"Asymmetrical Warfare – Hard to Wargame?" Topic

Following on from the discussion about the hardest historical periods to wargame, another thought occurred to me: asymmetrical warfare, which was mentioned by several posters. This is the domain of Colonial warfare but there are examples from other periods.

In many conflicts the two sides are not remotely equal in organisation, numbers, or technology. One side may be a regular army with artillery, logistics and a clear command structure while the other is a looser collection of tribal fighters, guerrillas or irregulars.

On the tabletop this can be tricky. If the forces are represented accurately, the result of a straight battle can be very one-sided. Some of the famous climactic battles of these wars — such as Battle of Omdurman or Battle of Ulundi — were devastating defeats for one side and might not make particularly enjoyable games if played straight. No-one likes a blood bath.

As a result, wargamers often seem to focus instead on smaller engagements: ambushes, raids, delaying actions, defence of isolated positions, or escort missions. Certainly valid but not the whole picture.

But is that really solving the problem — or just a way of avoiding the issue? Are these kinds of scenarios simply our way of finding a playable game in wars where the decisive battles were, historically, crushing and one-sided?

How do you wargame a battle that was historically a massacre and still give both sides some sort of challenge or meaningful decisions?

My own experience is mainly with the Sudan and the Anglo-Zulu War, but I'm curious about other colonial campaigns as well. And other periods that apply eg Vietnam. Do gamers of different periods approach asymmetrical warfare in different ways?

My friend and I have gamed The Battle of Bunker Hill a few times and use 'waves' to determine victory. It took the Brits 3 waves to take the field with the foregone conclusion the British will take field but at what cost and how long will it take. So basically use turns.

I watched the Little Wars TV fellas put on an Alamo battle on youtube and everyone seemed to have a great time with that one sided battle.

One solution is to accept that the massacre is inevitable, but award victory based on other objectives than being "the last man standing."

Such could include holding off an overwhelming enemy for X turns, with the assumption that this delay will prevent successful action by that enemy in the future. Or, similarly, setting a different casualty count as "defeat" for the two sides— as say the smaller forces can fight on, possibly indeed to their last man, while the larger force is considered to have "lost the day" if their casualties exceed a simple maximum number or percentage.

Examples: Thermopylae, the Alamo

Other objectives could be a rear-guard action that allows non-combatant or at least non-fighting retreating allies/units to traverse or leave the battlefield unmolested or at least as a significant number or percentage.

Examples: Washington's retreats from Long Island, New York and New Jersey. He lost battles, but maintained his force strength at least enough to continue the war. (Such a tabletop effort would likely simply focus on a detailed area or incident in the historical event, and might up being the "delay" objective above.)

Of course, gaming the entire retreat is a possibility as well.

Similar are battles designed to "degrade" the larger force's tactical and strategic capabilities— the smaller side fights until X casualties are inflicted or X supplies/baggage have been destroyed, and then withdraws with Y units intact.

Examples: Bunker Hill, Guilford Courthouse (though in the latter, Greene had the superior force in numbers, though not in ability— he just recognized when he'd done enough to obtain his goals, and left Cornwallis with a "victory" that did the latter no good at all, and ended British strategic efforts in the Southern colonies).

Other things can be breaking a much larger battle down into distinct areas of action which are all gamed separately, or if simultaneously with differing objectives for each area.

EDIT: Great minds…

I have seen great asymmetrical games at shows over the years- Rorkes Drift Zulus, Vietnam, Alamo, American action in Iraq and Afghanistan, 55 days at Peking, and even Ork's Drift with Brits vs Orks. I played a World War 2 game where a German Battalion took on a single US infantry platoon supported by an anti tank gun trying to hold a crossroad for as long as they could.

I see people really enjoying them and some amazing tables set up. Usually, but not always, the GM sets up carefully thought up rules with victory conditions based on circumstances so that either side can feel like they had a shot at a ‘victory' condition, even if it results in a loss for their forces. However that has not always been the case in my experience. I have played games where the real battle was a massacre and the GM simply wanted players to experience it. It's frustrating in those games to be the losing side getting wiped out as you basically can do little to change the outcome and the GM hasn't at least set up any victory conditions based on how much better you did than the real world conditions.

I will admit I don't like assumetric games personally. As the unit with superior tech or firepower, I don't like the idea of mowing down scores of inferior or simply less equipped enemy. As the ‘horde' player I don't enjoy losing waves of my own forces, even if it leads to victory. It's just not my personal cup of tea. I prefer balanced scenarios.

I think asymmetric games could be fun if they were set up more as a cooperative game vs the game master experience. Then it would at least be the camaraderie of a shared experience against long odds. But that is me.

