"Rethinking "Rough Ground"." Topic

Long . . . time ago on the History Channel was a program on an interesting part of the Battle of Waterloo – the charge of the French Heavy Cavalry ending with their meeting up with the Brits in square. Seems the cavalry mounts could not get up to "Charge" speed because horses will not step on a man laying on the ground (For true!). That fact caused the gait of the horses to be disrupted – and slowed. The charged ended up closing at the "trot" at best. The same is true for men. They/we will not step on a man's body but will step over it. Step on someone and if you do not end up on the ground beside/on top of them, your forward movement is slowed.
All of that being said, a rule having a "Rough Ground" marker in front of a figure stand that has suffered a casualty might make for some interesting changes in the way games are played. Given a figure ratio of 1figure = 25 or 40 or 50men, those bodies are going to remain where they have fallen. They do not magically disappear. Over them they must be stepped.
Comments?

Very interesting idea, though before investing too much time in I guess I'd want to know how many battles were materially impact by this concern?

-Will

I can't comment on the historical precedents, but it seems reasonable.

As far as working it into games, I've been thinking of using 2D top-down pictures of casualties to show where losses happened. Those would have the advantage that you can keep playing without having the figures balancing on top of casualty models.

I've used casualty markers like that in modern skirmish games (to show where medics need to go) and it is interesting how certain fire-lanes and deadly spots start to show up as the casualties are placed. I've read about that in accounts of modern warfare and it does show up on the gaming table when the markers are used. Even without specific rules, the players start avoiding moving their figs across those spots (with good reason!)

I think it's certainly worth a try in other gaming contexts.

Pattus – Trying to balance one figure on top another one is an exercise in futility. You end up with two figs face-down/face up on the table. Every time. Every time. 8-)
I've been at this miniatures wargaming since 1969. What do I know?
Thanks for the props.

Will – If you've got battles you've got dead/dying bodies lying in heaps, clumps, and in singles wherever the ground has been contested. Put your money on every one of them including today's battlefields.

Those rules that have things like units losing cohesion are probably factoring these sort of things in. I certainly think having the dead, dying and bleeding underfoot would be both an obstacle and a morale consideration.

I did this in an Agincourt game. We put down casualty figures on the table when a unit would lose more than two models in a turn. Soon the ground became littered with French dead and it made subsequent charges more difficult.

We put the casualties in the front of the unit figuring that it would often be the guys in front that died and if not then they would be spread out throughout the unit.

It worked pretty well, what was already a muddy battlefield turned into a muddy, corpse riddled battlefield.

The ground went from being difficult to very difficult terrain (1/2 movement to 1/4 movement) in those areas and it really slowed down the fight.

We were using WAB and it really did make the battle work the way it is described often, much better than any other simulation I've done of it.

The horse people I have spoken to have said a horse will step on you in a second.

I have been stepped on by a horse personally, so I'll back up that assertion. :)

-Will

it is interesting how certain fire-lanes and deadly spots start to show up as the casualties are placed

There's a Hemingway short story where the protag, Nick Adams, can envisage the progress of an Italian attack by the way the bodies are scattered across a field.

This is a very interesting idea and discussion; particularly Pictors' experiences.

Will – If you've got battles you've got dead/dying bodies lying in heaps, clumps, and in singles wherever the ground has been contested. Put your money on every one of them including today's battlefields.

My point was more towards battles where this effect had a noted effect on the material outcome, and couldn't be rolled up in some sort of general 'disorder' effect as part of battlefield friction. So I'm not questioning that it happened, I'm questioning whether you need specific rules to model it.

-Will

For my WWI games, I have almost 1:1 casualty figures to "live" It looks great, but gets expensive and time consuming even when I don't put that much into the paint jobs for the dead

An idea I've continued to use since 1971 appeared in a set of American Civil War rules from Bayonet Publications in the UK is a negative morale modifier for passing over one's own casualties.

Of course in the ACW, you'd be marching over men who, uniforms aside, suffer their wounds in the same language and who look pretty much like yourself, so some of them being "enemy" likely didn't reduce the effects.

I definitely believe from the record that significant numbers of casualties on a field DO constitute one more factor in the "battle friction" that contributes to the decline of unit effectiveness--a factor perhaps not equal to all the others, but then few if any of them would be equal.

Because I don't believe in regular, predictable movement rates over any terrain, and always provide some means of randomizing movement distances in any given turn, applying another minus to that distance for marching over casualties (one's own, at least) is easy.

However, any such system pretty much requires using casualty figures or markers of some kind to locate those casualties so as to know when/where the penalty applies.

As miniatures gamers, using more miniatures is the ideal solution, placing one for each figure deemed lost from a unit, but I'd never let the casualty figure determine where I could or could not place other figures or stands. It's enough to know a unit is passing over casualties, so moving such figures just behind the unit at the end of its move is
not a problem.

Leaving casualties off the field--though an ancient practice in war games practiced often or always by all of us--is really a kind of a "cheat" making our games ever more abstract and artificial--and that's in games of all scales, but most especially so in Skirmish or other 1:1 games!

