"Balanced Battle of the The '45?" Topic

My friends and I played a fast and furious game of Falkirk Muir today. In fact we played it twice. The first game the Jacobites steamrollered the Hanoverians, as was historic. The second game we tweaked the rules (TMWWBK) to allow the British line to inflict a few casualties before it was swept away. We prefer to fight historic battles and are wondering if there were any battles of The '45 that would make a more balanced game. Certainly not Prestonpans or Culloden. Perhaps we need to come up with our own scenarios based on a What If? Jacobite advance further south into England.

Clifton Moor was only a skirmish but offers possibilities as do some of the clashes between Jacobite and Government highland forces. There are both minor skirmishes and what if possibilities with the Hessian forces that were sent to highlands. Christopher Duffy's books are the best accounts I know of for these.

There's no such thing as a "balanced" historical wargame scenario.
Play it twice swapping sides. See who can do better than the historical outcome.

I remember reading a historical scenario for the Jacobite Rebellion where the government units had to roll a die to determine troop quality the first time they interacted with a Jacobite unit.

This mechanic was introduced to create uncertainty in the Government plan since the player wouldn't know how his units would react to a highland charge. I think this also captures some historical flavor since units did have a high variance of reaction in real life.

The small battle of Inverurie makes for a nice little game.

But in general, wargaming the '45 with miniatures is best suited for hypothetical skirmishes and battles, in my view and experience. You can craft dozens and dozens of those, at all levels.

Army commanders usually try everything in their power to avoid a "balanced scenario". Generals gave battle in two circumstances, they thought they had an advantage, or they had been forced to fight.

The battles of the '45 tended to be pretty one sided affairs. If you want more balanced large battles you will be fighting what if. It is possible to have a more closely balanced battle at Culloden, but you need to make different choices on deployment and pre battle maneuver, especially for the Jacobites.

Smaller skirmishes are more likely to be balanced scenarios while remaining plausible.