"Massacres and Last Stands - Where Do You Draw the Line?" Topic
13 Posts
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Nick Stern | 05 Jun 2016 10:27 a.m. PST |
I am reading William Clive's novel of the Indian Mutiny "Blood of an Englishman" about the siege and subsequent massacre at Cawnpore. Part of me wants to build a tabletop version of the pathetic European fortifications and game one of the many assaults by the mutineers, but another part of me says, don't go there, mostly due to the presence of the large civilian contingent trapped inside the fortifications. Similarly, years ago, I read a scenario in Wargames Illustrated about the escape by boat from the massacre at the Ghat following the surrender and I had plans to game that, going so far as to build several boats to hold my figures. I have happily gamed famous last stands including: The Alamo, Camerone, Maiwand, The Little Big Horn and the Guides at Kabul, but there is something about the atrocities committed by both sides, especially those against the civilian population, during the Mutiny that gives me pause. How do others draw this thin line between what is a dramatic, desperate scenario and one that is an atrocity? |
79thPA | 05 Jun 2016 10:38 a.m. PST |
Unless you are actually gaming the massacre of civilians, I don't see the dilemma. |
marco56 | 05 Jun 2016 10:42 a.m. PST |
I think it's up to you.If it bothers you that much,which it seems to or you wouldn't even bother to ask the question I wouldn't do it. Mark |
Oh Bugger | 05 Jun 2016 10:46 a.m. PST |
I understand your reservations. The civilians are not massacred until,iirc, a day after the surrender. You can game Wheeler's defence without going on to include a subsequent massacre. Likewise if you game the advance of Haverlock's column you don't have to include the routine murder of all Indian males over 12 and on the way. We know the Mutiny War was extremely vicious, though certainly not unique in that respect, but it is the battles that interest us in the main and that's what most of us game. An atrocity is when the defenceless unarmed or disarmed are killed-in my view any way. I'm sure your boats will still come in handy somewhere. |
zippyfusenet | 05 Jun 2016 10:52 a.m. PST |
I have an interest in primitive warfare and (related) frontier warfare in the black powder era in North America, which often targeted civilians and often resulted in massacres and what we moderns would call atrocities. So I've thought about this topic. On the one hand, a good last stand/massacre wargame involving only soldiers/warriors can be a lot of fun. They're just toy soldiers, they don't bleed. Everyone loves a good Alamo game. On the other hand, I wouldn't role-play the (often racist, xenophobic and/or bigoted) hatred that led to massacre in these real-world battles, which would offend many people, even if said in jest. No Battle of Fort Pillow scenario, please. There are things I do in private, in my own game room among friends, that I wouldn't do in public at a game convention or demo game. I'm working on a wargame scenario for the Cow Creek Massacre. It's a very interesting case study in prehistoric American tribal warfare…but it involves wholesale deliberate killing of non-combatants, and I know I would offend some stranger who doesn't understand my interests. Hey, I don't strip naked in public, either. And you don't want me to. Trust me on this. |
Lt Col Pedant | 05 Jun 2016 12:50 p.m. PST |
An atrocity, a massacre of non-combatants, wouldn't make for a good game, anyway, would it? And it is a game we're playing. … Isn't it? |
robert piepenbrink | 05 Jun 2016 1:13 p.m. PST |
You could--I speak in theory--make a game of a massacre, but I don't think you could make a wargame out of it. For me, that involves being able to hit back. So I might game, for instance, the stand of the Whitecoats at the close of Marston Moor, but not spearing all the fugitives at Isandlwhana, even though they were fair game as combatants. General principle is that a historical last stand by armed combatants is a legitimate wargame, the defender playing either for casualties inflicted or time gained. If I design a last stand game, there's a time limit, after which the attackers must withdraw. And my rule for all games is that a side should stand at least a one in three chance of a win. (If you want absolutely even odds, play chess.) Unarmed civilians in my game are either objective markers--"we have to rescue the Princess!"--or possible guerillas. No harm comes to unarmed civilians. My table, my rules. |
DJCoaltrain | 05 Jun 2016 2:01 p.m. PST |
Good question because it reveals a conscience. Follow your conscience, it normally doesn't lead you astray. Civilians are furniture in my games, and woe be unto he/she that deliberately harms civilians. Sometimes they are harmed accidentally, still bad news for the perp, but not as bad as deliberately harming them. Civilians normally rush around in a panic, or cower in a corner. However, harm one of them and the rest (all of them) rise-up to seek revenge. |
Henry Martini | 05 Jun 2016 4:45 p.m. PST |
What is a massacre? When it comes to academic analyses it seems to depend entirely on which sub-discipline a writer claims membership of. In the case of the colonial era, where a military historian sees a battle more often than not a social/ethno-historian sees a massacre. |
ITALWARS | 06 Jun 2016 3:32 a.m. PST |
Nick Stern i think that the problem you' re facing, totally understandable indeed, doe's nt concern specifically the period in which you've choosen to post this topic..that's in broad therms "Colonial"..Camerone, Indian Mutiny, Maiwand..but it's something that could jeopardize, as a whole, your very desire to play wargame or not…also if you play "Lace Wars" those chocolate box well painted minis represent, in fact, people and civilians..there is no difference at all with "Colonial".. my only reservation could be playing modern times ..for example if i can stand with no problems to play a full armour scenario between 8th Army and Italians ..i'll have some problems to play an antipartisan action in occupied Jugoslavia..many years ago..at the beginning of the war VS terror i bought some few plastic boxes of Coalition troops and some vehicles…but after seeing quite a few images of US invalidated casualties returning home i never thought again to play or even reading about that kind of scenarios and miniatures. More about that..massacres is a non sense in a wargame battle..simply because once the surrounded, beaten, out of ammo unit ..all the factors of the rules call for ending the game….in my last TSATF game of a British column ambushed by Zulus..the last half platoon of red coats, practically out of ammo and obliged to stand in place because of the various wounded minis, was the target of concentrating superior number of Zulu units that wee closing in…we simply decided to end the game…range the minis and have a dish of Carbonara with red wine…i admited defeat and was happy not to be obliged to record the now disapparead unit in my rosters…it's really impossible in a game to find a tactical/interesting/funny reason to perpetuate a massacre of castings so your concern about Indian Mutiny games could be, in my opinion, by passed …after so many time you could consider it only as study of military history.,.. |
jpattern2 | 06 Jun 2016 5:09 a.m. PST |
No harm comes to unarmed civilians. My table, my rules. Same here. Well stated. |
axabrax | 06 Jun 2016 8:00 a.m. PST |
Easy. Don't include the civilians. |
Lion in the Stars | 11 Jun 2016 2:37 a.m. PST |
Different question than I had thought from the topic title. Don't include the deliberate killings of non-combatants in your games if you don't feel comfortable dealing with them. I've written rules for crowd mobs in Infinity (and need to revise them for the 3rd edition rules), but left the effects of harming a civilian to the scenario being played. Generally, killing a civvie means losing the game, but the new civvie rules make them untargetable in the first place. |
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