"Why play a whole big battle at all?" Topic

In recent years, small skirmish games have come very much into vogue. A level up from that, brigade- or division-sized games are popular. Plenty of us are happy to push a dozen battalions around. By contrast, recreations of substantial historical battles are relatively rare, and the seriously big ones like Bautzen, Leipzig or Dresden seem virtually never to get tackled.

It's understandable, because big battles take more effort to prepare and longer to play than a simple "fight for the wagon" skirmish or "capture the bridge" brigade punch-up. I think it's worth the effort, though (and it doesn't have to be an inordinate effort, either). Some recent conversations have prompted me to try to make the case in my latest "Reflections on Wargaming" essay, "Why play a whole big battle at all?", on the BBBBlog here:
link

I hope readers will find it enjoyable and thought-provoking. Maybe I'll even encourage some to dip a toe in the big-battle water! Comments welcome, as always.

At the lower levels there is, to me, less effects for manuever. Everything deloves into a frontal assault. As you move up the command chain maneuver and reserves take on a greater role and battles start to look like what we have read about.

Good essay, Chris.

Reasonable answer, decent advertising. But while I regularly play corps-size actions on a 3x3 table, for me "big battle" means the old MNWC Fall Formal Game--about 4,000 30mm Napoleonic figures on 30 feet of table, with hard-pressed sector commanders pleading with the CinCs for the reserves needed to secure victory or reinforce the defense. In my favorite, a failed Allied cavalry charge on the last turn let the defending French eke out a win on "combat effectiveness" by about 42 castings of the 4,000 engaged.

Such a battle--and such a spectacle--IS historical miniatures warfare, and needs no justification.

Totally agree with Rob P and Sabre, far prefer a proper multi player sized battle than a small skirmish, but then I have large armies and a big table!

Tally Ho!

You could say that large multi-player battles involve the players playing various smaller actions as part of the overall larger battle, which is basically playing smaller games, so to speak. Whatever you prefer, we should all play whatever size games we can manage, as long as we enjoy doing it.

To be honest I scan read it and I lost interest in the the article when it all comes down to the this.

…………all three results are still possible (win-draw-lose) and it comes down to the last few rolls of the dice.

So you have played a big battle where supposedly you have worked out the plan and it just comes down to a role of the die, that's not how it works in the real world.

Saber 6 I play small (company at most a side). Maneuver is key in our games. You perhaps need more challenging scenarios and/or better rules.

One serving soldier told me the higher up you go the more Logistics becomes the key, that seems to be skipped in your commentary.

In our "slightly larger" multi evening games Logistics come into play, troops need to rest and re-arm to keep going, reserves are not just there to relace losses but to continue even a winning fight

There is a BBB going on in Ukraine, well a small BBB around Kursk. Its all about supply and logistics, that was true in the horse and Musket period as well.

Also you are very locky to have folk that can handel the complexities of a BBB, where to provide supplys, where to place the Baggage, if you don't get than and a breakthrough occurs then its curtains period.

Clearly your approach to mapping and hidden units is interesting, many battles don't implay full knowledge of the enemy dispositions. Wellingon hid his chaps behind a hill and suppied the Famous farmhouse by a hidden road. How do you do it?

To be honest you definitely have not sold me on the gains of bigger battles.

It may be your oversimplification of the systems makes it far less valuable as a history tool.

I play wargames to enjoy some of the fruits of my historical studies not as part of them. Any sensible person realises that wargaming as an 'historical tool' is a complete waste of time. Just because you can con yourself into believing that doesn't mean that you are correct.

^ I have been a "true" miniature way gamer since 1959. My main goal in gaming has been to enjoy all aspects of the hobby, not winning the games, and certainly not to prove a point of view!

GildasFacit

Absolutely spot on!

Because I can.

Well, I see two competing versions of what "Big battles" means

1. Lots of miniatures and players, preferably on the deck of an aircraft carrier
2. A division, corps or army level game played in a reasonable amount of time and space

I submit that both can be fun, but they are completely different animals

(1) is the stuff of legends. "Back in the day", "Column line and square", "Thousands of 25mm Napoleonics". Very rare nowadays. Games often don't finish and arguments about rules tend to dominate over high level strategic movement. Serious congestion of units on the table

(2) should be the study of high level tactics – many rule sets get confused, column line and square no longer has relevance and (Napoleonic) shooting distance should be tiny. A nice example of these kind of rules is "Blucher"

John

Because I want to be Lee, not Sgt. Rock

^^^ haha Crispy

Firstly, I enjoyed reading BBB and NBBB as I own them both. Hats off to you it looks like a solid set of rules and scenarios. Although I plan on refighting the big battles, here's the thing and my big hangup….

why refight it? We already know what happened.

