"Can frontally assaulting redoubts make a good game?" Topic

… Düppel (1864)

"How many games have we all seen or endured that are just a boring line-out, wall to wall troops from table edge to table edge, with few tactical options beyond grinding forward and hoping to roll high?

How much more painful is it when one side is entrenched and has virtually nothing to do except keep rolling fistfuls of firing dice?

OK, I know it is possible to revel in such games simply because of the occasion and the spectacle. People will refight Pickett's Charge, or the Charge of the Light Brigade, and it will be awesome just because the original was so epically disastrous and because recreating it with your buddies in glorious 28mm has to be fun, right?…"

Bloody Big BATTLES Blog

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Armand

I have a recollection that either MW of WI presented some rules for assaulting a breach during the Peninsular Campaign; this might make for an enjoyable semi- RPG with assaulting players vying for the glory of advancing furthest into the breach.

A similar scenario for the Dardanelles landing during WWI also appeared in one of the same mags. Defender was "automated", only the attackers being represented by players.

Our club played the battle of Alma in 15mm using Black Powder rules. The Russian redoubts were captured rather early. A ripping good game.

I once ran a Napoleonic game where the French had to assault the Prussians who were deployed behind various barriers. I placed the least aggressive player in our group in charge of the attacking French. The Prussian line was bristling with 12-pound cannon, however, the French didn't know that half the guns only had one round of ammo, 25% had two rounds, and 25% had no ammo at all. The French hesitated to attack until they finally solved the ruse. It was a very fun game.

We play the Battle of Puebla all the time. The outcome is fixed. The French will retreat (except once). The basic strategy is either charge the forts up the hill or defend against the people charging your forts up the hill.

The "score" for the "game" vice the outcome of the battle is based on a "high water mark" system. How close can the French come? Can they take one fort? Can they hold it for one whole round or more?

The tactics then play into this. It is a combined arms scenario with infantry, cavalrym and artillery. Which units go where and target whom. Also, the overall operation has lots of room – spread out or concentrate? concentrate where? one assault or waves? and so on.

We drove them off after they breached past the forst into the city is different than we kept them outside the wall surrounding the fort. One unit was able to broach the wall for a turn is different than they chased us back to the forts, or out of one.

Thanks

Armand

I think a fun "skirmish" game might be a forlorn hope. Iirc the survivors got promoted? 1 to 1 scale, each turn a minute or less.

Good idea!…

Armand

I bought a bunch of gabion redoubts, and a bunch of French and American LI figures to do the assault on Redoubts 9 and 10 at Yorktown.
Unfortunately, I bought all that before I actually "researched" how many troops defended. The British were HEAVILY outnumbered.
When I realized that it was just a pro forma defense to have an honorable defense of Yorktown that would really just prolong things, I just kind of wandered off into a different direction and project. 🤷