Why do some battles become favourites?

Last Sunday, Anton and I laid on a Franco-Prussian War game for a couple of new friends, Malcolm and Ian. When we were deciding which battle to offer, it was very simple: I immediately thought of Loigny/Poupry.

French garde mobile in the quaint little village of Loigny. Baccus 6mm figures from my collection.

Field from Hotz Mats (no longer trading). Roads by Rob Owens of Rob's Scenics.

Building from a set of ornaments picked up at a country fair.

Looking back through this blog I see posts about playing it in 2022 and 2023 (the latter also prompting a "Reflections on Wargaming" essay). As the 2022 report notes, apart from the playtests before publication in 2014, I had already played it several more times since. Evidently it is a favourite of ours.

Why should such a relatively unsung battle - a French repulse in the unglamorous republican phase of the war - keep drawing me back to it? (Literally as well as on the tabletop - I visited the actual battlefield in 2024.) Rather than just list its virtues in isolation, I thought it might be interesting to see how its characteristics compare with other much more famous 'favourite battles'? By which I mean, not my personal favourites, so much as those that seem to get most attention from wargamers. I'm thinking of the likes of:
- Waterloo and Borodino for the Napoleonic period;
- Gettysburg and Antietam from the ACW;
- the Alma and Balaclava for the Crimea;
- and Blenheim for the 18th century.

Let's look at some important features of these battles in both historical and game terms and see how they all measure up.

1. Epic History!

The most famous ones are generally also among the largest and most consequential: both sides' main armies in a clash that is seen as either a crucial turning point or a climactic end. (This latter factor is why a battle such as Resaca in the ACW, which was just as large as Gettysburg though not as bloody, hardly impinges on most wargamers' consciousness at all. It was a speed bump that changed nothing.)

The Crimean battles are exceptions, as the largest engagement of the war and arguably the most important was actually the battle of the Chernaya. They are famous for other reasons: Balaclava has no fewer than three famous episodes within it, the Charge of the Light Brigade obviously being #1; the frontal assault on the heights at the Alma has a certain legendary status too. (The Chernaya remains relatively obscure among us Anglo-Saxons as it features hardly any Brits.)

At about 35,000-45,000 a side, Loigny/Poupry was only medium-sized by FPW standards. However, it is a turning point of sorts, in that the French repulse here was the highwater mark of their advance during the Loire campaign - and it was a close contest that could conceivably have gone the other way. It also has one notable dramatic episode at the end, when the Papal Zouaves attempted to storm Loigny.

2. Great Generals!

Famous battles are fought by famous generals. This verges on tautology. Napoleon vs Wellington; Bobby Lee; Marlborough - all famous. (As for McClellan and Raglan, you might say infamous.) Kutusov and Meade play supporting roles. Tallard, Menshikov, Liprandi: more like bit-parts.

One of the French corps commanders at Loigny was Antoine Chanzy. His is a less familiar name than most of these above but deserves to be better known. He is something of a hero of mine for the way he subsequently held his 2nd Army of the Loire together during his determined fighting withdrawal down the Loire.

3. The Battlefield!

The terrain shapes the battle; the battlefield gives it its character. All our famous examples feature famous locations. Waterloo has the bastions of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte in front of its ridge; Borodino is all about the Raevski Redoubt (in a lot of wargamers' imaginations, at least); more Russian redoubts on the heights above the Alma; the Gettysburg 'fishhook' and all its landmarks; Antietam's Bloody Lane; Balaclava's valley of death; the two villages anchoring the French line at Blenheim.

Loigny/Poupry is unremarkable by comparison. It was fought on a relatively flat and open plain, dotted with a dozen villages. However, from a practical perspective, its plain terrain is a major virtue. Doing large historical battles properly often requires quite a complicated terrain set-up: a jigsaw of hills, a patchwork of woods, a network of streams and rivers. As Loigny is so quick and simple by comparison, that makes it particularly good for a Monday night at the club, where we have to factor in the set-up and take-down time. That is definitely a significant contribution to making it a favourite for us. (It was also a snowy winter battlefield, an aesthetic plus as far as I'm concerned.)

4. The Armies!

Tabletop wargamers want to get troops on the table. The more varied and colourful those troops, the better. Characterful and unusual units add a lot to a game.

Waterloo is hard to beat in that respect and Borodino not far behind. Napoleon has his Imperial Guard in all its glory, while Wellington has the most variegated and motley of allied armies. ACW can be a bit drab - all that monotonous blue and gray - mitigated for our US brethren by being able to point at their local regiment or the unit great-grandpappy was in. The Alma and Balaclava are a proper parade: not only does one side get three different armies, but each army has multiple different types of unit. Blenheim has lots of 18th-century peacocks in tricornes and lace.

Loigny/Poupry can hold its own in this respect. The German side is not just a lot of pickelhaubes in Prussian blue, it has the Bavarians to add colour. The French are more varied. Their infantry is a mix of newly raised garde mobile and regular regiments' depot battalions, further spiced by the presence of the Foreign Legion and the Papal Zouaves. Assorted cavalry livens up the picture as well.

5. The Drama!

Famous battles tell famous stories. As well as strong characters (the famous generals), these stories have multiple chapters, twists and turns, and moments of high drama in which other particular characters may step forward for their moment of glory. I hardly need to list these for the battles we've been examining. Instead, let me generalise and say that they all have some ebb and flow, fortunes swaying from one side to the other until their grand finale. For wargamers, ideally this means they translate into close and exciting games on the tabletop.