We however, do not know the untold story of the 2nd battalion/5th Legere's light company getting mauled in an ambush by some guerillas (skirmish) or that very small brigade action at xyz (brigade punch up). While these are fictional (mostly) these are untold smaller stories….it appeals to me in a totally different way.

Otherwise, oh yay, I get to play the plodding doomed army at xyz battle where we know what happened.

Don't get any of this twisted though…I love miniature wargaming in all facets. :)

I painted all of those damn figures, so now I want to get some work out of them?

pjm

Well, GildasFacit, I guess that finishes me off as a sensible person. I'd have said there was a serious difference between "seldom done that way" and "just flat can't be done," and that I'd actually learned something from refighting Cowpens and map and pins horse and musket campaigns, but clearly I was wrong. The service academies and some staffs should be informed too.

jwebster has a point, of course. But I suspect when you reduce a major battle to something fought by one person a side or close to, you've lost so much of the misunderstandings and clash of personalities that you're not a lot closer to the historical engagement then you are with the bathtubbed battle which has kept those things. As for clashes over rules and not finishing, those are glitches, not features. They're the consequence of poorly-trained players, bad umpiring and possibly inadequate scenario design. (We negotiated the scenarios six months out and ran training games.) How long have you had these problems? Have you sought help?

Blucher. Oh, I agree--on one level. If I wanted to refute Gildas and Connaught specifically for a major horse and musket battle, I'd use something like Blucher. That said, I was paid for decades to maintain records on every unit in an army, and I do not regard it as recreation. If someone wants me to keep book on units again, I want to see the money first. Cash in advance, or I'll wait for the check to clear.

The things some people do for fun…

I'm looking forward to running the rules. I had earlier decided not too when I saw the basing was multi[le stands. Then I read in the notes that units could be just two stands. I was sold and have been gathering my forces. But I'm all in on the rules!

Thanks.

John

A shameless promotion of a specific set of rules, but not really a commentary of large battle games. This past Historicon there was a very large game of the entire battle of Waterloo. While it was played by around 8 to 10 players, the entire battle was played to a conclusion in 4 hours. Done with a 4-page rule set created by the gamemaster.

I have personally run many ACW large battle games over the years such as Shiloh, Antietam, Chancellorsville and even Gettysburg. All done in a single afternoon, even the multi-day battles. Did one game of Gettysburg in one afternoon with just 2 players (2 days of battle to reach a conclusion instead of the historical 3.) All these with my own home-grown rules.

I have seen all of Waterloo in miniatures played as a tabletop game of the old SPI "Napoleon at Waterloo" game.

The point is large battles can be done without need of any specific rules set. There are plenty of published rules that will do the same as what the essay writer posted and no need to promote one set of rules as there are plenty of rules out there that will work or can be adapted to fit the number of miniatures, number of players, and time to complete the game.

For those that want to play a full large battle miniature game in a reasonable amount of time without having a massive number of miniatures or needing many players to play, there are many options to do so. This in no way detracts from small level games at different levels. It comes down to what you want to play and how best to achieve that goal.

Kim

I found that DBMM gives me the impression of taking part in a battle, as it includes the part random, part plannable selection and placement of terrain (which simulates the selection of the battlefield pretty good), the previous selection of forces for that terrain, the division into army commands, their placement – including ambushes, hidden deployment or flank marches and has sufficient terrain on the table to make tactical movement possible to the point that an army can loose the battle before the first combat takes place – but more often its a case of clear outcomes that may be conflicting – winning in the center, losing on the flanks, whatever gets decisive first- and sometimes you hold your army for 3.5 hours to totally break in the last round of dicing (happens two times in row to me last tournament).

I know its not Napoleonic or ACW, which play on a larger scale armywise, but it simulates many aspects of a battle.
Historical refights suffer a bit from the known mission objectives, and both FOG and real surprises are rarely achieved. That said, they are fun for the scenario building and to compare the own dices with historical results. Definitely a friend of them, but the necessary effort is hard to achieve.

