"Question for Daniel S on accuracy of a board game." Topic
3 Posts
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Korvessa | 05 Jun 2015 4:48 p.m. PST |
What do you think about the historical accuracy of the game Lion of the North? link |
Daniel S | 06 Jun 2015 3:39 a.m. PST |
Ah, good old Lion of the North by GMT. At the time it was published it pretty much reflected the state of the art as far as published secondary sources are concerned. And the designers and research team were both willing and able to make use of non-English sources with the bibliography containing an impressive list of German and Swedish works. In fact the LON bibliography with it's comments was a very usefull help for me when I took the first steps into TYW research back in the late 1990's. However "state of the art" in 1993 meant that it pretty much contained all of the bad old myths about the TYW with innovative Swedes delivering a curb stomp to Catholics fighting in deep tercios supported by caracoling cavalry. Add in the way in which the rules overpowered the Swedish salvo and the cavalry charge and you had a game that was fun for the Swede but hard on anyone else in it's original form. Local house rules involved changes such as removing the infamous Swedish "double salvo" to balance the game. Unfortunately the problems are built so deeply into the game design including the counters that I think it is not possible to change it to fully reflect the actual tactics and formations. (The Lutzen scenario plays a lot better than the Breitenfeld one though) Despite this I do not consider it a bad game and it's inaccuracy is not the result of poor research but rather stems from the facts that TYW history had yet to break free from the "old" history of the war and it's many myths. |
gfawcett | 06 Jun 2015 9:47 a.m. PST |
Do you consider the Ben Hull Musket and Pike series a better try at the subject? |
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