Loigny/Poupry does tell just such a story. It's worth going into this in a little detail and explaining why it is such a good game to keep replaying.

Multiple Chapters. This battle lasts a day and a half. Both sides receive reinforcements in several echelons, mostly on the second day. The Germans start with just most of a Bavarian corps on the table; the Hessian and Holstein divisions then march up on the Bavarians' left, with the remainder of the Bavarians arriving on the right. As for the French, they too have just one corps initially, but two others join them as the game progresses. This reinforcement schedule has a couple of benefits. One is that it means the shape of the game changes as it goes on, which is always good for keeping things interesting. (See my essay on Changing Situations Mid-Game.) Another - a definite advantage when there are newish players involved - is that the players can get to grips with the scenario situation and the game mechanics gradually, rather than being overwhelmed by having to order 50,000 men around from Turn 1.

Twists and Turns. Although the Germans are on the defensive, the fact that more than half their army has to march on obviously means the German players get to do some manoeuvring. And it's not simply a case of marching directly into a pre-ordained defensive line without much thought. There are three objectives to defend and different ways of defending them - plus, of course, much depends on what the French attackers do. The French, meanwhile, have to advance and develop their attacks to take a couple of those objectives. The French have several different routes to victory, while the Germans, as mentioned, have different ways to defend. The many possible interactions between the two sides' different plans produce twists and turns that can play out in multiple different ways. The existence of these different options therefore means the scenario has a lot of replay value.

Moments of High Drama. Historically, the grand finale was a dramatic one alright, when de Sonis led the Papal Zouaves in their vain attempt to storm Loigny. This is exactly the kind of last-gasp assault that we see all the time in BBB scenarios!

To Sum Up:

Although Loigny/Poupry was not among the largest or most consequential battles of the FPW, it has enough merits in all the other respects to deserve the attention it has had from our group. I commend it to anyone else who wants to wargame the Franco-Prussian War.

I'd be very interested to hear from you all, a) whether you think there are other features that contribute to making battles into 'favourites' and b), which are your favourite battles and why.

The Game

Just for the record, here are a few photos of the Loigny game (including a couple labelled up at great pains for the greater enjoyment of my reading public) so you can see how that went. No extra reflections this time as you've already had the major one above.

The two wings of the battlefield. Pics not perfectly aligned but I hope they give the idea. Situation around Turn 4, morning of Day 2, when the German reinforcements have just arrived and French 15 Cps is about to march on.

A better view of the right wing, a couple of turns later. 1st Bav Bde is now isolated in Faverolles as French swarm past it towards Loigny (left of pic). On the right, German 4th Cav Div sacrifices itself charging Barry's French regulars to cover 3rd Bavarian Brigade as it occupies Nonneville.

The centre, penultimate turn. Some Holsteiners are backing up the Bavarians in Lumeau, bracing themselves to receive the inevitable French assault. Elements of French 15th and 16th Cps converge on Lumeau either side of the march columns of De Sonis's 17th Cps. (By this time, Loigny has fallen to the French garde mobile, as shown in the pic at top of this post.)

The grand finale. That unit in line left centre of pic is a Hessian brigade that has thrown itself across to help protect Lumeau. That meant only the one French assault column centre of pic managed to reach Lumeau. It was repelled. Final score: a draw.

Loigny/Poupry is one of the scenarios in the BBB rulebook, now available in pdf from SkirmishCampaigns.

How do I get started with "Bloody Big BATTLES!" (BBB)?

The Bloody Big BATTLES! ruleset (BBB) for wargaming nineteenth-century battles (including Napoleonics) is over 10 years old now and continues to grow in popularity. A good thing to have done a decade ago would have been to create a set of introductory material for new players, but I didn't, so ... the purpose of this long overdue post is to make it as easy as possible for new or would-be players to get into BBB. (Also, to share the love for gaming this richly varied and fascinating period, whose battles produce such great historical games.)

This post covers:

-  Online resources

- Which armies to collect

- Which figure scale to choose

- How to build your armies

- How to collect/create terrain

- How to learn the rules

- How to find other players

- Creating your own scenarios

Online resources

1. BBB's publisher is SkirmishCampaigns. See the SC website here for various useful information such as where to buy BBB and its scenario books.

2. For collected reviews of BBB, see here:

Bloody Big BATTLES Blog: Collected reviews of BBB - Bloody Big BATTLES!

3. For many additional free scenarios and other resources online, or to ask questions about the rules or discuss 19th-century warfare in general, join the community of over 1,000 fellow BBB enthusiasts here: bloodybigbattles@groups.io | Home

4. There is a very active BBB Facebook page with over 1,000 members here:

Bloody Big Battles | Groups | Facebook

Which armies should I collect?

Well, that's really up to you, isn't it! But apart from the sheer romance and emotional, aesthetic or patriotic appeal of your favourite army or conflict, there are some other factors you might want to consider.

1. Deployability. Those yellow-jacketed Bolivian cuirassiers look gorgeous, of course, but they only ever fought one battle. Is it worth building a Bolivian army specially for that? You'll probably get most use and therefore most value out of armies that fought a number of battles, perhaps even several wars, in basically the same uniform.

A popular triad to start with is therefore the French, Austrian and Prussian armies that all fought each other (and some others) between 1848 and 1870. From there it's easy to add Italians, Danes, Brits, Russians, Hungarians, etc as allies or enemies.

Or you could choose one of the published BBB scenario books and build armies for that: Balkan Wars, Wars in India, Napoleon's biggest battles, etc. That guarantees you a good number of scenarios, and all the scenarios have plenty of replay value, so that's a lot of potential games.

