"Does Re-enactment influence your gaming ?" Topic

Title says it all reall – Does Re-enactment influence your gaming ?

For me it does because, having stood shoulder-to-shoulder while charged by cavalry, and gone toe-to-toe with others as fierce in their attempts as myself, I can't take any ancient or medieval era games quite as seriously as I used to.

Pete

I don't personally re-enact, but photos of renactors are a great source for painting tips, especially color combinations and interactions.

I think you have to take re-enacting with a grain of salt. I think it may help in certain instances but it is not the "whole story" by any means.

I'm not sure dressing up in a uniform and marching around pretending to fight gives one that much more insight into how actual battles were fought and what the men went through. Certainly no more than pretending on a games table. At the end of both experiences we all have our comfortable lives to go back to.

No it does not. ienjoy the events. Especially when I was at Fort Morgan and watched them shoot cannon and muskets at targets in the water.

It has in my case. First of all, their are a number of reenactment organizations that are fanatic about uniform details. I can reference their work in painting my figures and trust them completely. Don Troiani, the artist, does this as well. Secondly, they practice unit formation changes and small unit tactics. Most units may or may not do this well, but some I know of do this very well, and one ACW unit has as their commander a college professor who has written a number of books and articles on the subject of brigade drill. And then finally there are a number of small details you can't pick up anywhere else. For example, I've learned that bugle commands can be heard over deafening gunfire because the pitch (or frequency?) is so much different. You can't hear shouted orders, or drums, but the bugle is clear.

I used to modify attack damage based on what weapons were being used and what armor was being worn in AD&D. I also put in penalties should players have their characters sleep in their armor.

Wyatt

I may be striking a barrier here caused by what I actually do.

I certainly don't march about with a musket pretending to fight. That has always left me cold.

What I do is actually engage in genuine hand-to-hand combat with steel weapons – sword axe and spear. The objective is to actually strike your opponant on the target area.

Neither party is armoured up, and we tend to look very much like our historical prototypes.

This last weekend I was one of 150 or so at Corfe Castle actually fighting up the banks to get at the defenders.

Not personally, but I do talk to "Cowboy Action Shooters" who use recreations of the guns used in the late 1800s and have taken their comments into consideration when writing rules for Gutshot. Another one of my wife's cousins (this one is not wanted by the law) has friends who are into it and I may join them this winter to do some shooting myself, so it may actually play a part in my wargaming.

We'll see.

It certainly can give you an idea how hard it is to remain in formation and execute maneuvers with muskerty and cannons booming. You see how fast caualties impact simple commands, since you have to count off to know your new place in line.

You will see the troop quality difference when you are in a unit that drills frequently and brigades with the same units. When you get to an event and can muster 200+ you will be able to win most tacticals as you can march and execute formation changes, wheels, front to flank, and other maneuvers and most units won't be able to kepe up or remain aligned.

The objective is to actually strike your opponant on the target area.

But the crucial difference is that while it may look real, you are not in a struggle of killing or being killed, which makes actual combat a psychologically much more strenuous affair.

Of course, not having been in actual combat doesn't make my argument much stronger, but I'll rather be less credible than having been in life and death combat situations, thank you.

Well, of course it influences your gaming. The real question is whether it does so in a positive or a negative way.

No, you cannot experience real combat (and all that goes with it) via reenacting. You can, however, learn much from participating with a well-drilled group (and in my experience, those are few and far between).

Actually if anything re-enacting tends to increase my enjoyment of gaming. It allows me to get "the small picture" of the "big picture" we try to recreate.

It has also given me several "there" moments that when I read a memoir, diary, of after action report I go, "I understand that statement a little better.

Whether it is being caught by cav in the open while you are scirmishing, or struggling hand to hand in a shell hole in no-mans land, its a teaching rush.

On the otherhand reenacting still misses a great deal of active service boredom, NCO and officer nonsense, and true comeradery. I cant think of a reenactment I have ever been to where I have done the busy work I have done on active duty. Most folks would laugh and walk away if that was part of re-enacting.

After hanging out with some SCA-ers I went back and painted watches and tennis shoes on some of my model vikings.

There is definitely an appreciation gained when you discover how difficult it is to manuever a mere company without being shot at. I have much more sympathy for the real guys who had to command brigades and divisions. It also makes me less tolerant of "gamer" attitudes about tabletop battles.

SCA isn't reenacting.

