"It's perfectly historical..." Topic

Why don't we see the historical matched pair of Kutuzov vs Tecumseh gamed more often?

"But that's silly," you say? Why is it silly? They fought in the same year.

Ancients tournaments, with a straight face, will see in the same tournament New Kingdom Egyptians, Sung Chinese, and War of the Roses English.

If that sampling of Ancients armies fighting together is considered "historical" then so should Kutuzov vs Tecumseh be.

Or is it time for historical tournament players to stop looking down their noses at the Warhammer players and admit their games are just as much fantasy?

The argument could be made that Warhammer match-ups are usually less fantastic than Ancients. In Warhammer opponents usually match the fictional world, in Ancients, anything goes.

Why don't we see the historical matched pair of Kutuzov vs Tecumseh gamed more often?

"But that's silly," you say? Why is it silly? They fought in the same year.

Ancients tournaments, with a straight face, will see in the same tournament New Kingdom Egyptians, Sung Chinese, and War of the Roses English.

If that sampling of Ancients armies fighting together is considered "historical" then so should Kutuzov vs Tecumseh be.

Or is it time for historical tournament players to stop looking down their noses at the Warhammer players and admit their games are just as much fantasy?

The argument could be made that Warhammer match-ups are usually less fantastic than Ancients. In Warhammer opponents usually match the fictional world, in Ancients, anything goes.

I'd play it!

True of many tournaments, but it's not an inherent feature of tournament play. Most of the HMGS-(Formerly East) conventions have ancient tournaments divided by period and region specifically to avoid this.

Well, given that our group is about to play an 1880s game, Brits vs Mexicans, seems good to me

Your argument is perfectly valid, and pointless.
I used to hit the WRG Ancients circuit in HMGS East back in the early 80s. And exactly the same whining and moaning about the matchups occurred. So, it's nothing new. Your rant is more than 40 years old. It's not new.
And, so what?

I took "inferior" armies and beat "superior" armies. Not often, but, again, so what?
My Carthaginians beat a Nikephorean Byzantine army.
My Britons lost to Macedonians after I rolled a 3 to charge Alexander in the flank with my chariot bodyguard, and routed.
My overall record, though, could be compared to that of the New York Giants this year.
My Britons did win a Best Painted Army prize once, though. 👍😄

Some tournament organizers had "historical" matchups in the first two rounds. I even had a tournament or two where my Mauryan Indians fought Mauryan Indians. (Hint. The tiny Regular A Maiden Guard unit is pointless.)
But in later rounds the matchups were based on seedings. So my Indians fought Normans or Hohenstaufen (did I spell that right?) Sicilian, or Varangians.
I don't remember any Cthulhu armies.
And the Empire and Johnny Reb players played in the Distelfink at the same time, and after hours we would share Yuengling at the bar and brag.

Hint: Vikings versus Assyrians did not frighten the horses.

Here in 2026, I don't do tournaments anymore. Not from distaste, I'm more into horse and musket now. That's all.

I'd play it!

One of my current projects is Comanche vs Spanish in Mexico, 1757.
How about Braddock vs Indians and French to start the French and Indian War? Braddock outnumbered the "savages" by at least 2:1, by the way.

So, yeah. Let Tecumseh pick the terrain, and let's roll dice!

Or is it time for historical tournament players to stop looking down their noses at the Warhammer players and admit their games are just as much fantasy?

You're using the word "fantasy" to mean two different things in the same sentence.

Both historical and fantasy (scifi, pulp, whatever genre) wargames represent violent conflict over objectives using defined capabilities. Once you encode it in the rules 2d6 damage for a fireball at 12" table range with 85% Ph is the same as 2d6 damage for a squad assault weapon at 12" table range with 85% Ph.

(This is why I often say that "magic" in TTGs/RPGs is mostly technology. It represents less the cognitive bending of reality and really is just stats the same as weapons.)

I used to play the Battle of Short Hills, NJ (AWI) with figures from a different "Empire" and "Rebels". Whether I called them Empire battle droids or British cavalry, made no difference. The unit stats were designed to show the military advantages and disadvantages of swife moving close combat units against spread guerilla opponents.

"But that's silly," you say? Why is it silly? They fought in the same year.

Hypotheticals have to be handled appropriately. Contemporary Force A beat Force B and Force B beat Force C does not equate to Force A will beat Force C. Team performance in a dynamic environment is not a transitive operation. If it were, you could shorten sports seasons a lot.

The further apart (time, space, technique, composition, etc.) two forces are, the more difficult to tenuous the synthesis into a single battle of them becomes.

What would have happened at Gettysburg if Lee had not concentrated on the Union center on July 3rd is a very different exploration than what would have happened if Lee faced the Russians in Kazakhstan in 1863.

Doesn't mean you can do one and can't do the other. It just means that people are going to come to the two events with different expectations on explaining why it is set up the way it is. If you treat one like the other, you'll lose some people.

I don't play ancients tournaments (or any tournaments), but I'm with Parzival on the proposed battle in the OP. I'll play.

Could this be another example of "people are playing with toy soldiers in a way I disapprove of"?
🤔

I'm going to take Kutusov and give the points.

Yes, somebody is playing with toy soldiers wrong.
Oh dear, oh dear!

