"How do you pick the battles you want to recreate?" Topic

I played a game at Historicon some years back, where in an AWI battle, I was told to march up this road to Point A. En route, I was ambushed by Loyalist troops hidden in the woods and wiped out. I was unfamiliar with the rules, and never heard of the battle.
The GM beamed at me, "Just like the real battle!"
What fun.

I have played several iconic battles on my table. The leaders so far are Quebec (3 times, 3 different rules), Guilford Courthouse (4, same), and the Wyoming Massacre (3, TSATF).
The Wyoming Massacre was played as an "Escape to Forty Fort" game, in which the victory condtions were personal survival, and/or wiping out future political careers. The Loyalists and Indians had the pleasure of killing, with no particular objectives beyond that.
GF and Q simply had large armies with varying quality.

I ran Trenton once, out of megalomania of having 70 figure regiments. Even though it was a "massacre" ("just like the Real Battle!"), the Hessians got to maneuver and do some damage. In this sense, they "did better". (Yeah, yeah. I am on record as not liking "do better than the guys who died" games. Sue me. ) I may do it again, but with smaller regiments, using, again, different rules. It's a classic "quantity vs quality" game.

I am planning to do Lexington Concord in the future. Agai, it's an iconic AWI battle. Plus the British will not be as good as they think they are, and I already have more militia/Minutemen than I can ever use, and the LI and Grenadiers are half painted. I just need more buildings.

I picked iconic battles, with what to me were "interesting" features. Most importantly, I enjoy painting the period, and if I can't do it immediately, I will have fun adding what is needed.

What battles have you done the most, and why did you pick them?

John;
Well, with the bi-centennial and all, I've been doing a lot of 1812 games lately… But you know that.

I tend to like smaller actions, not the most obscure, but also not the most well known. That way there's both a bit of "expectation management" and also a lure to draw a player in who may be a bit more knowledgeable about the period and is looking for something other than the umpteenth refight of, say, Monmouth for the AWI.

Eric

I haven't done Monmouth.
Even I don't have that many regiments painted, Yet.

We mostly do campaign or made-up battles, but the ones we have done the classic Zulu War battles as well as the Teutoberger Wald – mostly because everyone liked to talk about it

Mostly made up. Have done Hochkirk about 4 times using Might and Reason.

I picked iconic battles, with what to me were "interesting" features.

That's what usually does it for me. Either:

1. An interesting scenario element that lends well to 'wargame scenario lore'.
2. Interesting terrain that leads to interesting tactics.
3. An interesting aesthetic – it simply looks good on the table.

My current offering has all three.
1. Off table reserves arriving.
2. Earthworks, hidden from view, that lead to a rash frontal assualt (the table has no flank maneouvre areas).
3. A hill top town as a backdrop (not required by the scenario, though very much historically present – it just looks good).

I give you Cerignola 1503 (We are taking it to Sheffield Triples in May). It is iconic because it is considered to be the first victory of hand held firearms used en masse.

Scenario books for me, whatever looks interesting.

A combination of hypothetical battles, real battles that I find interesting, and battles out of scenario books in which someone else has done the work for me.

For me, I tend to set up something that is reasonable for the forces I have and the period/scale in question. As my Austrians are built around the 1809 OB, I will start with that and either find one of those battles, or something that "could have happened".

For WW-II it is more "Mission" type actions as the scale I use gives players Battalions or Companies.

"What battles have you done the most, and why did you pick them?"

I tend to pick stuff which has piqued my interest for whatever reason and whch has enough info that I can design a decent scenario from. A 'decent scenario' doesn't have to be balanced, but both/all sides need to have some achievable things to try and do.

Scenario books are OK, but the scenarios often need reworking to fit in with whatver figs, rules, terrain etc you have.

My general preference is for real battles, ideally the whole thing, failing that, a portion.

My most gamed battle is probably Market Garden, I've done the entire campaign five times with minis and countless times with board and computer games, as well as selected portions. Bizarrely I have run the entire Battle of Cambrai twice (any excuse to get those 20mm tanks out:).