It has worked both ways. I got (recently) into reenacting, because of wargaming. I even patterned my gear after a couple of selected miniatures I have. And reenacting has worked back inot my wargaming, by giving me a RL perspective on how little battlefield awareness a single trooper has.

1066.us

Re-enactment does influence my gaming. As does participation in martial arts, the study of History and my participation with the reserves. It is mostly in how I tweek the rules. Re-enactment can never produce the morale/moral issues in facing real combat. Even hand to hand in sport/fitness or for some extent in the line of duty (ex-peace officer) can only be a shadow of the real horror of combat. All it can offer is an appriciation for real events/occurences of what we as wargamers love to play. Just my two cents.

It did for me. I became far more pickier at rules as I started to think more about slight depressions, cover, various thicknesess of woods, etc. It became less mathimatical and I moved far more to minis than traditional cardboard counter games.

The more I learned about soldiering (or just playing one on weekends and "two weeks a year {ha! Snort}" the more I saw you just could not simulate a small scale battle as much as I'd like – too many variables. And realizing that men cannot keep moving a full move each turn carrying havy equipment for an entire game.

I would say that one has informed the other. As others have said, there is not much "real" information to transmit. The side benefits like being able to better visualize certain situations, and brings judges and rules to skirmishes have been some of the obvious cross-overs.

The exception for me was being involved on a film. I was an extra during the filming of "North and South" with the artillery. In one scene, we had to fire the piece,(a 32 lber), bring in the caisson and limber up the gun to retire. It was a complex maneuver that happened all the time in real life, but because of safety rules, we had never actually been allowed to do it before. Now add hundreds of troops of both sides marching and firing, ground charges going off, and at a critical moment, one of the horses stepped over and became mixed in the traces. Mindful of the fact that the caisson had deadly amounts of gunpowder and potentially freaked horses added the element of stress one could almost term as "real". Everything worked fine in the end, due in no small part to the wonderfully trained horses. Whew, what a memory! I use that example to inform rolls for moral.

Artslave, did you mean 32lber? That's a siege cannon.

Howitzer, brass barrel, and yes big but not as heavy as a parrot.

I do the SCA. Most of us refer to it as re-creation of the middle ages, not re-enactment. We do the middle ages as it should have been done the first time. Flushing toilets, properly cooked food, eye glasses, and CO2 pumps for our kegs are all favorites of mine.

It does give you an idea of the problems commanders had on the field. Moving as a group is a LOT slower then a regular walking pace. Plans fall apart as soon as your plan meets the opposing commander's plan. Commanders who get themselves picked off by crossbows before the battle gets going good is always a laugh.

I have stood back to back with a guy while the fight swirls around us. When he gets "killed" and falls, I fell over him. As I got up, I realized the mark on his helm placed him on the opposite faction and thus he should have been a foe but in the confusion of the fight we took shelter at each others backs. You can't get that chaos in most games. I've tried but have yet to get it right.

Artslave, I was there for filming of N&S too. Great time, and get paid to burn black powder. Besides the actresses we talked to all loved us boys in grey :) Paging Miss Ashton, Miss Ashton :)

In general I think re-enactment is rather silly, but let me explain further.
If it is the sealed not type 18 stone man, women musketeer,wrist watches, pewter tankards, 12 people make a 'regiment'sort of re-enactment then it teaches as much about history as (insert your own rudeness here).
I play with toy soldiers -its daft of itself but I make no pretensions about a better 'understanding' of history because of it. I am a historian by training and inclination and do think that this informs my hobby.
People who dress up too often claim to have insight about the reality of warfare…. erm no- you dont have dysentry, you have a steady income, you go home on sunday and importantly no one is trying to kill you. These surely are all essential insights – take away these and all you are doing is dressing up.
Where some re-enactors do score highly (in my opinion) its where they attempt to take things seriously over some time. For example the Cie of St George has improved our understanding of how uncomfortable armour is on a daily basis, The ACW and revolutionary re-enactors with their national regiment and the British brigade can to some extent give us a scale idea of what several hundred men under orders looks, moves and reacts like and twenty or thirty cannon going off is mighty impressive. The Ermine street guard look great but then theres only about thirty of them.
Make no mistake though they are not, emphatically not, 'living history' and are not recreating anything substantive. Simply dressing up and claiming to be erik the half-wit from ongar does not make you a viking, rather it makes you a silly chap who enjoys himself in his own way.
I have never met a re-enactor (and jeez I have come accros loads) who has raised my awareness more than book research (save the cie of st George).
Playing with toy soldiers does not make me a general, dressing up does not make one a soldier.
The past is a different country, they do things differently.
…and each to his own.

wyeayeman; to all you said--- Amen!