One benefit of a historical battle is creating the scenario is easier and people may have an interest in the battle. Refighting the Battle of Wagram may have a level of interest greater than just an ad-hoc generic points game, or a micro-game covering a small part of a battlefield. The rules that seem to allow games of this scale are outlined in the following videos.
youtu.be/fYuGA3DFILs
youtu.be/__Q29X3aGQs

Perhaps I'm missing something but this question seems to have been posed with the sole intention of promoting a set of rules.

While recreating a big battle should ideally involve as many people as possible I can be done with fewer if you have a set of rules that emphasise the things the things you get from friction. Unfortunately the mechanisms that most rules default around don't allow this.

Yes, Brunnaburh. But the initial intention does not preclude a broader discussion.

Point taken, Robert. I've played skirmish games in WW2 with Bolt Action and many ACW regimental scenarios using JR11 and the Potomac Publications scenario books. But for WOTR, ancients and WSS I invariably play whole battles because for me rightly or wrongly smaller engagements don't feel right. For Napoleonic, WW2, WW1 and some larger ancient and medieval battles I am quite happy to play block or hex and counter boardgames.

I want my battles to look like the paintings and drawings, with serried ranks of infantry in various formations, cavalry performing charges and batteries of artillery hard at work. When you make an entire battle like Borodino small enough to fit in a pizza box and fast play in an hour you lose all that.

Our group has played games at all scales but with a preference for larger battles. There's something about the grandeur and sweep of bigger engagements where your plans are more consequential, the victories are sweeter and the defeats sting and give you that sense of gotterdammerung!
You can play big battles with two players, we do it all the time, but as has been mentioned you need command rules that work. We just set up the battle of Neresheim (1796) using our rules for the French Revolutionary Wars that we've been perfecting for about a decade now, with a heavy emphasis on command. Major battles from the period range from 15k-80k per side (more on the low end) so they are more manageable.
If you plan to make a move to big battles, my advice would be to not start with Borodino…

I'm a Big Battle kind of guy, so by and large I only refight historical battles if at all possible. Yes, to get something playable into a manageable area and time, you need to go fairly high level, but that is fine by me.

I've lost count of how many times I've done Waterloo, but Borodino, just the once. It isn't actually a very interesting battle, just an attritional slog.

I have BBB and I like them. They are essentially, to me, a streamlined version of Fire and Fury. In pure BBB the basic unit is a division. I not convinced that BBB accurately reflects how division formations fought in the 19th century. It seems to me that what we get are regimental size units masquerading as divisions. And you can see that this is the case because people use BBB to fight both Leipzig and Vimeiro and everything in between. If BBB were a true division scaled game that would not be possible.

I do like the idea of playing large battles with division units but it would seem to me that the mechanics would feel very different from a tactical orientated game.

I do like the idea of playing large battles with division units but it would seem to me that the mechanics would feel very different from a tactical orientated game

Some years ago at a Histoticon I played in a Gettysburg game in which original Fire and Fury rules where used and the game scaled with divisions as the base unit.

I commanded Ewell's Corp of 3 divisions. Surprisingly the game worked very well and was played to a conclusion within 4 hours. The only thing I would have done different would have been to split each CSA division into 2 units to have 18 operational units (instead of the 9 divisions) to match the 19 Union infantry Divisions.

Kim

I am not opposed to the idea of gaming skirmishes. Given the choice I would prefer to do smaller battles or smaller portions of a larger battle.

The Napoleonic Miniatures Wargame Society of Toronto has specialized in big Napoleonic battles for almost 60 years. Long gone are those days when we needed a gymnasium full of 25mm figures, a lot of tables with 20 or more players and at least a weekend to play a big Napoleonic battle.