TVAG

If it was possible to avoid a cavalry charge by simply laying down people would have done it. I think horses not stepping on prone bodies is an old wive's tale.

Laying down in front of a cavalry charge is probably not a good idea even if the horses stop… those riders usually carry spears!

My suspicion is that there is a lot of variability in how horses and men respond to stepping on bodies. The default is probably to avoid it, if for no other reason than stepping on someone makes it easier to trip or twist an ankle. Which is basically like the OP suggests.

I think flat markers and some of the fairly simple rules tweaks people suggested above would do the job and add an interesting dimension. With that in play, pike phalanxes (and any other close order heavy infantry) would automatically generate "rough ground" in front of themselves, becoming progressively less effective after the initial contact… a good advertisement for countering them with the Roman Triplex Acies formation perhaps.

'If it was possible to avoid a cavalry charge by simply laying down people would have done it. I think horses not stepping on prone bodies is an old wive's tale.'

This maybe the case, however it probably is more difficult to move a horse quickly over a field strewn with dead bodies and dead horses than one that is not.

Now one thing could be that normal movement in a game takes this into account.

So when a unit moves 16", it is assumed that it moves 16" even though there may be the odd dead body here and there.

If that same unit were marching down a clear road they may move 24" or even 30" who knows? They aren't racing down a road they are marching into battle.

My use of it for Agincourt was more based on the fact that the bodies were really piling up there and they were obstructing movement and doing so to a great degree, especially towards the end of the battle.

The charged ended up closing at the "trot" at best.

Since French (and most Continental) cavalry were trained to charge at the trot until the last 50M or less, this is a red herring.

Rmaker – You are partly correct about heavy cavalry advancing on their target unit at the "Trot". It was that last 50yds where the mounts were given their heads to gallop like racehoses at the target unit creating the SHOCK ACTION that was the true weapon of the heavy cavalry. The ground between the French heavy cavalry and the Brits in infantry squares was strewn with bodies, wooden boxes, etc. that prevented the French cavalry from their closing at the "Charge". The battlefield is not the drill field. Not a "red herring", "prime rib".

I'm intrigued about the idea of enough casualties making the ground 'rough going'. If you are going to classify rocky area as rough, then there is certainly an argument for it.

In the extras for Lord of the Rings the commentary is about how the ground had to be walked before cavalry charges. Although there was a lot of CGI, there was still a core of real people, and 300 horses can be a danger to themselves if they fall, so they had to make sure there were no rabbit holes etc. While this may be over careful for real cavalry, who would possibly accept some losses, not something you can do with non battle horses, people laying around would certainly make it more difficulty to walk with confidence.

While it was only the final part where speed is used, that will be the part where the enemy's dead bodies are.

I had an ACW computer game, which sadly doesn't work with newer computers, that would have extra VP hexes generated in places that had been fought over a lot, even if of no actual importance, simulating the psyche it must be important, there is a lot of fighting there!

However I would caution that wargamers tend to vastly overestimate the number of dead. Most casualties are wounded who leave the unit, or combat ineffective due to fear/shock etc.

Historically and empirically dubious, grisly, and not my cup of tea. I'll take a pass on this idea.

The SOP for French heavy cavalry was to charge at a trot, not a gallop. Order was more important than speed.

As for men lying on the ground being an obstacle… At what point are there enough casualties to make it an issue, and how do you keep a record of mounting casualties?

You record mounting casualties the same way you record them in game for damage to the unit, or near it. So if it is a morale factor, like Hail Caesar it still represents some loss to the unit.

It is probably in relation to that in an arbitrary way like everything else in the game.

"Order was more important than speed. "

But obstacles break up the order of a unit moving and if you have enough corpses piled up they become an obstacle.

Given the ground scale of a comparable 1" to 50 yards/meters as the average for a ! man = 50 men scale, the ground clutter (dead bodies and damaged equipment) is nullified.

Clutter would have more of an impact on a skirmish 1:1 or 1:5 ratio with a 1" = 5 yards or less ground scale.

You record mounting casualties the same way you record them in game for damage to the unit, or near it. So if it is a morale factor, like Hail Caesar it still represents some loss to the unit.

Yes, I understand that. My question was two-fold. One, what level of casualties do you see as being significant. Rudy N. addressed that to some extent, though I was looking for your thoughts on that; and two, when it is deemed rough ground through casualties, that ground is rough ground for the rest of the game/battle regardless of where the combatants move. How do you see recording that on the table?

Back in the 1980s, I was part of a group seminar discussing terrain classification. One of the topics was 'Flat ground on a game board. Is It is not like a parade ground'.
We talked about the natural rises and folds associated with a 'clear ground' classification. The issue of minor obstructions also came up.
The mechanic of turn time and ground scale was regarded as the great modifier of minor obstructed terrain. An extended time frame always for the passing or going around obstacles and reforming on the other side. Ground scale reduces the actual area affected to an insignificant amount.
So accounting for various factors will reduce distance covered by marchers to account for the delays. So reducing movement rates is another way to account for the obstacle delay.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, i participated in a number of seminars with board game companies and local designers on various aspects of design. I enjoyed having my brain picked back then. LOL!
Another obvious consideration is the era being simulated.