The only difference its made to me is in role playing. Used to role play many years ago then stopped. Not long after took up dark age and medieval reenactment for about 15 years, have recently started role playing again and found it really annoying when the gm wont let my character with 2 weapon fighting skill use a buckler and dagger in same hand as its not in rules even though I found it really easy to do. Also seemed logical as a form of offensive defence.

No

Me neither.

I've used re-enactment (WWII) photos as sources of referance/inspiration for figs/vehicle painting. But, it hasn't influenced the act of gaming for me in any way.

I find wyeeyeman spot on with his observations on the whole. You did forget the fact that they seem to keep appearing for no real good reason at Wargaming shows as well :)
One (and only one)reenactment event gave me a good insight into battlefield manouvre etc was the 200th Aniversary of Antienam event. Took the Rebs about an hour to march on and take their positions and none of the regts looked ridiculosly understrength (or overwieght)and the whole display was very well done.

"I have never met a re-enactor (and jeez I have come accros loads) who has raised my awareness more than book research ……"

To be fair, that can be said about us wargamers too. Let's not hold re-enactors to a different standard.

Ralph

Nope.

(surprised no one mentioned this already)
Lord Flashheart was at the 200th anniversary of an ACW battle? Over 55 years from now? I want their travel agent really bad.

Sorry…… had to do it. Just one of those things. European thing I never heard of maybe?

There is one thing I've learned from re-enactments that could be carried over to gaming. Changing orders. The difficulty of getting people to do something different then originally ordered. At the same time. In the same direction. Just getting instructions to different group commanders after things got started can be a challenge.

>>There is one thing I've learned from re-enactments that could be carried over to gaming. Changing orders. The difficulty of getting people to do something different then originally ordered. At the same time. In the same direction. Just getting instructions to different group commanders after things got started can be a challenge.

Of course you have to remember that your average re-enactor hasn't had 6 months basic close order drill training, you've got no experienced sergeants, buglers, etc and everyone isn't drunk.

nazrat
I'm not sure dressing up in a uniform and marching around pretending to fight gives one that much more insight into how actual battles were fought and what the men went through. Certainly no more than pretending on a games table.

So, how often have you jumped onto your gaming table and tried to sleep through a three hour thunder storm, hail, and gale force winds?

When was the last time you gamed Borodino, when the smow in your cellar was two feet deep where it had been trampled?

Lost 80 tents in one night in April at Bourtagne? Had six inches deep water in your tent?

Quite frankly your assumption that;

"dressing up in a uniform and marching around pretending to fight gives one that much more insight into how actual battles were fought and what the men went through. Certainly no more than pretending on a games table.

Is TOTAL b0ll0cks.

There are 3 ways to study any historical period. You can study it – read, museums, TV shows, membership in common groups (CW Round Tables), take tours, do geneology. You can game it – board games, miniatures, computer. You can live it – reenactments, living history. Each has its good points. None allow full grasp of the time period but will feed into our general knowledge. I have observed things I did on the gaming table in reenactments and used things I learned at reenactments to understand the games. I play mostly JRIII and it allows me to grasp what happens on the battlefield and reports in the ORs. Sleeping under a shebang in a down pour grants a little understanding of what the soldiers went through. I really appreciate what they went through when standing around in 98 degree weather with humidity to match in the sun leaning over a 3" rifle waiting for something to happen.

There is a branch of archaeology which tries to rebuild ancient artifacts to understand how they were made and their capabilities. Perhaps re-enactment can be a bit like that.

I remember a really good article in the Society of Ancients mag a few years ago. It was about siege warfare done with LARPers.

"So, how often have you jumped onto your gaming table and tried to sleep through a three hour thunder storm, hail, and gale force winds?
When was the last time you gamed Borodino, when the smow in your cellar was two feet deep where it had been trampled?

Lost 80 tents in one night in April at Bourtagne? Had six inches deep water in your tent?"

I experienced every bit of that in Boy Scouts when I was but a teen-ager, although not on actual battlefields. It doesn't make me understand what it was to be a soldier in any way, shape or form.