Since our conversion to 6mm figures some 40 years ago, most of those old problems disappeared. The rest faded away when I wrote "Ruse de Guerre" for Baccus 6mm in their Polemos series of rules. Basing is also very simple and user friendly. Using the most common basing in 6mm the 60mm x 30mm base for infantry, cavalry, limbers, caissons, wagons, etc. The 30mm x 30mm for artillery and commanders. Only two bases for your entire collection! The base can represent anything you want from a small group of soldiers to a company, half battalion, battalion, regiment, Brigade or Division! Today our big Napoleonic battles are gamed on a 9' x 5' folding ping pong table. You can, however use a standard 6' x 4' table or bigger! Gamed once a month on a Sunday starting at 9am with an hour for lunch and finished at 4pm so everyone can get home in time for dinner. Our normal games have 8 – 14 players. We have also played four small games on a Sunday.

The rules contain a unique sliding scale that lets you play any size of battle you want from a minor encounter to Borodino! This year the theme was 1809 that included Abensberg, Aspern-Essling, Wagram, Znaim and a few other small actions. So if you wanted to play every battle/action/encounter in the Napoleonic Wars, you can, using the same rules!

If interested you can obtain a PDF from the Wargame Vault for $10.30 USD USD. You can also ask me any questions here or on the Baccus Forum.

Best regards,

Glenn

The only thing I would have done different would have been to split each CSA division into 2 units to have 18 operational units (instead of the 9 divisions) to match the 19 Union infantry Divisions.

That probably makes sense considering the CSA divisions are usually twice the size of Union divisions. This might be heresy but I am thinking at that scale probably ignoring historical divisions and giving the wing or corp commander a unit for every 5000 men might be a better way go. If you are playing a true army level game who cares about the historic divisions anyway.

Hmmmm…..

We've all seen appealing big battles and small ones.

Maybe promising big campaigns that have collapsed under their own weight, and small skirmish actions that have looked like crap.

So, gimme the game that shows some time and energy invested in its presentation, and I might think it could be good in its other aspects too.

Maybe after years in the hobby, we still need to have our interests engaged over the tabletop – I think so (maybe more so).

"If you are playing a true army level game who cares about the historic divisions anyway."

I think the real Divisional Commanders might be a bit upset!

If I'm fighting a battle, I want to manouvre the actual Corps and Divisions, not some abstract collection of elements.

FlyXwire – Personally my experience is too much investment in the models often leads to poor invetment in the actual game. To be fair we all have time limitations.

I would not have the time to spend painting my wargame pieces to a better level even if I had the inclination (which I don't). Two games a week is a punishing demand on time as you need new scanarios most weeks. Or setting up for our long games.

P_ersonally never seen the need to do big battles, too far from the low level startegic/Tactical. However we have developed our own "Long skirmish System" that adds much (but not all) of the complexities of the wider battlespace.
However these are not single evening games as too much interest (for me) would be lost in condencing it into an evening, It would just become logistics, interesting but not my passion and its far easier to understand logistics when the effects can be seen at the bottom level.

As for rules we use the same ones, more or less at the tactical level, plus a bit more on Logistics and how to model reconnissance assets.

It also needs specilaised terrain patterns and very carefull allocation of high level resources, you can't have all of the top level recconisance resources.

Ush, we've followed your progress with the models and terrain you present with here on TMP (so doin' a fine job)!

"In recent years, small skirmish games have come very much into vogue. A level up from that, brigade- or division-sized games are popular."

I'm guessing your idea of skirmish is in a different world than mine as a WWII to Modern/Sci-fi gamer. To me battalion to brigade actions are BIG BATTLE games!

Dear All,

I have enjoyed the conversation. It happens that I designed and fought a "large" game a few days ago. I had been looking at my photos of Bautzen in preparation for a re-fight. The photos guided my set up using terrain boards (thank you Peter Gilder, who I visited at his fabulous Wargamers Holiday Center many moons ago). Like some of you, I like the "diorama" effect that large battles create.

I have just posted two photos of our battle on Flicker.

Here: link

Note the "pop up hatch" in the table's right rear, a wonderful and useful innovation from Peter.

Cheers,

James
Napoleon Books

I think the wrong Peter is getting credit here, James. The pop up hatch on a wargame table dates to Peter Young. I remember some comment about it back in the day.

Thank you, Robert. I am sure you are right. Golly, that reminds me that I had the honor of meeting "The Brigadier" at an ECW reenactment the save year I met Peter Gilder.

That's something fun about TMP, it brings back memories!

Cheers,

James
Napoleon Books

If I'm fighting a battle, I want to manouvre the actual Corps and Divisions, not some abstract collection of elements.