Alternatively, just go for the blue and the grey: American Civil War armies, which can fight dozens of battles against each other.

2. Size. If you are keen to get armies on the table soon, pick one of the small scenarios I'll recommend later in this post and build specifically for that.

3. What have your mates got? If your regular opponents are interested in BBB as well, check with them what armies they already have so you can collect armies to fight them, rather than duplicating. Or consult them about which war to do together and choose an army each.

4. Availability. What figure ranges are available in your preferred scale? Maybe there's a fantastically complete range of beautifully sculpted figures that will just be a joy to paint and a feast for the eye, and maybe that's more important to you than the fact that this army never actually fought much?

But this will be a minor factor for many BBB players, as BBB suits smaller scales particularly well, and in the smaller scales it is easy to use figures from other ranges as proxies if dedicated figures are lacking.

Which brings us to:

Which figure scale to choose?

Fighting big historical battles on a 6'x4' table is what BBB does best. Larger scale figures look great individually, but frankly can look a bit odd when just three or four of them on BBB's 1" bases are supposed to represent a division or even a corps. Smaller scales give a more convincing and realistic mass battle effect. Each scale has other pros and cons too. Let's look at them in detail.

28mm: There are a few players who fight BBB scenarios in 28mm. To do so, though, they scale everything up by 50% (9'x6' table, larger bases, longer ranges and movement distances). A nice solution if you have the space.

15mm: More practical than 28mm, and BBB-sized units look OK. If you already have 15mm armies, you can use them, no problem.

10mm: The Goldilocks scale? I'm committed to 6mm, but if I were to start again, I think I'd go with 10mm. Small enough for mass effect, but still large enough to recognise individual regiments and uniform details. Easier than the smaller scales for aging wargamers' eyes, too, which is increasingly a consideration these days.

6mm: My preferred scale for a long time, for multiple reasons. Apart from mass effect, 6mm's advantages over larger scales include: it is relatively cheap; takes up less storage space; is more portable; is quicker to paint; is easier to find acceptable proxy figures. That's why I've got loads.

3mm or 2mm: All the advantages I just cited for 6mm apply even more so to 3mm or 2mm. However, at those tiny scales it becomes impossible to see much apart from a couple of basic uniform colours. Even the flags are hard to paint and hard to make out. Instead of uniform details, the trick is to use different layouts of figure blocks (assorted combos of lines, columns, skirmishers and officers) to help identify different units or types of unit. If you're eager to field an army quickly, this is one good way to do it.

How to build your armies

Build to purpose! Look at the scenarios available for your chosen army and they will tell you how many troops you need. For the conflicts covered in the BBB rulebook and BBEB supplement, there are spreadsheets in the io group files that show exactly how many bases of each type are required for the individual scenarios and the total needed for a particular war:

FPW scenario size and bases required

BBEB scenario size and bases required

Make the 'Flag' and 'Skirmisher' bases distinctive so that you can identify them easily from normal gaming distance. This makes it easy to tell different types of unit apart instantly.

One useful tip: I base about half of my ordinary infantry bases in pairs, 2"x1". This makes it easier and quicker to move units, as well as producing tidier lines.

How to collect or create terrain?

BBB is intended for recreating historical battles. Historical battles need historical terrain. Historical terrain tends to be a lot more complicated than the average wargame table, so you're probably going to need to invest in some. Still, there are a few different options available.

Felt collage. Felt is cheap and versatile and comes in all the colours you could want. It's easy to cut up different greens for woods and marshes, brown or grey for roads, blue for rivers, brown or grey for towns and villages, perhaps two or three shades of green/brown for different contour levels. That's not a bad way to get started quickly. You can upgrade from there. (I have - mostly.)

Custom battlemats. I don't mean ones you buy. I mean ones you make. For a couple of alternative approaches, check out the work of my regular gaming buddies Matt and Crispin.

Matt's work can be seen on his 'Pushing Tin' website. Specifically, look at his description of how he made his Gettysburg battlefield.

Crispin's is a quicker and more functional approach. He uses heavy-duty green paper catering tablecloth like this from Venuscello that you can buy in 25m rolls. He cuts out hills from MDF and spraypaints them green to match. (As he's got about 30+ mats now, he's got enough hills that he can usually manage with the existing collection.) He applies roads, rivers, villages etc with different coloured chalks. For areas of marsh, woods, etc, he resorts to the spraycan again. You can see plenty of his work in various game reports on this BBBBlog. A typical example is his Cold Harbor battlefield here.

Yet a third way is what I used for some of my Hungary 1848 and Crimean War battlefields: getting a battlemat printed by a commercial vendor. Back in 2017 I used Pixart, as explained here, but nowadays I believe there are companies specialising in wargame battlemats who will offer this service.

Let's talk about hills. Hills are the real pain, especially once you get among some Balkans or Alps or Pyrenees. Let me just refer you to the entire essay I wrote about these a decade ago.

Making terrain. I think the best advice I can give you here is to visit the comprehensive set of terrain tips that the good people at Little Wars TV provide to help players of their Altar of Freedom ACW rules.

Buying terrain. For several years, I had a rule that I always had to buy some terrain whenever I went to a wargames show. That did significantly improve my collection. Nowadays, I think I'd simply say "buy with purpose": decide what game(s) you want to play, work out what terrain you need to get started, and buy it. One piece of advice concerning buildings in particular: buy ones a scale down from your figures (i.e., 3mm buildings for 6mm figures, etc). Remember, terrain is a good investment - your woods, hills or roads can serve convincingly on far more battlefields than any one army you might build.