How often were there people trying to kill you? Did you get to go home whenever you wanted? Did you starve? Did your buddies die in front of your eyes of diseases and wounds?

Give me a break!

How often were there people trying to kill you? Did you get to go home whenever you wanted? Did you starve? Did your buddies die in front of your eyes of diseases and wounds?

Give me a break!

Re-enactment no. Falklands yes.

However back to the point.

It DOES give you more of an apprieciation of how moral is affected after one of those nights described, and the call to arms comes at four in the morning. THEN you find the powder is wet, and you have half an hour to make fifty new cannon rounds from the powder that is still, hopefully, dry.

At the same time as trying to get the wood to burn whilst 100 artillery men are standing around waiting for their breakfast.

You dont get that on "a game table".

No.

Yes. It made me understand just how little the average trooper is aware of what is happening. It also taught me about the difficulties of communication. Getting messages to people you cannot see and getting them to understand is very difficult and error prone.

Another thing is risk. You can't simulate it's effects on behaviour well enough in tabletop games. In a real battle, some generals can lose the war for their country in a afternoon of fighting. Consequently they never throw in the troops and get them slaughtered as tabletop generals do.

Tabletop wargames are much easier than the real thing. If you made tabletop wargames as difficult as the real thing noone would believe it and noone would play them.

The tabletop/armchair general has it easy.

:) 200! my bad on that one…the Countrys only just over that milestone (well plus 30 years) so i am hitting my head with mouse as we type!

My model armies are heavily influenced by reenactment.
Most brigades are represented by 12 to 18 figures.

Aye. Thats why I have a different proposal for Großbeeren and Leipzig this year.

Istead of trying to look like 300,000 troops, I reckon we use what we have and do "dioramas", or set piece actions.

E.G, Großbeeren, cannon train on way to battle gets ambushed by French patrol, kind of stuff.

We have enough to do that no problem, without looking like each man trying to be 100.

I have met some of the dullest people in the world at re-enactment events, I have also made some great friends.
I have learned that a lot of 'booktalk' about cavalry is plain rubbish, written, for the most, by people who have never ridden in their lives, I have ridden some of the maddest, swively eyed, dobbins throughout europe, and some of the nicest, rock hard mounts ever. Its a lottery our infantry brethrin no not of.
As to rules, I've been in a 200 horse charge at Artilley at Leipzig, and wonder as to the accuracy of cavalry charges being stopped by gunfire.
The impetus, and mob mentality of your average nag, means, most of the time, you couldn't stop the thing if you wanted!
Now, I know that the carnage isn't present, but my horse jumped over another, fallen horse and rider, in the smoke, before I even saw it, and, if anything, sped up! the !
Just an observation.
John

By John 54
As to rules, I've been in a 200 horse charge at Artilley at Leipzig, and wonder as to the accuracy of cavalry charges being stopped by gunfire.

With cannister and chain shot then….

von Scharnhorst,
Obvious smug answer….. but my point was, Unless you kill, or maim, and therefore physically stop, ALL the horses in a charge, I am doubtfull it could be done, beyond a certain time, ie, after the charge was sounded, and the horses gait lengthened.
Did the officers stop the charge? I don't think so, as Bugles/trumpets are hard to hear when your yelling like a madman through fear/adrenilin/gin(!)
Did individuals manage to pull up their mounts, leading to others, then others etc, again, doubtfull.
Did the first rank casulties mount up, causing a physical barrier? again, I think not, as it would not be a straight line barrier.

Love 'n' hugs.

John XXX

By John 54
Love 'n' hugs.

I worry about some people. :-)

My experience is people who do one or the other tend to view the other with something between indifference and distain. Gamers seem to be more towards the later then the former. I have to say that in reacting, you do get a sense of the chaos and excitement of battle (without the fear of course.) Also the one gets a real sense of the fatigue factor. Reactors who are gamers tend to be more out of the closet (so to speak.) I think re-enactors tend to be more conservative in the politics and many act overly macho. I have heard some reactors say things like "stop playing with toys and do it for real." Gamers can be less then critical in their understanding of history, re-enactors too to lesser extent because they tend to have artifacts for sources and because of this they tend to over emphases the material culture. You find gamers who are all about winning and reactors who are just plan dangerous to be near. Both groups have detail Nazis and people who try to bend history to conform with their understanding of history, not the other way around. Both have people that simple forget it is a hobby and people are turned on or off by the fun factor. I like both and I think both have help in my understanding of history.