"The Largest Wargame Ever Played?" Topic

"Could this be the largest miniature wargame ever played? The British news media certainly believe so! In June 2019 organizers at the University of Glasgow staged a 120 player Waterloo game, fought with over 22,000 miniatures on 2,000 square feet of table space. Who put this event together? What rules did they use to play the game? Did the French manage to rewrite history?"

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Amicalement
Armand

In October 1977, at Fort Hood, we conducted a Leipzig battle using 10,000 15mm castings. We used the Empire 2 rules. We had a segment on TV and articles in several newspapers. I was on my honeymoon and my wife was not happy about me playing in the three day event. The allies won.

From the topic, I was going to go with the Louisiana Maneuvers.

Is the mere number of figures involved the most significant thing about a wargame?

Only for the Guiness Book of Records or games of Trivial Pursuit!

@RudyNelson
What scale was Empire 2? Was it 1:60 figure scale and 1":40 yards ground scale?

Yep that was the ground and troop scales. Some played it in 25mm but we did it in 15mm

That must have been quite a spectacle. Coincidentally, in 1977 our own group here in Staffordshire put on Waterloo in 25mm at 1:50, so about 5000 figures. We had some local press coverage and a convention write up in the January 1978 issue of 'Battle', a UK magazine.

arthur1815

Is the mere number of figures involved the most significant thing about a wargame?

Number of figures, number of players, size of the area represented, and size of the playing area all present management challenges that merit analysis.

People don't choose to put on and participate in giant wargames because they are easy, but because they are hard. One learns a lot from doing things that are hard.

Well said my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Oberlindes Sol LIC-
Good point.

My Wagram project has over 4,000 figures in 2mm. It's also at the correct ground scale, and so it can be played on a map of Wagram. Most mega games are just a bunch of figures lined up wall to wall on a table top. They're so abstract that they could represent almost anything.

Oberlindes, you are quite right that staging such massive games 'present management challenges' – but that's not why I choose to play waragames, especially when I was involved in management!

Very impressive and it must have taken some really clever organising, otherwise you might have had some players adding extra units without anyone knowing. LOL

If my experience of some University staff be typical, it would be more likely that figures would vanish from the tables….

There was a decidedly large 15mm Borodino at Fort Meade Maryland in 1992. Google should pull up the particulars. David Chandler came over. There were about 150 participants, but I'm not sure about the figure count.

I had Eugene's IVth Italo-French Corps. Despite the length of the table my Corps was deployed in reserve. I only got 8" of actual frontage. I had 2 West Point Cadet division commanders. One fed his French through the 8", deployed along the stream below the Guard Grand battery and scoured ouf the fleches. The other was deploying on his right to move on the Redoubt. The Italian lights tried to form into a wood but despite their skirmish ability kept disordering with every attempt. The Italian line and Guard never got off the start line. I was able to converge my Italian Guard howitzers to help the Guard arty annoy the Redoubt.

It was supposed to run Friday evening to midday Sunday, but it got called about 10p Saturday.

I was at the Ft Meade game as well. My division was in I corps and was held in reserve for all of Saturday and over half of Sunday. They called the game before I took a casualty.I believe the figure count was 50,000. They used full-strength OB's for both sides and included the wing armies as well. At one point one side had artillery lining the table edge pointed at the other side with artillery lining the opposite table edge, the 6' gap between filled with commanders trying to figure out where their shots would fall. All I can say is 'Never again'.

The count for Borodino looks to be 16,000

link

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Borodino 2001 and Waterloo 2015, both using Carnage and Glory rules and 28mm figures were larger.

Forwardmarch studioes: "Most mega games are just a bunch of figures lined up wall to wall on a table top. They're so abstract that they could represent almost anything"

As are most non-megagames in 18/28mm ….

Interesting statement in the 1992 article that the USA had 25-40,000 miniature wargamers, I wonder what the number is today.

Not being adversely critical, GarryWills, but read on after these numbers appear in the article; I wonder to what extent does the observation still hold true, quarter of a century later? Would "IMP" come into it?
With a wry smile,

""*[//]) {> ::::

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Isn't the largest wargame ever the Cold War between the USA and the USSR?

@Albus Malum

You think the cold war was between the USA and USSR? Wow.

Well if you want to include the puppet states of NATO, and the puppet Eastern Block of the USSR, Yes!

Am I missing something? Fill me in.

it wasn't a bigger game was played a year before in Scarborough ! but not advertised.

I ran Wagram in 6mm at Historicon two times. We had 21 gamers and at a figure to man ration of 1/60 we had around 6000 figures. We had every formation that was there and in the second battle we even added two more Austrian Corps to beef up the Austrians.

Wow!… who won?.

Amicalement
Armand