These are just a few pointers that barely scratch the surface of what there is to say about terrain. It is important, as the ground shapes the battle, so you want to get it right and have it look good. It's worth some time, money and effort to achieve that.

How to learn the rules

There are a few particular scenarios I always recommend to new players as 'training scenarios' for learning the rules before you get stuck into Gettysburg or Solferino. They are all reasonably small and quick to set up; don't involve too many troops or take too long; not all the troops are committed initially, so players have a chance to get to grips with the rules without being overwhelmed; the armies are asymmetrical, which both helps to bring out some of the features of the rules and makes for fun games; and they are entertaining little tactical puzzles in their own right. These favourites include:

Montebello (1859) - Austrians vs French in the Second Italian War of Independence;

First Bull Run (1861) - first big battle of the American Civil War;

Langensalza (1866) - Prussians trap the Hanoverian army during the Austro-Prussian War;

Loigny/Poupry (1870) - Republican French vs Germans in the Franco-Prussian War;

Velestino (1897) - Ottomans attacking Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War.

Apart from Loigny/Poupry (which is in the BBB rulebook and is the biggest game on this list), all these scenarios can be found in the io group via the hyperlinks. Note that you will need to join the group to gain access to the scenarios. 

How to find other players

Join the BBB io group or Facebook page and ask there. You might find players near you.

Join your local club and persuade your friends there to play.

Come to a BBB Bash Day convention.

Online! Alan Millicheap has translated a number of scenarios to Tabletop Simulator. Ask on the BBB io group or Facebook page to find a willing opponent.

Creating your own scenarios

Not as hard as you might think. Essentially, if you get the troops and terrain right, you'll be pretty close.

Try to set the troop, time and ground scales so the battle fits onto 6'x4' and lasts 8-12 turns, with 10-20 infantry or cavalry units a side.

If the battle had some unusual feature that needs a special rule, look at existing scenarios to see if there's a similar situation with a special rule you can adapt. 

Often the trickiest part of scenario design is to set the victory conditions. The standard BBB formula is a tried and tested one: designate perhaps 6 or 7 locations on the battlefield as Objectives and decide how many side A needs to hold at game end to draw or to win. Good locations to choose include key defensive terrain along one or both sides' battle lines, or perhaps along a second defensive line; also, locations whose capture would represent an attacker threatening flanks or lines of communication or retreat. Using the historical outcome as the 'par score' for a draw is a good rule of thumb.

And, of course, ask for advice on the BBB io group or FB page. Lots of helpful people there!

That's it for now

Lots more that I could say but I hope this is enough to get you started. Sorry it isn't perfect, but as it's 10 years late already, I figured publish and be damned. Questions always welcome, especially from new or would-be players, so if there's anything I haven't covered that you'd like to know about, get in touch.

Happy gaming!

***

This is one in a series of essays, "Reflections on Wargaming", exploring various questions about the hobby. The full list can be found here.

Why play a whole big battle at all?

Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts ... this reflection was prompted by Jared Fishman interviewing me on his "20 Sided Gamified" podcast, which is up to an impressive 69 episodes already, including many extremely eminent guests from different areas of our hobby. After episode 68, Jared was running out of people to invite, so he kindly asked me along 😉, together with longtime BBB player and scenario designer Vincent Tsao, to enthuse about the "Bloody Big BATTLES!" ruleset. (This was my third time on air, following outings on Scott van Roekel's "Shot & Shield" and Sean Clark's "God's Own Scale".)

I told Jared and his listeners the reason we created BBB - namely, so that a few of us could fight entire 19th-century battles on a normal 6'x4' tabletop on a regular Monday evening club night at Oxford Wargames Society. 

I subsequently realised there is a meta-question that merits answering. It's one I hinted at during the podcast but that really deserves fuller discussion. It's also a question implied a few months ago by a podcast I haven't been on but have often enjoyed listening to: Ken Reilly's "Yarkshire Gamer's Reet Big Wargames Podcast". In one of his "Brews in the Binyard" episodes, Ken was chatting with Sean and another gamer and the topic of my GOS interview with Sean came up. (Incestuous business, podcasts ...) Ken said something like, "As soon as Chris Pringle said it was all about fighting a whole battle on 6'x4' in an evening, he lost me!"

The meta-question in question is this: why should we want to fight such battles in their entirety in this way at all? Hence I am elevating it to full "Reflections on Wargaming" status with this post.

Let's start by asking ourselves what the aim behind any game might be. In a previous Reflections essay I discussed three dimensions wargames try to satisfy in varying degrees:

- exploring military history;

- providing entertaining game mechanics;

- and generating a competitive contest.

I submit that BBB does relatively well on all three counts. Long before BBB, the biggest game I ever played in was when the whole club deployed all our Napoleonic collections for a single battle. It was literally played on a basketball court. There were probably 20 players, with CinCs sending written orders by courier, and it took all weekend. What did I get out of it? As an easily-pleased teenage wargamer, I was happy to push around my little brigade and engage in inconsequential skirmishing for hours. But:

- I had no idea what the bigger picture was, the point of the battle, what crucial decisions were taken when or by who and how they worked out. Hence, it failed as an exploration of military history (at least, I didn't learn any from it);

- the game mechanics were fine, but I might as well have played a simple brigade-sized battle and had just as much fun in a fraction of the time. I'd call that inefficient;

- I had no idea who won and I'm not sure we actually finished it, so perhaps it wasn't great as a dramatic contest either.

