the basic game, there are Unit commanders, Army commanders, and Theatre Commanders. You decide which brigades and artillery battalions are attached directly to which Unit Commanders. These commanders are generally Division or Corps commanders. You have up to four Army Commanders that may assist/control units/unit commanders in their area. Theatre Commanders can assist all Army Commanders and Unit Commanders within range in various ways.

When using the optional Sub-Commanders rule, each player may activate more leaders starting in 1862, and Unit Commanders that have a minimum number of command points (7) may attach leaders of equal or lower rank and command points directly to them. In effect, these leaders become Corps commanders, with attached Division commanders and artillery leaders.

The Command Rating of the leader limits the number of units that a leader may have attached, and this can change over time with successes and promotions. So a leader may start with a Command Rating of 4, allowing him to have up to 4 units attached (for example, 8000 men, or 6000 men and 20 guns). He might later be promoted and reach a Command Rating of 7, at which point he could have a corps of 10000 men and 40 guns along with perhaps 3 division commanders and an artillery leader. These sub commanders would assist units in the formation, but you don't have to set up which units go with which sub commander. A leader with a 1 star rank will help 2 units, a 2 star rank 3 units, etc. Over time a very good leader (Longstreet for example) could reach a Command Rating of 16 which would allow him to command a large corps of 24000 men and 80 guns. Once a leader reaches a Command Rating of 11, he is eligible for Army Command.

Since there is a limit on the number of leaders each side may activate, there is a constant balancing act as you never have enough good leaders for everything. You may find that in some backwater garrisons you won't be able to have a Corps structure, but will have to use independent divisions. These will not do as well in combat if up against a force with Corps and Division commanders.

Hope that helps.

It does.

The only question I have now is how much control the player has over where created divisions or brigades (What size are created by th player anyway?) go. Can I send more arty to one Army and more Cavalry to another for example?

You can move units around all you want (subject to movement and rail/transport limits). Also, one of the optional rules limits the amount of attaching/detaching you can do with units and leaders. The system we use for damage and attrition generally means there are a number of units moving to the front on any given turn, so it's not too difficult to adjust the strength of armies each turn. However, to attack, units generally need to have started attached to a leader and in the same area as an Army Commander. There are some exceptions to this, but for most offensive operations, you need to have your army ready to go at the start of the turn.

The command and leaders concepts are very different from AACW and so, the way armies operate and troop are assembled is different too.

Let's start from the main difference in CP usage. AACW bases the CP of a leader on the leader's rank alone. Some support units and some leader attributes may change this total number, however, you can still attach units to the leader's stack beyond the CP values, though with high penalties. In WBTS leaders have troop-type specialties, and a set of ratings. Their CP are not exclusively depending on their ranks (on which you have full control on dismissal/promotions and, also, leaders go ill, are captured and killed) as you may see leaders of the same rank having different Command points. In WBTS you may not exceed the number of units allowed by the leader's CP. You will have to organize stacks differently to comply to this limit and eventually overcome it.

Apart from this, in AACW an Army is limited to support role and it's a stack that may or may not have units. In WBTS the Army is a fully administrative entity whose main purpose is to transfer initiative (which is again, totally differently working from the leader's activation mechanics of AACW that are only based on the leader's strategic rating) to the sub-leaders and this initiative may also be helped by the theater commander. So we have a Theater commander, transferring (eventually) initiative to Army Commanders who, in turn help corps and div commanders gain initiative. Without initiative, you cannot attack.

So the Army of WBTS is a leader and is not stacked with units. The stack in WBTS is an entity containing a leader. If multiple leaders, the top ranking one will be a corps commander, the ones inside the same stack, called sub-leaders are the DIV commanders, and troops of different types. You form armies by naming a leader army commander, and you form corps by putting more leaders into the same stack. At that point, the lower ranking leader(s) will be DIV commanders.

Do not forget while in AACW leaders use 3 ratings and the attributes, in WBTS leaders have type-specialties. Yes you can send CAV to JEB but they will never perform the same as CAV as JEB is a Cavalry specialist. There are Administrative (training & Initiative), Engineers (building depots & forts), Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery, Naval leaders.

Attaching and detaching troops from a leader builds the stack and this operation costs movement points. Unused movement points are used to train militia and mounted into infantry and cavalry respectively so not only you're required to assemble troops as best as you can to maximize your leader bonuses but you must also assemble armies for the best leaders to train the troops or lead them and these are 2 different ratings so the best trainer very often will be a poor combat commander.

So you see another difference here with AACW. All leaders in WBTS have a training rating while in AACW a few leaders have such training as attribute.
There's a huge world of differences between the 2 games, if you want more info you'll have to be more specific in the questions. [:)]

No need to be more specific, you answered it square away. Sounds very interesting...especially the training element. I like the thought that Ican mold a highly trained army as opposed to a mob moving around a map

"Attaching and detaching troops from a leader builds the stack and this operation costs movement points. Unused movement points are used to train militia and mounted into infantry and cavalry respectively so not only you're required to assemble troops as best as you can to maximize your leader bonuses but you must also assemble armies for the best leaders to train the troops or lead them and these are 2 different ratings so the best trainer very often will be a poor combat commander."

Q: Is the training automatic with unused mp's or do you (micro) manage that each turn?
Thanks.

The micromanagement part related to the training just requires you to put the right leader into the right place.

The leader(s) automatically attempt(s) twice per turn to train militia and convert them into regular infantry (or train mounted units into regular cavalry) using their unused  points...but each leader has a different chance to succeed and, if you play with the optional hidden leader stats, you do not know what this rating is until discovered sometimes too late. [:)]

Obviously, good trainers are not always good combat leaders. There's another optional rule that doesn't allow the recovery of the points used to stack troops, so when you unstack them to give trained troops to a better combat leader some points are lost and will be recovered next turn.

The game can be customized to your desired level of difficulty.