I agree with you about Corps at army level games but Divisions I am skeptical of. If you are playing Borodino and you want to get it done in an afternoon you can't really worry about divisions. I remember setting up Gettysburg using F&F and frankly getting all the tags and specific brigade strengths right and coming to the opinion that it wasn't worth the effort.

jwebster commented that "A division, corps or army level game played in a reasonable amount of time and space…should be the study of high level tactics – many rule sets get confused, column line and square no longer has relevance…"

I agree. Perhaps one reason why many wargamers still want "column line and square" in their battles – apart from a desire to recreate the visual appearance of black powder era battles – is because they have read about Wellington micromanaging his army, intervening at a low tactical level on occasion and – understandably, since he was a very successful general – they want to be able to do the same.

But that is very difficult to achieve in a miniatures wargame, unless one has arranged a large, multiplayer game so that the commander can choose from turn to turn whether to remain at his battlefield headquarters or to ride to some crisis point to give verbal orders to a subordinate or even take temporary command of units himself.

It can be done with a 'closed', umpire-controlled, two-player map kriegsspiel – provided the umpires have the time and energy to record the fates of low level units in detail and maintain a central display, part of which the player can view if he chooses to ride to a crisis point.

But even then, there is the practical problem that it will take some time to organise and resolve such personal visits by one army commander; meanwhile, his opponent is left with nothing to do and no decisions to make, which does not give him a enjoyable gaming experience.

That issue can be solved by running a solo game for the 'active' commander, leaving the 'sedentary' opponent to be umpire controlled or pre-programmed to respond in appropriate ways when necessary.

I think the answer to the thread title question is basically, play whatever size games you enjoy playing. They are, after all, games, as realistically and historically accurate as we try to research, create and play them. I don't think we should waste time knocking fellow gamers for playing smaller or larger games or for using rules or different scale miniatures. We belong to the same family. And we should respect and embrace each others preferences, even if we can't understand why they prefer them (LOL). Too many arguments and put downs might end up putting some people off trying wargaming.

Agree with Gazzola

Kim

^ Also agree!!!

People are looking for different things from wargames Arthur. If you want to do big battles where you are not burdened by the need of worrying about formations and the like then more power to you.

I am a believer that success on the division, corps and army level depends in part on decisions and execution at the company, battalion and regimental level. I want to have the ability to participate in those decisions rather than simply having them incorporated into chance outcomes. So I prefer rules that incorporate column, line, square provisions. One thing we have done to facilitate this approach in historically large battles is "shrinking the battle" so there are fewer units involved.

Bill N, I don't disagree with the first sentence of your second paragraph, but officers higher up the chain of command normally observed the results of those decisions, rather than participating in them; occasionally they might intervene to rally a shaken unit or take command of one in a crisis.

Personally, when I want to make decisions at company or battalion level, I play a low level wargame in which I take the role of a battalion commander; when I want to take the role of an army commander, I'm content to have such decisions made by umpires/die rolls/AI or whatever, because my real life counterpart would not usually be involved in such matters. I like the game to recreate – insofar as any game can! – the perspective of my character and not make or allow me to do/know things that my character would not in real life.

But that's my personal preference; yours is different and that's fine. I was just suggesting one possible reason – Wellington's command style – why wargamers might share your preference, and suggesting how it might be recreated by adopting different styles of game.

Gazzola, of course, is absolutely right.

The issue tend to have is we want to wear too many hats, being the commander at ine level while also controlling thjngs several levels below that. I try to follow the 1 up 2 down model. So j. Whatever level I or my players are in they can "control" the actions 2 levels below. I also have system where by those units don't act as too often happens as extensions of the players will, but arw given a degree of "personality".

You play a "big battle" because you can.
You've been buying more and more regiments for years, and now you can do Waterloo or Antietam.
Whats the problem?

You say that like its a bad thing Gamesman6.

As wargame commanders we have far more control over our various units than an actual pre-20th century army commander would likely have had. We have far more information about what and how our formations were doing than an army commander would have had, and we get that information quicker. So why shouldn't we, if we choose, get to use that to manage the more minute operations of those sub-units? The operable language in that question being "if we choose", with the flip side being if you don't want to you shouldn't have to. Sure it isn't an accurate reflection of what an army commander would do, but as I noted I think we are already settling for something different than an accurate reflection.