Of course, not every 'big game' will be like that. With clear briefings, tight management, pauses to take a step back and appreciate the wider situation, and post-battle summings-up, players can get more of a sense of the big picture and how their small part contributes to it. Still, I maintain that the BBB format of playing a whole big battle in an evening has significant advantages, including:

- You get a 'big picture' appreciation of a historical battle that is impossible to obtain by fighting it in fractions or where each player is only involved with one small corner of a huge multi-player game;

- You get to make major, substantial game decisions such as shifting whole corps from one sector to another, rather than pushing around individual battalions and doing tiny tactical stuff. It has the right granularity for the size of the battle and lets you see the wood, not just the trees. (See my Reflection on getting the right granularity in games.)

- You get to finish the game! Even with a whole day, too many monster games finish up with "in the end, we ran out of time, so we called it ..." (see my Reflection on that phenomenon here.)

- Not only does the game finish, a BBB battle most often ends with an exciting climactic turn in which two or three objectives are in play, all three results are still possible (win-draw-lose) and it comes down to the last few rolls of the dice.

- As you only need a 6'x4' table, three or four other players at most (indeed, one would do), and three or four hours, it is far easier to organise and fit in than a grand weekend event. I'd rather have a BBB game every week than six mega-games a year.

- If you do have a whole weekend for gaming, you can fight several BBB battles in the time it takes for one mega-game and get to make a lot more significant decisions in the same time. (We once fought a whole 9-battle Franco-Prussian War campaign in a three-day weekend.)

- Huge games need huge armies. BBB forces are modest enough that it relatively easy to buy, build, transport and store multiple armies for multiple wars, which is good for varying the gaming diet.

I'm going to finish by reporting some recent comments by Jim Owczarski of the Armchair Dragoons that support what I've said above. Jim regularly runs online wargames through Tabletop Simulator, using many different rulesets for many different wars. For instance, last year I believe his group did a comparison exercise, fighting Quatre Bras eight times with different rules. The publication of "Napoleon's Bloody Big Battles!" has really enthused Jim and his merry grognards. He says that after a couple of games "the consensus of the Dragoons is that they want to play ALL the BBB Napoleonic scenarios". In particular, before playing Bautzen, he said "The battle of Bautzen was a strange, sprawling affair. Curious to see how BBB makes sense of it. Not too many miniatures rules have." After the game, his verdict: "it's the best treatment of Bautzen I've played on the tabletop". That seems a good point to rest my case.

===

Update 25 August 2024

Well, that was a popular post! It generated a lot of feedback on TMP, LAF and TWW. These 70+ replies caused me to reflect on my reflection. Let me add the result of that reflection here:

A big thank you to everyone who responded. I appreciate all your comments (including the critical and dismissive ones – I care about your opinions too). Judging by the quantity and quality of replies, it was evidently a worthwhile question.

As far as the charge of shameless self-promotion/advertising is concerned: guilty as charged, sorry – can I make a plea in mitigation? It genuinely wasn't my original prime intention, but I struggled a bit to structure the essay, was under time pressure, then saw Jim Owczarski's remarks, got over-excited and lapsed into stream-of-consciousness anecdotes and enthusing. There is a better essay to be written on this question that actually answers it properly, perhaps enumerating types of battle and game, listing what features each provides to players, addressing limitations and practicalities …

Nevertheless, I feel my decision to just publish and be damned is partially vindicated by the wealth of ideas in all your great comments. I hoped and expected that the resulting discussion would be better than what I'd bashed out in haste, and you didn't let me down. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't reply in great detail to the multitude of points in 50+ posts. I have just a few remarks to make now:

First: I should have made a clear distinction between big battle and big game – these are not necessarily the same thing! Small games of big battles are possible, as are big games of small battles, etc.

Second: I'll readily acknowledge BBB's limitations (e.g., the lack of fog of war, albeit the activation mechanism introduces enough uncertainty to compensate for that to some degree). Other ways of fighting big battles are possible and other rules are available. All have their merits and which is the right tool for the job depends on the job and the craftsman.

Third and finally: absolutely no disparagement of anybody else's fun was intended. Tournament games, skirmishes, monster marathons on basketball courts – it's all good and all part of our rich hobby. I ain't telling anyone else how to play toy soldiers. Have fun your way! Happy gaming!

Stolberg's Death Ride: pivotal moments in wargames

This reflection is prompted by last week's Franco-Prussian War game of the battle of Loigny/Poupry (1870). Rather than picking out various aspects of the game to reflect on, this time I've picked out just one to discuss in a little more (slightly rambling and disjointed) depth: the 'pivotal moment'. I'll give a brief summary of the game, then get to my point.

Loigny/Poupry was one of the first major battles of the Republican phase of the war, after the fall of Napoleon III. The French Army of the Loire was therefore a mixture of regular troops (depot battalions or units such as the Foreign Legion, freshly arrived from Africa) and masses of newly-mustered, relatively poorly-trained and -armed gardes mobiles. It faced a German army that was by now battle-hardened and had honed its skirmish tactics. The Loire campaign was directed at breaking the German siege of Paris. This battle saw the Army of the Loire hitting a Bavarian covering force that was then rescued by other German contingents. Consequently it makes for a nice open game where both sides are bringing forces onto the table and have to manoeuvre in their respective efforts to break or hold the line.

Nine captioned photos below the map tell the tale of the game, followed by reflections at the end if you want to jump straight to those.

