"How to make a fun game out of a frontal assault on redoubts?" Topic

Many C19 actions involve bitterly contested fights to attack/ defend fortifications. The history is often epic and glorious (as well as grim and sanguinary), so of course we want to reproduce these on our wargame tables. However, I've always felt the entertainment to be had from games of such situations is rather limited because both sides' options are so limited. The risk is that they degenerate into a tedious dicefest.

Nevertheless, it is possible to make a good game out of an assault scenario. Here's a report of how I did it with the Prussian assault on the Danish redoubts at Dueppel in 1864:
link

I'd be interested to know about others' experiences with such games. What did you do to make them interesting? Which were most successful? Any disasters?

I did a solo very similar to a seige, made up situation Prussians assaulting Russians in Napoleonic era who mostly had their artillery dug in. Prussians did get in on a flank, the center divisions took horrific casualties. But had interesting situations to sort out and was good game.

Consequences always change the nature of a battle. This is one of the things we have to struggle with in a wargame – after the game is over, the game is over.

My usual approach is to have a victory point system that makes the in game decisions more complex, giving a richer challenge. This can work to add depth to tactically shallow scenarios. In your case, it's not about beating the Danes. It's about beating the Danes with enough of the right forces surviving.

Linking the "three scenarios" into one so you have a chain of consequences is elegant, and it sounds that it came off very well. I like campaign games and applaud you for being able to compress them into one wafgame.

WE will fight Puebla again in a couple of weeks. The Mexicans will win. The French will charge uphill toward the defended forts. This time (as a few others), we will play two runs, switching sides. This makes how far the French get before defeat have a little more spice.

Just a couple of weeks ago our gaming group played a WWII assault on fortifications (this as a boardgame). German assault and bombardment units were randomly programmed, and each of our players performed assorted defensive activities. I suspect that a playable scenario could be constructed with either the attackers or the defenders programmed with the active players collaborating (but competing for battle honors).

In our boardgame, the defenders achieved victory levels based on improving performance relative to the historical outcome.

We have played games where dead attackers respawn at the rear the next turn as reinforcements. Failure to capture the fortifications is a crushing defeat. Otherwise we score it based on how many casualties or broken units the defender inflicted. If you have set forces all on the board it often makes these scenarios boring. Everyone knows where it is going.

I try to either:

1. Avoid them as gaming topics;
   
2. Zoom out the scenario so that any frontal assault is a part of a larger battle/operation.

I don't mind games that include frontal assaults, as long as they occur organically as a result of player decisions, and are only a part of the game. Frontal assaults are a part of warfare – sooner or later, every general wants to carry a defended position as part of a larger plan. It's not much fun if the assault is the whole game, but players should have the option to launch one (or more), and the ability to make the odds as favorable as possible.

In truth, miniatures gamers don't seem to mind frontal assaults as much as I do. I've seen an awful lot of games recreating Pickett's Charge, Marye's Heights, La Haye Saint, Borodino, Rorke's Drift, and other famously forlorn attacks. At cons those games can be as crowded and active as a casino craps table. I've also played more than one scenario that was zoomed in to the point where all the maneuvers were taken away from the players and there was nothing left but a frontal assault. I tend to wax sarcastic about games like this, but I seem to be in a minority in this hobby.

- Ix

Looks like a good scenario design.

I'm not sure I've ever played an assault on a redoubt scenario larger than the fight at the stockade in Treasure Island.

Je rejoue actuellement la bataille historique d'Engerau le 03 juin 1809.
C'est un pur assaut frontal français sur une défense fortifiée autrichienne.

url=https://www.photorapide.com/photos/1634199/qw3k2w.jpg]

‌

Pour le rendre intéressant:
- Adapter les conditions de victoire.
- Jouer en aller/retour pour comparer les résultats finaux.
- Comparer avec le résultat historique.

url=https://www.photorapide.com/photos/1745314/20ulsq.jpg]

‌

Bernard

Nice looking table Bernard

Play drunk for money.

@Sharkik
Merci!

Toute ma bataille: link

Bernard

Play drunk for money.

Now we're talkin'. Best solution yet.

If I am putting on a game that involves one side being stationary defense and no fun to play, then I will usually take that side by myself and let everyone else play the fun attacking side.

I am planning to do the 1940 crossing of the Meuse River. It will be a fun game for the German players but the French are pretty stationary. I can fudge a little with the history and make it interesting to be the French. But what I will probably do is run the French side myself and everyone else be Germans.

I also do The 2nd Boer War which has frontal assaults. Everyone seems to enjoy playing either side. The Boer players enjoy shooting down the British and the British players enjoy the spectacle. Take a look at the frontal assaults form one of my Boer War games.

link

Thanks for all the replies – quite an assortment!

