"Crimea: What's the Appeal?" Topic

My friend is working on a set of grid-based Crimean War rules. So I re-read a little history of the war (Figes' book from 2010 – excellent read).

Basically you have 3 field battles (Alma, Balclava and Inkerman) and the assault on the defenses.

But mostly you have a rogues gallery of incompetents, sycophants and outright bounders. The battles are hard to game and make interesting, and if you do battles that's a lot to paint and build for 3 battles.

So I remembered why this war never caught my gaming fancy. But for those of you who do enjoy it, what's the appeal?

Agree on Figes. My interest runs more to the Balkan, Caucasian, and Baltic theaters of the war – exotic troops and logistically hamstrung Russians in the first two, amphibious operations in the third.

I would definitely play it if someone else did all the work.
You need to see the anti-war movie with Trevor Howard as Cardigan, and read Flashman at the charge.
What it boils down to is Napoleonics with morons in charge.
More than in other periods, you get to blame your fellow officers when things go gnorw.

Zero appeal here.

Basically it is hard to do worse than the Historical Leaders

last hurrah of Europeans in fancy uniforms?

Watching Trevor now!

Like rmaker – I have a few troops for Almaa etc – I focus primarily on the other theaters and battles – for instance Kars

Agree with evil gong – its a visual thing – Its sort of Napoleonics without being…

Well, after de Crimean war were the 1859 Italian one, the 1864 and 1866 and the 1870/71 war so for uniforms there are more wars.
I suppose it must be that in the Crimean war the English army took part; in all the other ones not.

Hi Extra Crispy,

Until I had to create a Crimean War mini-campaign for the "Bloody Big European Battles!" scenario book, CW didn't appeal to me at all. Like you, it didn't take my fancy, I thought it was limited to too few battles and not very interesting ones at that.

How wrong I was! CW has plenty of gaming potential, and I have had a lot of fun from it, far more than I expected. Your list of battles missed out the biggest, the Chernaya, and Kurudere in the Caucasus (perhaps because there were hardly any Brits in either?). Eupatoria was quite a substantial action too, and I think Oltenitsa on the Danube was a division or so.

The asymmetry of the opposing armies – in weaponry, tactics, and other characteristics – makes for interesting tactical decisions. The armies present plenty of colour and character. The historical battles offer challenging grand tactical situations, if the scenarios are written well. (E.g., don't limit the Alma to a simple frontal slog.) Though I say it myself, I am rather proud of my five BBB CW scenarios, which have proved to be very popular games. See my Balaclava AAR here, which we fought as part of the five-battle episodic mini-campaign:
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As Brownand says, if you don't mind the odd hat being wrong, you can use the same armies for other wars too. (My Russians have served in 1877 or as Bulgarians in 1912; my Turks for 1877, 1897 and 1912; my red-trousered French are for 1870 but have fought 1859 and 1914 too; the Sardinians do their bit in 1859 and 1866; the Brits have fought some Napoleonic actions.) Of course this proxying works better in 6mm, my preferred scale, than with larger figures.

I hope I have enthused about CW enough to encourage you to try it. Good luck to your friend with developing his grid-based rules.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
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Like the uniforms especially the Russians and French – and while there were a limited number of battles there was a lot of potential for gaming!

One of my wargaming buddies has both Crimean and Russo-Turkish armies in 15mm. Although we've done recreations of several of the Crimea battles, we also do made-up scenarios. We feel that there is more to gaming a particular period than just recreating the historical battles.

Jim

"Get onto line,Cardigan!" "Light Brigade with me!" ;^)

"There my Lord! There are your guns!"

"……., you get to blame your fellow officers when things go gnorw."

Winston, I have to ask, what is "gnorw"? Maybe a new morale category? Represents an expletive? Inquiring minds want to know.

"Wrong" spelled backwards.
Strangely enough, Autocorrect didn't blink.

There are lots of potentially good skirmish scenarios during the trench warfare around the siege of Sevastopol. You don't even need that many figures. The Cossacks, on foot, excelled at trench raiding, years before the First World War.

The Thin Red Line and the Charge of the Light Brigade.

What more do you need?