The scenario map. (Loigny is one of the nine Franco-Prussian battles in the linked campaign in the BBB rulebook.) It's a pretty open battlefield, dotted with villages, three of which (Poupry, Lumeau and Loigny) are the objective locations. One big wood behind Poupry. Bavarians start on table in the lower half. French 16 Cps (Chanzy) arrives first from lower right. German reinforcements will arrive from top left at start of Day 2 (Turn 4), followed by French 15 Cps from top right T5, then 17 Cps in the centre T8/9.

The map as translated into a lovely snowy battlemat by Crispin. The wintry orange woods set it off beautifully. View looking north, French approaching from bottom edge. White counters mark the three victory locations. One Bavarian brigade in Guillonville (bottom left) to act as a tripwire; a second holds Loigny on the ridge; a third plus cavalry are behind that; the fourth follows on T2.

Close-up of the Bavarians holding Loigny. 6mm figures by Baccus.

The windmills are a nice historical touch.

View from Loigny as Chanzy's troops screen off and bypass Guillonville.

French Turn 4 (first move on the second day). Chanzy's corps has developed its line nicely towards the central objective, Lumeau (lefthand edge of pic) which is held only by Bavarian cavalry. Poor Bavarian movement rolls meant the infantry were just a little too slow so they will get caught in the open instead of being able to defend the village. French artillery is rumbling up to form a gun line to dominate the centre of the battlefield. 

I was commanding the German left. (John had the Bavarians; Dave and Crispin were French.) My lads were also stymied by lame movement dice, so the French would steal a march on us and get into Poupry first as well. Note the little cluster of cavalry just this side of the big Poupry wood upper left. This is Count Stolberg's 2nd Cavalry Division. The French infantry nearest to it, top centre, is about to leap into Lumeau (the white counter to their right), leaving their guns unescorted.

This was a pivotal moment in the battle - as in, if the dice had gone differently, it would have significantly changed the course of the game. Seeing the ominous French gun line still in the process of forming up, with half its batteries still limbered and the others already low on ammo from pounding the Bavarians, I gambled and launched Stolberg's cavalry at the few guns already deployed. There was about 40% chance that they would charge home; if they did, they would probably chase off or wipe out much of the French artillery. As this picture shows, though, French fire repelled them with the loss of one of their three bases. French cavalry then finished them off.

Meanwhile, my infantry used the cover of the wood to press into deadly needlegun range of Poupry, The garde mobile had got in there ahead of us but a few casualties soon rendered them spent (blue counter). 

However, reaching the front edge of the wood, we were in a 'fire sack'. The orange counter shows that these troops in Artenay on the French extreme right are chassepot-armed regiments de marche. Behind them, the Foreign Legion contributes its firepower. French artillery are out of pic to the right, including some mitrailleuses that would take a toll. On the penultimate turn, I finally managed to eject and wipe out the garde mobile, then repel a French countercharge on the last turn. However, French fire had cost me nearly half of my infantry. Still, at least we held that objective at the end.

The centre was bitterly contested. My fourth brigade made three decent attempts to storm Lumeau. Had Stolberg's Death Ride succeeded, the defending fire would have been less and we might well have got in. As it was, De Sonis's 17 Corps raced up, led here by the Papal Zouaves (OK, the figures are just ordinary zouaves standing in) and took over the defence of Lumeau just in time to save it for the French. Meanwhile, Chanzy's fire had depleted the Bavarians enough for him to storm Loigny. Final score: Germans held only 1 of the 3 objectives, so it was a glorious victory for the French!

Reflections:

Pivotal moments: Sometimes, games are virtually decided at the start, when the two sides' deployments dictate how it will go (perhaps through one side's irretrievable error). Others are only decided at the end: a case of general ebb and flow, push and shove, where neither side is really on top until the last couple of turns, and maybe it comes down to the last few dice on the last few assaults. And then there is a third kind where some pivotal moment mid-battle seems in retrospect to be the one the whole thing hinged on. I think this Loigny game was one of these. As I described above, Stolberg's charge had a fair chance of succeeding; if it had, we Germans could reasonably have expected to draw and would have had a chance of a win.

Looking back over a few earlier reports, I see some others that we could put in that same category. A German victory at Spicheren owed much to a grand battery and a particularly deadly salvo of artillery fire mid-game (albeit the scenario was probably skewed towards a German win anyway). Oudenarde was a case where my audacious sally onto an enemy flank deserved better results than it got, so let's call that a pivotal moment. At Waterloo, the Allied heavy cavalry's charge turned the game. 

By contrast: my defeat at Tel-el-Kebir was due to my early indecision rather than any critical moment later, so let's say that one was decided at the start. Likewise Malplaquet was determined more by our deployment than by our dice; ditto Beaumont; similarly Dybbøl, where we were always playing catch-up after being distracted on the first couple of turns.

As an example of the second type, where the battle is more evenly poised, ebb and flow and in doubt throughout, let me offer Tudela or Borodino.

These are three different kinds of story, each enjoyable in their own way. Those that are nip and tuck all the way and go down to the wire are probably best in terms of overall tension and excitement. However, there is a special pleasure to be had from the games where you can look back and say "that was the moment everything hinged on - if only it had gone differently!" That pivotal moment, the critical scene in the movie that changes the situation dramatically, after which everything else is just tying up the loose ends ...