I think two problems here under one heading. The straight Alamo-style "massacre" can award points based on losses to the winner or turns of delay, which still place the two sides in direct competition.

But a lot of colonial/guerilla warfare might be better served by asymmetric victory conditions. First Platoon's object is to clear the village of VC. The VC objective is to inflict three fatalities on the invaders and get away intact. Possibly the Comanchee objective is to count coup or steal horses while the cavalry's objective is to see the wagon train gets through with minimal losses. This raises the possibility of both sides winning a game, of course. But we can console ourselves with the prospect of a game they both lose.

I agree with Robert Piepenbrink.

One of the funnest WW2 games we ever did in our group was a delaying action. A pair of Panthers trying to hold off the T-34 hordes while the bulk of the German forces attempted to exit the board. Both Panthers were destroyed but the Germans won the game

Some very interesting replies here.

Several people have mentioned different ways of making these kinds of battles playable – using waves or time limits, or giving each side different victory conditions rather than simply fighting to destruction.

That makes a lot of sense historically. In many of these conflicts the weaker side wasn't really trying to win a conventional battle at all – delaying, escaping, inflicting losses or protecting something else might have been the real objective.

It also raises another question though: are there historical battles that were genuinely one-sided massacres but which people have still managed to turn into satisfying tabletop games?

The Alamo and Thermopylae are obvious candidates, but I'm curious whether people have managed to game colonial examples like Battle of Omdurman or Battle of Ulundi in a way that works well. I use these examples because as a Colonial gamer & scenario writer I have done some work on turning them into "playable" table top games.

Are the best asymmetric games the ones that rarely ask, "Who wins?" Instead, they ask: "How well did you do?"

Ah, the Kobiyashi Maru sort of game! (See, this is in place in SF/F genres, too.)

I've played and run The Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit. It is asymmetrical in numbers, but the capabilities of the Goblin army is generally weaker than the Elf/Dwarf/Men Alliance, provided the Eagles and Beorn enter the fight. One could call it balanced in ability. The goals however are the same— reaching the opponent's breakpoint OR capturing their general OR surviving 8 turns with the fewest units lost.
Thus, it is asymmetrical in potential, but still pretty much a straight up fight.

I think the question is "What could the historical loser have accomplished that might have turned the battle into a victory for them?" The answer(s) are thus your goals and objectives for that side.
If the answer is "nothing" then it's probably not worth wargaming.

I do like a good "Gordon at Khartoum" scenario, and have always wondered if he could have caused even more Mahdi losses with better defenses…

When I think "asymmetrical warfare" I picture the AWI, Vietnam, Algeria, Afghanistan, WWII Partisans,Boers and the Peninsula . Not so much more conventional Colonial conflicts.

Such conflicts would have to be pursued on a dual track, better suited to trying to break one side or the other's will to continue the struggle.

The insurrectionist side launching frequent skirmish hit and run attacks causing minor casualties, but eroding morale. The conventional side, trying to root out the enemy, trying to balance hearts and minds tactics with reprisal tactics trying to erode morale.

With sufficient success, the insurrectionists might advance enuf to field conventional forces to try to toe to toe fight.

Another way to do asymmetrical games: make it a staff exercise. All players on the same side, fighting a non-player enemy run by the GM. The player goals become more about coordination, cooperation, and planning.

The nice thing about this format is that the GM can throw in special without a lot of special rules or documentation – minefields, ambushes, sneak attacks, ruses, civilians accidentally wandering through the battlespace, unexpected terrain issues, unexpected fortifications that weren't in the scouting report, incorrect or limited intelligence, weather or visibility disruptions, etc.

You can add friction by awarding victory points or plaudits from the C-in-C for tasks accomplished (and/or demerits or VP loss for suffering losses or failing to achieve ordered actions), and put the players in competition with one another to be mentioned in dispatches at the end (or in some armies, just avoid being shot or relieved of duty). You can make this frustrating fun by handing the players a plan of attack at the beginning that they must follow (order are orders!), but which doesn't make any sense in the situation that develops. E.g. "move around the enemy left and attack them on the flank until they rout" with a tight timetable, but it turns out there's a hidden trench line behind boggy ground over there that the scouts didn't see….

@ Yellow Admiral – that's a very interesting idea.

Turning an asymmetrical scenario into a kind of staff exercise with all the players on one side would certainly reproduce something that many historical commanders struggled with: uncertainty and friction rather than simply enemy strength.

The GM introducing unexpected factors like bad intelligence, civilians, terrain problems or misunderstood orders could make the game much closer to the sort of problems real commanders faced.

It would also make the challenge less about defeating the enemy outright and more about managing a difficult situation successfully – which probably reflects many real asymmetrical conflicts rather well.