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"Wagaming Sieges - where to start? " Topic


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GreenLeader18 Oct 2014 3:16 a.m. PST

I may be alone in this, but I have long been fascinated by wargaming sieges, rather than just battles. I think it would be fair to say that these are slightly neglected by the wargaming fraternity, but wonder if there are any specific rules out there which adequately tackle the complexities of siege warfare?

In my dim-and-distant past, I remember buying a set of GW's 'Warhammer Siege' rules – and found them to be utter rubbish. One side basically sat in the 'Mighty Fortress' (a piece of polystyrene which took up 90% of the table and cost me two months pocket money) and the other fired his catapults at it. There were basically – at best – rules for storming a castle, not sieging it.

I have seen other wargames rules which claim to cover seiges, but don't really make much of a go at it (in my opinion). The big thing that they never seem to tackle is how to slow it all down, and prevent the attacking player trying to storm the castle / town on the first day, or the defending player launching sallies each and every night. Wargames as a whole struggle to slow things down, but in a seige this is even more important. A siege wargame should (I would suggest) be more like a campaign, and should drag on for many weeks / months of game time – not all be over in a couple of days.

My interest is in wargaming the 'modern' sieges of (eg) Khartoum / Mafeking / Ladysmith / Kimberley / Kut, but I have cross-posted this to the Medieval Board for obvious reasons and hope some posters there might have some ideas which would be worth trying.

GreenLeader18 Oct 2014 3:20 a.m. PST

Hmmm – seems I managed to post this without cross-posting to the Medieval Board, or the Early 20th Century Board as I had planned.

Mr Armintrout – can you please do the honours?

Royston Papworth18 Oct 2014 7:47 a.m. PST

Whilst not in your chosen Modern period, Warfare in the Age of Reason came with a very detailed set of C18 siege rule, I never played them (despite buying an painting a Starfort) unfortunately, but if you are that way inclined, they may be useful…

Lion in the Stars18 Oct 2014 2:20 p.m. PST

The thing is that a siege is almost a paper map event, rather than pushing minis around.

The attacker needs to cut off the defender's supply line completely. Fail to do that and you have failed outright.

Once the castle has been completely encircled, then you can announce your terms for surrender.

So the initial conflict is the defenders trying to prevent their encirclement and the attackers trying to complete it.

Once the encirclement is completed and the terms for surrender rejected, the attacker will probably start building siege engines. Medievals would probably use them to lob some dead livestock inside to start a plague, so destroying the siege engines is a critical thing for the defenders. This means sally-port raids to destroy the siege engines, and the attacker will need to guard them.

Assuming that the raids to destroy the siege engines fail, the next question is how much supplies does the defender have? If the defender has several months supplies, then the attacker will likely have to start battering the walls. If the defender only has a few weeks supplies, then the attacker can easily leave the defenders alone and isolated.

GreenLeader19 Oct 2014 2:02 a.m. PST

I agree it would be largely played on a map, and various actions could be wargamed with figures on the table top.

But what rules would you suggest for this?

Durando19 Oct 2014 10:09 a.m. PST

Some of the really interesting 19thC sieges are those of coastal forts such as those that happened during the Greek War of Independence, here you get to game amphibiohs landings, encirclement etc, similar events although not castles can be found in The War in The Pacific (Chile, Bolivia and Peru)

Murvihill20 Oct 2014 10:21 a.m. PST

I set up siege rules for a fantasy game, basically both sides had two cards: both sides had a "Build" card, the attacker had an "Assault" card and the defender had a "Sortee" card. At the beginning of the day both players selected one card and showed them to each other at the same time. If both played a "Build" card then they were allowed to build a fixed amount of "stuff" (trenches, siege equipment, saps etc.) and any batteries in place had a chance to do a fixed amount of damage and casualties. If either side played the other card then they set up for a battle. One other interesting idea was that only one edge of the fortification was set up on the board's edge. Both sides divided up their garrison/sieging troops up into fifths, and only a fifth were used on the board with the last fifth as reserves. That way you don't have to show the entire city or fortress just a representative part.

arthur181521 Oct 2014 3:58 a.m. PST

See the Siege Kriegsspiel in Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargaming For Fun (Ward Lock, 1980; republished by John Curry's History of Wargaming Project).

Nick Stern Supporting Member of TMP24 Oct 2014 3:56 p.m. PST

Check out Eric Burgess's Blog:
link

Nick Stern Supporting Member of TMP24 Oct 2014 4:08 p.m. PST

I too am fascinated by 19th Century sieges. But most games I've run "cut to the chase" and focus on the assault stage. I've run The Alamo, Sevastopol 1855, Delhi 1857, Puebla and Mafeking pretty successfully. Mafeking focused on the Boer attempt to kill Baden-Powell which degenerated into a giant Wild West shootout! I plan on doing Ladysmith, but focused on the Boer assault on the Platrand Ridge where the Boers acted in a decidedly un-Boer-like fashion and attacked with great vigor.

bobblanchett02 Jan 2019 9:32 p.m. PST

Don't forget the siege of the Peking legations..
Wonderful fun game in one of WI or MW Magazines

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