"Historical refights" Topic

If you refight an historical battle of any period should you be expected to fight it the way it was fought?
for example: If you do a refight of the first Battle of Saint Albans from the Wars of the Roses, should the Lancastrian player be expected to set up in town and defend from there? Could they be deployed as their general(s)see fit? Should they follow the battle plan history provides?
At what point, if any, do you think this ceases to be a refight.

Just pondering and wondering what people think.
Thanks
Bill

I would go back as far as it is practicable and/or fun to do so.

If I have info on the troop strengths and dispositions before the day of the historical battle and also maps of the environs, then I might prefer to start off with the armies hours or days before their historical contact and let the players take it from there.

To me, it is a refight as long as the players are presented with the same options and problems as the original commanders back then.

For example, I once ran a siege of Antioch game where the Saracen player could decide the disposition of his besieging troops, and the Crusader player could decide how he wanted to make his sally.

I believe SOME discretion has to be left to the wargaming commander…if he's locked in to the same mistakes of the real world guy, and you know you'll get the same results, then it's not much fun.

Having said that, giving a commander a difficult situation to overcome, using some of his own discretion, is a challenge and fun (IMHO).

I generally set it up historically, then let the sides duke it out under the construct of the rules we're using. Some games have been seriously successful, others have been outrageous disasters!

Most of the refights I have done have been small engagements, in World War II at the squad level. Otherwise, we mostly do what I would call approximations of actual battles.

Yes, historical set-up & then see how the cards fall.

I've been tempted (but never done it) to set up an historical battle & move it according to history but this would be an exercise in military history rather than a game.

You do it the way that the gamemaster says or, if there is no gamemaster, the way that you have agreed. If the person who has gone to all the trouble of organising the game, wants you to follow the historical moves, then that is what you do because anything would be just rude.

Personally, I think it is good to test to follow the historical moves pretty exactly once in a while in order to see whether your rules deliver the historical results. Usually, however, I ask players to follow the historical rules until contact and then they can do what they like. Seems to work.

When I set up a Guilford Courthouse game, I set up the original starting lineup in original positions. I then let slip the dogs of war.

At what point, if any, do you think this ceases to be a refight.

The moment you put the figures on the table.

You don't actually know unit strengths or morale. You can't properly do the terrain. The rules only (very badly) approximate battle. The commanders already know too much about the period -- worse if they recognise the battle.

So the best you can hope for is an approximation.

I've done successful -- more or less -- "refights". They have all been Kriegsspiels where the people didn't know the battle even slightly. The problem is that they players didn't even know they were refights, because real generals don't refight battles. That pretty much spoils it as refights from their point of view (although not as games, and it was interesting to me as umpire).

The idea that you can "refight" Waterloo or Austerlitz, given the knowledge of the battles and period, is faintly ridiculous.

If you "replay" a football game between two teams, at best you get an entirely new game. Even supposing exactly the same players, they aren't going to be exactly the same form or fitness. And if you made the players do the same things then you merely get a mockery of a football game. Imagine telling a fullback that in order to make the game "correct" that at the 30th minute they were to make a terrible mistake!

I will usually set things up as they start out as far as both sides beginning the battle. I'm not against starting out a little sooner or allowing players to put their dispositions differently from how the commander started.

What I don't like is monkeying with the base rules to force players to make certain decisions during the game.

Having rules reflect certain realities is one thing, forcing decisions is another.

For example, in a Balaclava game it would be acceptable to give the Light Brigade some bad command ratings, of if there is a special rule to allow the commanders to blunder give them that, as long as it is within the game system already.

Forcing the light brigade to charge at any visible artillery when on the table top no matter what would be beyond what I'd want to do.

I have learned through long bitter experience to expect nothing from games.

The players will take your carefully crafted and nuanced masterpiece and smash it to bits then, re-assemble the pieces as they want.

You all know this is true.

Your parents gave you an expensive, beautiful, wonderfull toy and half an hour later you are playing with the box.

If you want to know why war games are so flunked up, there it is.

Of course…. the box is so much more FUN!

Admit it-- when you're walking down the street and you see a huge refrigerator box on the sidewalk, don't you want to crawl inside, take it home, carve out portholes and airlock doors…

And isn't the real tragedy that your wife won't put on the Princess Leia as slave girl costume and crawl into the box with you?

Even Jabba the Hut can still dream.

Otto

Sometimes it is better to begin a re-fight from a point after the start of the battle. This can give a very interesting "get out of that / exploit that" scenario. I did this for my re-fight of Zorndorf, with the accidental drift of Kanitz to the right having already happened (he started out of position and unable to reinforce Manteuffel)- it wouldn't be Zorndorf without this.

Neither would it be Zorndorf without the Russian baggage forming barriers to any thought of lateral movement. So initial deployment is an essential part of the battle.