For Horse and Musket I tend to to only do the big battles once or twice as I lose interest after that – Waterloo, Borodino, Koeniggratz, Solferino, Custoza, Magenta, teh Alma, Blenheim, Ramilles, Salamanca, Fuentes de Onoro and many others.

The most gamed battle in that period is probably Bussaco as I use it as my standard Napoleonic rules test bed scenario.

Same thing applies to Ancient battles, do the big ones once or twice. The canned historcial scenarios included in Lost Battles and CnC Ancients make this ridiculously easy of course.

Good question.

Fetterman fight a few times. Yellowstone expedition of 1874, LBH. Rosebud. Lincoln County War. OK Corral (many). Vimeiro, Rollica, bits of Salamanca, D'Erlon at Waterloo and Quatre Bras are all games that have seen a few plays. Java Sea, Bismarck Chase, River Plate, Cape Spada, various Guadalcanal surface actions.

It's usually a combination if interest and working on rules that make for repeats. Sometimes its just the fun of trying the same scenario with different rules.

I'd like to do Lexington and Concord again too. There is just so many worth exploring and such limited time.

French and Indian War. Made up. Same as AWI

SYW pretty close to battles as well as WOTR's.

I look for the following…

1) Two belligerents that I am interested in.
2) A conflict with a plausible different outcome.
3) Terrain and a field of battle that can be modeled. (No siege of Constantinople.)
4) Games that I can use my figure collection or my C&C Ancients blocks.

Some common recreations I have hosted or often participated in…Alexander's large field battles, Hastings, Hoth, Helm's Deep, Chalons (5th cent.), speculative Viking raids, some the the iconic LOTR Fellowship skirmishes, and the Battle of Tukayyid (BattleTech).

We tend to make up battles for the most part. However, we have decided to fight the entire AWi thru battle by battle including attacks on forts, small settlement attacks, as well as some fighting in the islands. So far we just did Lexington & Concord. What fun we had. Lots of screeming and moans as the minutemen ambushed the British along the road and the British returned the favor by attacking the small groups of minutemen with the bayonet. The outcome was the same as in reality. Next week we are doing the Battle of Bunker Hill. Looking forward to it. After a certian time in the battle we will begin rolling for each grouping of militia to see if they begin to run out of ammo. At that point, they will fire with half effect.

I have every battle ever fought written on slips of paper. These reside in a rather deep hat ( a "Cat in the Hat" hat, to be exact). I reach in to the hat and pull out a slip of paper. If I'm fortunate and have the figures, it's game time. If not, it's time to start with the buying and the painting.

I have selected Miners Creek from the ACW as a project.
In the battle itself confederate forces outnumbered the federals and had something like 6 cannon. Both forces were cav, but the confederates had a huge wagon train with lots of followers and sympathizers and the troops themselves were wearing federal uniforms that replaced their rags. The confederates fought dismounted, while the whole union force charged the cannon and dismounted troops.
Because of the uniform" issue" the scenario allows me to collect two forces which will be cav heavy. The union infantry and artillery will get folded into confederate units for the scenario.
Plus I now have a reason to model a new board for gaming and also the first researched of an actual battle…of course I'll use the board for other skirmishes and battles as well!

My criteria:

(1) Use WW 2 French
(a) Style points for using Vichy
(2) Lost causes a plus

I prefer what-ifs, as the players have not a particular expectation about how the game must develop. That avoids a lot of whining when things go south… you know, the same old same old "This is not what historically happened! The Burgmeister Guard NEVER would have failed THAT morale check! Your rules suck!"

Usually, after reading a bit of history on the period, and trying to select battles/wars that spark an interest.

Hypotheticals are always good too.

Oilcana, which French Bayo is that on your wall?

It's a Chasseur's bayonet (engraved dated 1857 from memory). Picked up / swapped by a Brit, legend has it, during the Crimean War at the Siege of Sabastapol. My dad found it in a pile of junk in an old ladies attic whilst doing some plumbing work in the late 50s. He fixed the plumbing and took the bayonet as payment – both sides of the deal were happy, as am I.