I'm not saying they are wrong to play that way.

It is the snobbery of certain historicals players who play wildly ahistorical matchups that sticks in my craw.

Mostly pointing out how silly it is for certain historicals afficionados to look down their noses at the fantasy and sci-fi fans for "unrealistic" games.

Personally I think a guy with a pointy stick is pretty much a guy with a pointy stick. So the armies across time can be reasonably evenly matched, but don't pretend it's "history" and therefor either more "serious" or more "realistic" than fantasy.

The technological differences between Romans, HYW English, and Samurai are a *lot* smaller than the technological differences between 1914 and 1945. The differences between Ancient combatants seem to be much more in how they employed the technology.

Back in the day we played a fun game of Space Marines vs Sea Peoples, using the WH40K points system to stat out the Sea Peoples. The result was rather like the Battle of Endor, except the outcome was reversed.

One guy would regularly win games of 40K by fielding his fantasy Goblin army as auxiliaries. The loop hole was that a naked in the rain Space Goblin had a points cost of -1. He had a lot of those little, green, cannon fodder to offset the points cost of nasty stuff to throw at us.

As for Tecumseh vs Kutuzov, I would love to play that. Sadly I don't have the tactical acumen of either of them. Given the technology available to each it could be an even match.

Napoleon vs Rommel would be harder to make a good single battle of. In a long term campaign though… What would be really interesting to see would be cage match giving each comparably equipped and trained forces. Not something a wargame could quite capture though.

stupid

People playing with toy soldiers wrong is certainly an ongoing problem. But Dave's point was more subtle--the limits of HISTORICAL wargaming, and I think that's fair enough. Also you have the question of when it stops becoming a game and becomes a massacre. Think Samurai on a long slow death march against Egyptian charioteers in a game which was decided by the terrain roll. (I actually heard tell of that one--unsurprisingly, from an Ancients tournament.) No one wants to travel hundreds of miles to play a game they can't possibly win, and being told it's fair because if a pre-game die roll had gone the other way his opponent would have had no chance really doesn't help.

Yes, Braddock gets trotted out regularly in these debates, which pretty well ignores that armies well off their home turf fighting odd but historical opponents are usually very different armies. An 1808 Spanish army list will usually look more like La Roman's corps, and not like the ones fighting plains Indians in Texas, for instance.

I'd say tournament organizers should ask themselves--well, first, if it's a historical tournament, "could these armies have met on this ground?" and second "are the army lists to the same scale?" (Think the Balkans. An Albanian bandit gang dancing around the mountains, because the Austrian army list creates a miniature army for fighting on the Danube instead of the Grenzer company which would be the Albanians' normal opponent.) If the answer to both is yes, you have a historical wargame.

But the third question should be asked of every wargame. "Is this going to produce a battle either side might win with skill and a little luck, or is someone giving up a day off to be slaughtered?" If the answer to that one is the customary foot-shuffling and muttering--"it's allowed under the rules" or "the campaign generated it"--I suggest the game designers grab the dirty end of the stick themselves and stop making excuses for giving it to other people.

It is the snobbery of certain historicals players who play wildly ahistorical matchups that sticks in my craw.

Like I said above, I was "in the life" of WRG Ancients tournaments, at least 3 times a year, back in the 80s.
We all knew what we were doing, and NOT ONCE did I encounter any of the alleged snobbery.
We had rules (do not ask me about the Thursday night rules clarification seminars 🙄) and we had lists.
We all knew that what we were doing was not "realistic", and the fact that an Imperial Roman army on the table was a loser reinforced that. We were playing a game with points. Not unlike the NFL with salary caps.

Make fun of Warhammer? Why would we do that? They were the ones who were too good to come to our conventions. They were also the ones who would not allow us at their conventions.

Someone has his "facts" backwards. 🤷

It's just a revisit to the same old feud between some Fantasy/Sci-Fi gamers and some history-based gamers. It's based on semi-fictional stereotypes and decades-past insults. It reminds me of the intra-family feuds that bubble on for generations because there's always one or two people that want to keep stirring the pot.

All wargaming/COSPlay/fantasy gaming/Sci-Fi gaming is fantasy to some extent, and there's no evidence that any is "better" than the other, despite what some adherents may think. It's just that different genres appeal to different people, the same as different foods appeal to different people.

So put a sock in it and game the way that pleases you, and I truly hope you enjoy your hobby, while I game the way that pleases me (except for the dice- I hate those [bleep] dice, sometimes).

Kutusov vs Tecumseh is silly. If I want to face off early 19th C. Russians and native Americans, I'd rather play a real battle like the 1802 raid on Redout Saint Michael, the 1804 Battle of Sitka, or a plausible "what if" like the Tlingit forming a proper coalition to resist Russian armies across a few years of campaigns in the Alaskan outback.

Those ahistorical ancients matchups are one of the reasons I stopped playing ancients tournaments. I thought they were silly even 30 years ago. I've been playing historical or alternate history games the entire time, and I still haven't run out of topics to explore.

Go play whatever you want, it doesn't hurt me, but I can't be stirred to care about a complete fabrication lacking any plausibility. History is just more interesting than fantasy. Alternate history can be fun, but I agree with etotheipi, it must be carefully contemplated and constructed (which is part of the fun).