There is also pleasure at the time in the high-stakes gamble. Launching Stolberg in this Loigny game, or sallying from Eyne in the Oudenarde battle, I knew at the time that it was risky and would cost me if it went wrong (as it did in both cases). Still, I think Clausewitz would approve, as he prefers a gambler to the general who is paralysed by doubt. And at least I was only sacrificing little lead soldiers. Anyway, it's more exciting than sitting tight and hoping for the best! 

Update 3 Dec 2023: the original reflection was a little brief as I was pressed for time. Here's some more of what I wanted to say about this, as expounded in a nice discussion on the Lead Adventure Forum:

I think the pivotal moment really has to be a high-stakes decision. (Me citing an artillery bombardment rolling a 12 was a bit of a cheat.)

'Decided at deployment': well, it's not really so black and white, you're rarely necessarily doomed. It's more a case of poor early decisions skewing the odds against you for the rest of the game.

To offer an analogy, imagine a battle as being like a long-term illness, where the disease is the enemy.
'Decided at Deployment' might be the fact that you became a chain-smoker at the age of 12, making it harder to fight the disease for the rest of your life and likely it will kill you.
'Ebb and Flow' would be just trying to manage it with diet, exercise and medication, to more or less effect - maybe ending in a draw (live to a decent age, albeit quality of life a bit diminished).
'Pivotal Moment' - that's the decision to go under the knife for that kill-or-cure operation.

Safety professionals use a 'bowtie diagram'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow-tie_diagram
in which multiple possible Mechanisms can lead to a single critical Event that can then have multiple Outcomes. Our situation is similar except that the Event (the Pivotal Moment) generally won't result from one Mechanism but from the cumulative effects of several contributing circumstances (activation failures, an exposed flank, a battery's fire slackening from low ammo ...). It then has multiple ramifications, more so than a lower-risk decision elsewhere that does not change the situation so dramatically.

A full list of my 'Reflections on Wargaming' essays can be found here.

The Value of Playing "What-Ifs"

I don't usually do "what-ifs". By that I mean, my staple fare is straight recreations of historical battles, in which forces have to start deployed broadly where they did historically and both sides are trying to achieve the objectives they were aiming for historically. The purpose of these (apart from providing a few hours' entertainment, obviously) is to let players explore various plans as different possible routes to victory - cracking tactical puzzles, if you like.

Occasionally, though, in the historical scenarios I write I might provide for some not too remote alternative possibility, such as the Russians at the Alma choosing to present a flank threat rather than a direct blocking position.

This week we explored a quite radical alternative. The scenario in question is the Second Battle of Vác (1849) from the Hungarian War of Independence, as found in the "Bloody Big Hungary '48 Battles!" scenario book. The standard historical scenario is an unusual and interesting one to start with, as it is an initial advance guard action followed by a fighting withdrawal. I did the straight refight back in January 2022 (in-depth report with lots of gorgeous photos here). The scenario provides an option that assumes the Hungarian C-in-C, Görgei, chooses the bold course of attempting to break through the Russian army that has intercepted him, rather than withdrawing to find another way around it as he did historically.

The following photos show how that went, with some reflections at the end.

'Der Donau ist blau.' The Hungarians start with an advance guard and two corps on table with a third due later. Here Leiningen's III Cps conducts its forced march along the Danube ...

... preceded by Nagysándor's I Cps, seen here marching through the town of Vác. Behind it is the railway embankment for Hungary's very own HS2. (At this time, the Hungarian rail network consisted of one line from Budapest southeast to Szolnok and another from Budapest north to Vác. The leg to Pressburg aka Bratislava was under construction.) Out of shot to the right is the Hungarian advance guard. This spent the first four turns driving back the Russian advance guard and making space for I Cps to push down the road to the south.

OMG that's a lot of Russians ... after the advance guard action, the scenario provides a Night Interval, a lull for everyone to have a rest after their forced marching and deploy for the next day's withdrawal or breakthrough attempt, as applicable. The Russians can deploy anywhere >6" from the Hungarians and south of the Csörög stream. Here you see about 50,000 men poised to crush the reckless Magyars, with a formidable gun line already deployed lower right. Only two of the units in shot are Hungarian: one in the bottom left corner and the other above that in the edge of the vineyard.

Plan view gives the full picture. The Hungarians are trying to push from left to bottom right. Victory depends on how wide a gap they can maintain at game end, as measured by how many of the four white counters they hold (the two bridges and the village of Sződ at lower right, and the vineyard above that). Russians are all in the upper right quarter. Hungarian I and III Cps are facing them, lower right. Pöltenberg's VII Cps has arrived around Vác (left centre) and will try to put pressure on the Russian right flank.

Most of I and III Cps immediately falls back to try to defend the line of the railway embankment, apart from one brigade that advances to occupy Sződ. VII Cps pushes forward on the Hungarian left. 

A view from behind the railway embankment before the Russian hordes arrive there.

Turn 7 of 12. The solitary forward Hungarian brigade in Sződ has been demolished. Initial Russian assault on the Hungarian extreme right has been rebuffed, but worse is about to come.

Russian highwater mark - eight regiments assault the embankment.

Plan view, end of Turn 7 or 8. Russians continue to press forward bottom right but have been repulsed in the centre. Centre of pic, two Hungarian brigades and some hussars have crossed the embankment to attack the right flank of the massed Russian assault. Upper left, VII Cps and the Russians facing it find themselves in a stand-off.

Close-up of the Hungarian counterattack against the repulsed Russians. Their blurred images betray just how shaken those Russians are.