Running it twice and swapping sides: on the one hand I see how that adds a nice competitive element, but on the other hand if going through it once is limited and dull, then 2x … ? But if it works, it works.

WWII: at least the wider variety of troop types and weapons can make it more interesting than a C19 game. Smoke, bazookas, satchel charges, flamethrowers, HMG/LMG/SMG, different obstacles (mines, wire) …

Unpredictable respawning etc: OK, unpredictability is good.

Bidding to see who has to attack: clever, but doesn't change the basic nature of the game, does it?

Famous battles (Marye's Heights, etc): it's not really about the gameplay, I guess.

Engerau: like the table, love the research! And looks like a little more interesting as a tactical problem than a straight frontal assault.

Play drunk for money: for sure I've played games that would have been improved by that.

Boer War frontal assaults: maybe it's the asymmetry, the sheer contrast between two such different armies?

My tentative conclusion is that so long as there is some extra ingredient – asymmetry, famous history, personalities, competition, a random element, or just alcohol – that can be enough to make a tasty game out of what could otherwise be tedious and stodgy. Thanks for all the good ideas!

Any head on attack is essentially tedious in one way, no ability to maneuver to the flanks. If your rules allow only one option in such an attack, march up and throw the dice then that's what you get. If you allow low level tactics to have an impact then things can get more complicated. If the attacker deploys enough skirmishers to tire the defenders then the attack becomes easier. How do the defenders counter this, can they risk deploying men in front of the fortifications, or do they reduce the front line defenders to their own skirmishers, who are then vulnerable to a rush by attacking main force, which is itself then vulnerable to a counterattack while disorganised by the defenders reserves. Can you afford the time to use superior artillery to batter down the earthworks. The situation can be as interesting as your rules allow. Partly of course this depends on scale, if you are playing Napoleon then you order a Corps to attack and the detail is the marshals problem. If however you lower yourself to he level of Divisional commander then things can be more interesting.

"Any head on attack is essentially tedious in one way, no ability to maneuver to the flanks."

Good point, Mark. When it's a line of fortifications that's being attacked, it can also be tedious if it is a uniform line rather than a patchwork of varied terrain. Complex terrain makes for complex decisions as to where is better or worse for moving or shooting or assaulting. If the terrain is 'vanilla' and it doesn't really matter where you put your troops, that's dull. (A problem that afflicts a lot of ancient battles too.)

Battle of Franklin, Tennessee.

B

if going through it once is limited and dull, then 2x … ?

Puebla isn't boring the first time. The one time I've seen the French win (counter-historical, but not "unrealistic"), the Mexicans did the "bunker in place" strategy, which is boring. Shifting of forces and trickery is important.

One time the Mexicans consolidated all their forces in one of the two forts as the French approached. The French bore down on that fort, but as they hit the hill, they shifted left and attacked the other, lightly defended fort. But the Mexicans wanted them to do that – once their flank was exposed, the Mexicans unleashed their cavalry down the middle of the hill, right into the side of the French instead of having to charge head-om into the Zouaves. It was brilliant.

Anyway, I think static defense is a choice.

The switching sides is really about making it a "competition". We know the Mexicans are going to win. Post game bragging rights come from the different levels of whooop successfully applied to the French.

OTOH, great opportunity to try to figure out how best to use your artillery. Fire is as important a consideration as maneuver.

Breaking through a defended line (or into a defended position) is really all about using the supporting arms to create a breakthrough. The creation of a fire plan to cover and support the infantry assault is important, and a lot of frontal assaults failed in large part because that support was ineffective- Gettysburg furnishing one example, and the VIII and X Corps fronts on the first day of the Somme another.

OTOH, great opportunity to try to figure out how best to use your artillery. Fire is as important a consideration as maneuver.

This is part of why the French lose at Puebla. They were depleted on artillery (for two main reasons) and didn't think they would meet with resistance, so they ran out of shot during the third assault up the hill (which they never expected).

We play a bounded random depletion of artillery so the French player doesn't know the hour and minute they will run out of shot, but they are worrying about how close that time is as the assault progresses. Just like the actual French (and Mexicans who sided with the French) commanders. Great fun!

@etothepi: OK, you convinced me, your Puebla game is fun! Options for both sides, opportunities for both sides to move, some unpredictability re ammo depletion … enough to add interest.

@Nine pound round: granted, fire plan is important. It may or may not be an interesting enough challenge to sustain a game.

@Blutarski: are you saying Franklin is interesting to game? If so, what makes it a good game?