I think that if you are not going to use historical deployments and incorporate some of the battles idiosyncratic events then its not really a re-fight.

What is important to the success of the 'game' is that the players have reasonable 'victory' conditions to fight for, which might be a well fought defeat. An example of a victory in defeat was achieved by the French player in a re-fight of Cerignola 1503 where the French only needed to do better than their historic counterpart to claim a game win: The French lost, the French player won!

I play a lot of Piquet. This rule set has mechanics ideally suited to adding military possibilities – good and bad.

It ceases being a refight when the player is able to do things the real units could not do, either do to equipment or training.

The minimum I consider for a "refight" is a table with historical troops and historical terrain as best as can be determined. I like to start with historical deployments, but sometimes the fun of the "what if?" Lies in alternate deployment.

A refight is always going to produce a different result to history simply because we cannot make exactly the same decisions with the same outcomes as our historical counterparts. Our games and miniatures do not model events down to the level of each individual soldier, each blade of grass, etc.

I think the rules have to set up some degree of historical constraint on the decisions. But that should be agreed to at the start. I also think that should be limited to strategic objectives, but not actual strategy, operational timbre, or tactics used.

F'r'ex in the Battle of Puebla, if you give Lorencez complete freedom to act outside his mindset and ordered objectives, the smart plan would be to not fight the battle at all. Withdraw, go back to France, and come back in a year or so with a real army and take over Mexico. Which is exactly what was done after the loss at Puebla.

Withdraw all forces at the beginning of turn one is not a satisfying game. (Though the described scenario might be good for a historical "what if?".)

Tactics or operational plans available to the commanders should be constrained as well. If a force trained to have a "just in time" infantry charge moments after the last artillery shell falls, fine. If they had not, you would expect a lot of resistance from the line commanders and implement something like "Make a SUPERIOR command roll to issue the order. If successful, take a SUBSTANTIAL penalty on all tactical actions carried out."

If you want to do something patently ahistorical (meaning nor within the character of the situation as opposed to not exactly what happened), as opposed to something impossible, it should be a high-risk proposition. Whether you get high reward out of it is up to the dice…

I've tried it both ways…historical deployments with "as close as I can come" forces and giving the players the forces and freedom to deploy. Come to think of it, I several times even tried to limit activity to historical tactics. All were fun…

But the victory conditions were they key when someone absolutely had to win or lose…

I always try to recreate the terrain authentically, and usually the basic deployment/maybe orders … (so it is- per Olicana, above – the battle in question)

You could vary the layout, deployment, maybe the weather (if there is evidence any of these incorporated a degree of chance or choice) … but generally fix the parameters according to the battle.

In a perfect world, the players can then take over, make relatively free choices … and yet end up doing the historical thing and getting a plausible, maybe even historical outcome.

I try to do at least one new historical game per year and reckon about 6 months is necessary for research and building (not a chore of course – a 6 month pleasure) …

Most of the games do deliver plausibly historical outcomes (and I do record the results of games that are played) but the degree to which that is desirable depends on each battle.

This year has been a good year, and has allowed me to add 2 medieval battles, Montaperti and Northampton (and it is only August!)

Phil
Ancients on the Move

It depends.

Salamanca is a totally different battle if you allow free set-up, the French just can't make the same mistakes which led to Thomieres initial defeat. I think the battle has to start with Thomieres about to be hit by the British.

Waterloo and Quatre Bras can't be fought easily beacuse of hindsight about the time and direction of reinforcements. For ancients fans, something like Adrianapole would be similar?

But some battles, like Talavera, Hastings or Marston Moor seem to work fine from a free set-up.

I'd do it one of two ways:

1: You have the historical troops available but you deploy them as you see fit, maybe with some limitations.

or

2: Everything starts in the positions where they should be, then it's up to you from there.

Either is fine by me.

I placed a guy conduct an Alamo scenario using teams of two. One pair was Mexicans and one Texans for the first battle. Then they swap sides and ran the scenario again.
The winner was the pair who killed the most Mexicans.

Placing limitations on one side or the other does ensure that the scenario's out come will be the same as the actual battle. This is why I do not like to play with advantage or disadvantage rated Generals. We already know how those Commanders did historically. The purpose of playing is to see how you do as a commander against a real opponent.

Placing limitations on one side or the other does ensure that the scenario's out come will be the same as the actual battle.

I agree with your sentiment, but think the statement above is overly broad. Limitations could overly influence the outcome of the game, but they could also be part of creating the "flavor" of the real world event. It really just comes down to balance and intent.

(Didn't we already discuss this exact question a month or so ago? Oh well, it's always fun.)

An exact rematch with history might, MIGHT, be instructive on how well your rules reproduce historical outcomes vis-à-vis the same tactics and weapon systems, etc. So follow that approach when wanting to know if your rules "work" right.

But allow players to depart (within historically accurate possibilities) from the historical array when you want to try and alter the historical outcome….