"Using Historical Tactics" Topic

robert piepenbrink once wrote:

If someone wants me to make a poor tactical move because that's that those people would have done – no, thank you. I don't play games to act stupid.

When playing an historical wargame, do you limit yourself to the tactics which would historically have been used?

I do try to be accurate – so when I play the SYW Austrians, I am like a wall on defense but when I am the Confederates – whooo hooo! Listen to that Rebel yell!

A good set of rules rewards historical tactics!

Agreed!

+1 herkybird

+2 to Herkybird

I will rarely play a set of rules/scenario twice if it allows/rewards non-historical tactics/actions

As Herkybird says.

With Herkybird

So if someone uses historical tactics that invariably led to defeat, they should win ?

Surely only SUCCESSFUL tactics should be 'rewarded'.

Personally I think that this is a lot easier to say than to achieve in rules.

An example I've been thinking of.

I don't like rules that allow armies to fight to the last unit. It doesn't feel right.
But if you say you lose when a third, or a half, of your army is dead then you will never put your veteran triarii into the third line – they will never get to fight.

I haven't got a solution to that one yet (morale by command maybe?) but I put it forward as a case where rules make historical tactics much worse than they might have been.

Giving the French the ability to fully control their army at Crecy or Agincourt would be unrealistic, but many rules would allow it. I'd find it difficult to just do a headlong charge in that case. Not sure I'd use reverse slope tactics on a regular basis in the Seven Years War though.

Limited to historical tactics: yes
Limited to historical decisions: no.

"A good set of rules rewards historical tactics!"

Ditto that. I do like trying to control Irr Kn in DBM!

It all depends on the on rules …

+1 herkybird and Korvessa:

Limited to historical tactics: yes
Limited to historical decisions: no.

I do sometimes like to try unhistorical tactics, either to:
A: test the rules
B: test the "what if" of doing something my historical counterparts didn't/wouldn't/couldn't
…but generally, I get really annoyed at rules that fail to penalize unhistorical tactics, or worse, reward the player for using them.

But I agree with Robert Piepenbrink generally. I don't appreciate being a robot for the rules author, a stooge for the scenario designer, or a spectator for autonomous card decks. The only way I want to play out something as utterly cretinous as Pickett's Charge is if it's a single event in a much longer/larger battle – like Pickett's Charge was. Bad military situations resulting from player gambles gone sour is actually *interesting*, but I won't play a game if the entire length and breadth of the scenario is "go forward, get slaughtered".

- Ix

As a designer in the distant past, I agree with herckbird.

That said, a lot has to do with the tactical level of the rules. The higher level does lend to better success if you use military principles.

At some point in time, some general somewhere changed the accepted tactics of the time and invented all new tactics.
Well, if they succeeded, that is.
Somehow, tactics evolved beyond shield walls clashing (I'm looking at you, hoplites) together quite noisily after the slingers got out of the way, into shaking out a line of skirmishes to mask the musketeers….
Oh wait. Maybe the tactics didn't change all that much and my argument is invalid!

Anyway, SOMEONE along the way did something different.

Playing Age of Sail games, trying to convince the French/Spanish player to shoot primarily at rigging is a truly difficult sell, even though outside of large fleet engagements, the rigging v. hull difference was a huge tactical gap.

Aber natürlich.

+3 to Herkybird

Tactics change with weapons technology. That is it in a nutshell. A general just didn't wake up one day and say 'hey those linear tactics are boring. Let's spread out and not be in a line.' No, it was modern weapons that came about that made linear tactics suicidal. They may be slow to adopt the new tactics but eventually they do.

A good set of rules recognizes that and rewards period tactics. How to implement those tactics and what period tactic, is the difference winning and losing.

A good set of rules recognizes that and rewards period tactics. How to implement those tactics and what period tactic, is the difference winning and losing.

Herky and Gildas have it right.