"Camden as a Wargame" Topic

So, last night we did Gate's finest hour as a wargame, with my 25/28mm collection and Age of Reason rules.
Unless all the militia run away on turn one without a shot being fired, you will not get a historic result.
They did not. The 23rd & 33rd foot were forced to whittle down the militia one by one. When routed militia were rallied by the heroic Gates, they became rear support!
As Rawdon I found myself having to face the cream of the Continental army with raw Loyalists. I did not have the historical leisure of pouring fire into them while the 23rd, 33rd and 71st rolled up their flanks.
The British regulars were gradually whittled down, Tarleton's BL balked at chagrin militia, the Continentals rolled me up …..
Gates for President!!!

The Volunteers of Ireland did not aquit themselves well, the filthy deserters!!!

Interesting, John. Do you think another set of rules
(Carnage and Glory ?) might have made a difference in
the result ?

I don't know of any rules that would make the militia break and run without a shot being fired.

You see this is why we love war gaming, at least in our own minds we can re-write history. Of course we benefit from a god-like view of the battlefield, have the advantage of hindsight, and hopefully have an opponent that has not read the history.

Oh and on a personal note I feel that if the fortunes of war had been different for Granny Gates and he became president that we would have returned to a monarchy. Just my two cents.

I know Camden can be a bit rough at times, but a battle!!???

Cerdic love the photo, where is that btw? I think the OFM is talking about this place:

link

Historical painting of battle

link

and a nice youtube reinactment although sadly small but what the heck.

YouTube link

Maybe you over-rated the Continentals?

The Continentals died hard in the original battle. We rated them as average.
The militia were given the lowest rating in Age of Reason. However, they still had to be defeated for them to run away.
I think that if we had (justifiably) rated the 23rd and 33rd as grenadiers that may have worked.

Still, it was a good game. Just not "historical".

Cerdic love the photo, where is that btw?

Camden Town, London UK

Camden Lock is always a battle! Try shopping there on a sunny Saturday afternoon…

Elbows at the ready…

Couldn't you just start the scenario with all the militia in a routing state (or whatever), assuming the rules allow for units to try and rally. If not, just don't include them in the scenario. Didn't most battles of the era occur because both sides basically agree to fight? So, the militia's true function was to convince the Americans to fight, there, at that time.

Start the scenario with all militia taking a morale check. In fact, have the militia check morale on every turn.

That's why I suggested Carnage and Glory. I've had
CRACK troops rout for no reason at all when playing
a game using that rule set.

They were entrenched, had not moved, were not fired upon
and had secured flanks. Still, C&G deemed they rout.

And so they did.

Ed, isn't Carnage and Glory computer generated results? Stick with dice it will always give great results.

John;
You could use MY rules instead, where you can modify the unit stats to account for historical bits…

Eric

Yep, C&G is 'puter moderated, whitemanticore. I was
playing in someone else's game.

BTW, I also decry the use of those RNG devices which some
find so entrancing.

Gimme the galloping cubes, every time…

I think that if we had (justifiably) rated the 23rd and 33rd as grenadiers that may have worked.

Generally, the English regulars were solid professional soldiers. I don't think it unreasonable to rate them better than even the continentals. Especially if it makes the scenario work at least somewhat.

They were entrenched, had not moved, were not fired upon
and had secured flanks. Still, C&G deemed they rout.

Computers are incapable of lying or making a mistake Ed. If it says they rout then they rout! Sheesh! Have those men flogged for cowardice!

Hey, My Virginians kicked butt and that's all that matters to me. Oh, the chili was superb as usual!!!!

Yes, you can downgrade the militia even further than grading them 'Levy' if you have to. For example under British Grenadier you could say they will always carry at least one Disruption Point. Now what with the -2 for Levy and further minuses for facing a bayonet charge they'd need to throw 10+ to stand.
EC

The result may not have been historical, but IMO it was a reasonably realistic result.

Gates probably did everything he could to maximize the chances of the militia bolting. Even so there was a reasonable chance they would have stood up to the British longer than they did. If you assume that instead of "routing" the militia were simply disordered, pushed back and then rallied, there were examples of that too. I'm not sure at this stage whether the British Legion would have balked at charging militia, but perhaps they had been roughed up in skirmishing the night before.

I do not like rules which force the historical result. However I do think it is possible to tweak rules to make the historical result more likely. I think DAF's idea of having militia check morale every turn is overkill. However it would be reasonable to require them to check morale when an opponent advances on them, even if they have not fired. This would work better if armies were initially deployed farther apart than we often do in wargames. Another suggestion would be to subdivide questionable units so that there are more chances that some portion of the militia might break.

Even crappy troops can stymie a well-laid plan. During a Guilford battle not too long ago, the first line of militia not only shot many holes in the British, but stopped their advance.

