"Most disappointing battle to wargame?" Topic

I agree that the best way to get players to do what happened historically is to disguise the scenario.

I remember reading about a refight of Lake Trasimine but with AWI troops. The British who were standing in for the Romans fell for the trap hook line and sinker.

I prefer fictional scenerios over historical scenerios for the very reasons stated in the comments above.

How about the seige of Rhodes by Suleyman the Great? Fairly balanced forces…either side has a good chance of winning….:P

Well, yes, there are a lot of traps in trying to refight a major, well known historical battle. Of course, if you are content to merely observe or play a minor role, you can set up the scenario, but give it a fictional name, so that the commanders do not know going in what actual battle they are fighting. That eliminates the historical hindsight unless one or both are sharp enough to recognize the terrain or order of battle. It is not really necessary to completely switch periods to disguise this. For example, if you want to see if the British could have done better at New Orleans in 1815, you could have them face a Prussian force made up with lots of Landwehr, but also a lot of rifle-armed Jaegers (just don't forget what you are doing and include pirates, alligators or snapping turtles!).
Anyway, the truth is that there are very few historical battles that are "fair fights" to begin with. Usually one side or the other faces a seriously larger enemy force or one that has great advantages in weaponry and/or troop quality or else the objective is virtually impossible to achieve given the actual terrain. That is just the nature of real war, where the point is never to willingly give the enemy an even chance.
Having said that, I have been just as disappointed in many of the purely fictional game scenarios I have participated in. Very few people seem to be able to devise a game that is both a realistic situation and which gives both sides a reasonably even chance at success. Even points-based victory conditions usually prove quite arbitrary in practice.
I think, if you really must take a crack at commanding in a favorite historical battle, that you should deliberately take the disadvantaged side, while facing an opponent who doesn't know all that much about the history of the battle (either a relatively inexperienced gamer or one experienced in another period who hasn't really gamed your period).
For my own part, I do not really mind facing a situation that is impossible to win outright. While I am definitely competitive, I am also seriously interested in the real history of any period that I am willing to game in the first place. Therefore, I can be content with seeing whether I can do better in a hopeless situation than the real historical commander did. Precisely because of hindsight that may well be possible.
I do agree with the contributor who expressed a preference for a set-piece battle which develops from a campaign. However, there are often a lot a practical problems associated with that; such as finding enough players in the first place who are willing to commit to a campaign, and what to do if one of them is forced to drop out.

Culloden is a lot better as a wargame than it was as a battle. Something about the Jacobite army not just obligingly standing around in front of the Government artillery for a few turns getting shot to pieces…

Of course I find it difficult to believe that any wise Jacobite player would choose that table to fight on, or leave the walls standing for the Government to handily make use of….

Ambush and surprise attacks can often make disappointing games. It is always known to the defender that something is about to hit the fan….

I have thought over the years that refighting battles like Quatre Bras would be fun. In these types of battles,one side starts out with a strong advantage, but the other side gains strength throughout the game. Battle of the Bulge is similar on a much larger scale. So the strong force has to try to gain as much ground and wipe out as many units as possible before too many reinforcements arrive and push that side back. What I have discovered is how such a battle plays out is very dependent on the rules. For example, if the combat and morale results in units usually lasting longer than they may have historically, it can be a shoo in for the weaker side at the start (can't kill enough units fast enough to matter). Or maybe the terrain rules result in limiting how often the strong side can charge into melee or how fast the units can move each turn. Or it would take a game 4 times as long as you usually have time in order to play the whole game out. I've played Quatre Bras several times with various board games and with various miniature rules and they have usually been disappointing games for one or more of these reasons.

For many hopeless situations you have to set up the victory conditions to where even if one side loses the battle, they still have a chance to win the game. Here are some battles which are difficult no matter the victory conditions.

Waterloo – Very difficult for the British, because unless you use hidden movement. The 100 foot Napoleon can see over the ridge. Usually a huge disappointment for all players. Who wants to hide all their pretty figures for most of the game? I have rarely seen or heard of the British defeating a competent French player(s). Even with hidden movement French players know more about the enemy than Napoleon did.

Austerlitz – Difficult to recreate. So much of it was Napoleon bluffing his opponents and the unexpected French reinforcements. Very hard to fool anyone playing out the battle.

Chancellorsville – We attempted it years ago and even with restrictions placed on the Union, it is hard going for the Confederates. Because the Union players just know more than Hooker did.

"Are you really going to get a Roman player to blunder into a Cannae?"

We'v done Cannae a few times. And yes, it is very easy indeed to get the Romans to blunder into encirclement. It is the differing nature of the respective command structures and troop types wot done it. This not to say that Hannibals plan was not fraught with risk, if his centre gives way before the encirclement is complete then goodbye Cathaginians.

I love refighting historical battles, it is what keeps me engaged in the hobby. Even if they are hoplessly one sided (Sinai 67, the Alamo, Cambrai) or unlikely (Midway is an interesting one).

I dont believe in an ungame-able situation, although much of it depends on the other people you play with. If they are happy to role play, then the sky is the limit.

Probably the least two successful historical games I set up were the inital campaign of 1st Army in Tunisia in 1942 and the Canadian attack on Moyland Wood in 1945. I just didn't do a very good job on the scenario design for the first so it was just a bit tedious, and latter was a half arsed modification to Memoir 44 that I should have playtested more first.

Pearl Harbor

Actually this game was put on by a gentleman at Origins this year and was very popular. Very historical sculpted terrain to represent the harbor and all the nearby airfields. The Japanese attack did not do as well as they did historically and they took a significant loss of aircraft.

Everyone enjoyed the game.

I think a good game master can make a good game of anything if they put their mind to it. I've done many Civil War games that were well liked that many would have considered not "competitive", such as Nashville and Perryville.

Kim

Anything where I have to impale my Shermans or T.34's on his Pak 43's, Flak 88's Jagdpanzer IV's Nashorn, Panthers and Tigers (yes, all on the same table)

There is a local guy who puts on a really good Pearl Harbor game. If I did it I would run the Americans and let everyone else be Japanese or I would do a what if scenario. If the radar warning had been recognized for what it was and the Japanese aircraft ran into swarms of U.S. fighters.

Hopefully it would turn out better for the Americans than it did in the Philippines where they actually had warning and still lost most of the Far East Air Force.

I have often thought of doing Okinawa that way. I would run the scenario and the Japanese and everyone else would be the Americans. The Americans will take the Island but victory would hinge on how many casualties the Americans would suffer.

At Pearl, P.40's would have been destroyed in the air rather than on the ground, so more US pilots lost. Minimal disruption to the attack, but alert AA guns would have caused more Japanese losses than on the day.

At Pearl, P.40's would have been destroyed in the air rather than on the ground, so more US pilots lost.

I don't know about that, Taylor and Welch seemed to have done pretty well flying P-40s that day.

link

Austerlitz – Difficult to recreate. So much of it was Napoleon bluffing his opponents and the unexpected French reinforcements. Very hard to fool anyone playing out the battle.

This is a battle I have thought about trying taking a clue from the Boardgame napoleons triumph. Variable victory conditions----the Austrians must capture certain objectives unless the French bring on their reserves, in which case it's the French that must capture the objectives. Force the Austrian to attack instead of digging in and gives the French player a major strategic decision on whether or when to bring on the reinforcements.

The battle of Kolin during the Seven Years War has been a stinker every time I have run it. Usually, the Austrians, knowing that they outnumber the Prussians, come rolling down from the high ground and roll over the Prussians like waves on a sand castle.