So it can happen.

Volunteers of Ireland did not aquit themselves well, the filthy deserters

What not that's shameful and an obvious fault of the rules you used John…obviously doesn't give Irish their historically accurate modifiers…

BTW how did the Volunteers do in the real thing? <looking nervous>

Ken bungeer's Tricorne rules will do this. First small test solo game I did with these rules 30+ years ago saw my british fire a 3lb ball at militia, hit one man (not figure – man – these are roster rules), rout that militia unit, which then caused the surrounding militia to rout as well. Very Camden-esque.

BC

"That's why I suggested Carnage and Glory. I've had
CRACK troops rout for no reason at all when playing
a game using that rule set. They were entrenched, had not moved, were not fired upon and had secured flanks. Still, C&G deemed they rout. And so they did."

Ed, I'm frankly surprised at your description of "crack troops routing for no reason at all…" Now, if you're referring to the Guilford Courthouse test games we ran a couple of times, I think several things happened to those troops…first, they took fire, which affects morale and then they incurred fatigue from changing formation, etc. The fatigue factor is one that dice rules typically do not incorporate since it requires cumbersome recordkeeping…and the Guards were not entrenched…they had no cover at all…they had moved and they had taken fire. Maybe you're thinking about another game but I can't remember what that would be.

How about this challenge…I'll match Carnage and Glory against any dice rules set for any AWI battle, your choice, and I'll bet I can get a comparable historical outcome, obviously taking into account dumb command decisions, in a shorter time than the other rules. Let's up the ante even more, let's find players who have never played either of the rules and I'll have my game going in 20 minutes with just me as GM while you're spending twice that long at a minimum explaining the tedious fire charts, morale tables, etc.

My dance card is full for Historicon…anyone wanna take up the challenge at Fall In?

db

No, Dave, it was an ACW game we ran at the NC Museum of
History years ago.

I had entrenched crack Confederate infantry which fired
ONE volley and routed a Federal unit in their front.

The Rebs had not moved, had taken no fire, were supported
on both flanks, and were entrenched. At end of turn the
computer decreed that they rout.

No fatigue involved, no morale from fire or melee, no
friendlies taking casualties or routing – just the
computer 'deciding' that the unit had to rout.

The first playtest of the Guildford Courthouse game -
we Brits didn't play well at all – not the (electronic)
computer's problem. That was the fault of the organic
on-board computer we each carry.

Hello,
If you used the Camden scenario out of the Yellow campaign book of AOR then I am the one that designed the scenario. We have done it in three different scales and in the home and at conventions. The Americans can win yes. Generally they dont but the British commander has to be aggressive. The beauty of scenario design is not so much recreating a historical result as in the what if the other side wins! Hope you play it again. Have the players switch sides and give it a go.

regards,
Dale Wood

I did not use the AoR book. We just took the report from Ward.
Interesting that Camden is in the yellow book. Our AoR guru has that book.

Don't feel bad John. We did the battle and the Americans thoroughly destroyed the British. Some of it could be attributed to die rolling. I was the Americans playing two very good British players. We were also wondering want in the heck is going on here?

I had the British fight through the militia. The Continentals who were just average except for that one Continental regiment that made the great stand historically in the battle.

We used the historical setup, should have been a cake walk for the Brits. As the American I was just a little embarrassed about winning. It was not even close.

We used our house rules "Sons of Liberty" and it usually gives historical or close to historical results. Maybe just an aberration.

I have found that a number of AWI rules sets seem to overrate the militia, making it much harder for the Brits to win the engagements that they won historically.

The "-1 for militia" doesn't really address the "fire once and run away!".

Our group has done it a couple times over the years in 15mm with the Guns of Liberty rules and had outcomes that were pretty close to the historical result.

With Captains & Kings rules, we built this very scenario as a learning scenario to help gamers understand militia and poor command. Once the militia are engaged in any way, Gates must test his resolve every turn. Militia fragility is already built into the rules.

It is, and always has been an issue trying to get dice based games to mimic history. Anyone can roll a 1 at any time…

Is not this a quite common occurence in wargaming refights? Napoleon wins Waterloo ad nauseum and the Persians hammer the Greeks at Plataea every time we have done it. It is after all a game and despite a bit of rules tweaking things happened on the day that do not in the refight and vice versa.

Anyone can roll a 1 at any time.

Tell me about it……

Keep in mind ,most of the Militia at Camden had marched the furthest and where quite sick craping themselves for days and I believe they where wet as well .

Try Black Powder, making the militia unreliable, wavering and levy. that way they are very hard to move, take a break test every time they take a casualty and don't automatically rally off disorder at the end of their turn. Worked for me when we refought Camden a couple of years ago. The British were also made quite tough, i.e. crack and or steady, ferocious charge.