Unusually, we ended the game a couple of turns early because several of the guys had to leave a bit early. The rest of us could have finished it but we were happy to call it a draw. The Russian hordes had suffered enough infantry losses that they would have struggled to press another assault home, but they probably had enough guns to prevent the Hungarian counter-attack from carrying too far either.

The Hungarian army's historical withdrawal was seriously impeded by a column of thousands of refugees following it. Here we see the refugee column milling around and blocking movement through Vác. Even if the Hungarian army itself does break through the Russians, this tail of unfortunates is likely to be left at the mercy of Russian Cossacks and Caucasus Muslim cavalry.

Reflections:

An Illuminating 'What-If'. Görgei is widely regarded as Hungary's best general of the war. I think it fair to say that this what-if game confirmed the wisdom of his actual decision in this case. His historical withdrawal took his army into hilly country that aided rearguard actions to delay pursuit and made it difficult for the Russians to bring their superior numbers to bear; he was able to send his baggage and ammunition trains away first and give them a head start; the Russians were unsure about exactly where he was heading; his army escaped virtually intact (and then dodged behind and through the Russians, leading them on a merry dance for weeks). By contrast, our attempt to break through showed that it would have been pretty disastrous. Even if victorious, his army would have been mauled; it would then have had to march across open country, harassed by Russian light cavalry and Cossacks; it would probably have lost much of its supply train. No doubt I could have worked that out as the likely result beforehand, just as Görgei evidently did, but it was still highly instructive to see it play out on the table.

Shock and Awe: it's one thing to read (or indeed write) a scenario, and another to see the troops deployed. Once the Russian army appeared in full force after the Night Interval, we were all a bit gobsmacked - especially those of us on the Hungarian side tasked with fending it off. It goes to show that small figures can still make a big impression. 6mm is good for mass effect.

Quality vs Quantity: Görgei's army was a pretty well oiled machine at this stage, whereas the Russian one was a mighty but unsubtle steamroller. The Russians had also been ravaged by cholera, which killed more Russians than the Hungarians did in this war. The scenario therefore gives the Hungarians a quality advantage overall. By the time we stopped, this seemed to be on the way to compensating for Russian numerical superiority.

What is a 'What-If'? It's a bit of a stretch to claim this post as a genuine 'Reflection on Wargaming'. Really it's one battle report that prompted one particular thought that I've tried to expand on. I suppose I can expand on it a bit more by saying every game is a what-if to some degree (unless it is not a game at all but simply an exercise in pushing figures along courses utterly pre-determined by history, without any player choices or chance to deviate from that history). My typical historical recreations start the 'what-if' around the point at which historical opposing armies deployed for a historical battle, with their historical objectives and orders of battle, and explore how different plans might have worked out. The alternative version of Vác that I've reported here just changes the Hungarian C-in-C's aim - the mission, if you like - and explores a more radical strategic plan rather than grand tactical ones. A next step away from the historical event would be to have those same armies meet on a different battlefield, perhaps imagining a breakthrough attempt at a slightly different location; the step after that, to put historical opponents on some imaginary battlefield, tournament-style; beyond that, we get into competition-style games pitting ahistorical opponents against each other in battles that never happened, on terrain that didn't exist, in wars that were never fought. Which step of that progression we prefer depends on which 'what-if' question we want answered.

And finally: Thanks to Crispin for creating the custom battlemat, painting the armies and laying on the game.

For the full list of my (mostly rather more extensive and considered) 'Reflections on Wargaming' essays, see here.

Can frontally assaulting redoubts make a good game? 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?

But for those of us for whom a game should be about making interesting and challenging decisions every turn - no thank you. (No disparagement of any beautiful Pickett's Charge game intended, it's just not for me.) I want options, choices, the chance to make an actual plan and see it succeed or fail. I don't want everything straitjacketed and railroaded and all the important decisions already made for me in how the game is set up.

It's a cracker! Specifically - the Rolf Krake.

1/600 model of Denmark's 1864 ironclad, scratchbuilt by Crispin for his Dybbøl/Als game.

Therefore, when I was creating the scenarios for the "Bloody Big European Battles!" companion volume to the BBB rules, I was confronted by a conundrum. The major action in the Second Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864 was the Prussian storming of the Danish redoubts at Dybbøl, aka Düppel. This war had to be covered in the book, so this battle had to be there. Not counting the preliminary bombardment, it lasted three and a half hours, costing thousands of casualties, but can essentially be boiled down to this: Prussians storm the line of redoubts; Danish reserve brigade counterattacks; Prussians commit reserves in return; Danes surrender.

That really didn't appeal to me as a game. Perhaps there could be some tactical decisions for the Danes about whether/when/how individual battalions should fall back from the redoubts, or where/when/how to move the individual battalions of the reserve brigade. For the Prussians, perhaps some nuance about which battalion attacks which redoubt, or how to exploit success, and where/when/how to commit reserve battalions. But for a big battle game that should be about manoeuvring entire brigades or divisions and that should generate some ebb and flow ... there just wasn't enough there.

So what to do? I found salvation in the battle's prelude and aftermath: the minor outpost skirmishes in the two months before it, then the amphibious invasion of the island of Als two months later. These were not worth a BBB scenario in themselves - Als cost the Prussians fewer than 400 casualties - but they offered an opportunity to shape the actual assault on Dybbøl, to give it context and consequences, and (most importantly) to give the players on both sides more scope for decisions and manoeuvre.

It was feasible to fit all these actions on a single 6'x4' table at the modest scale of 1700m per foot. I therefore decided to treat them as three linked phases of the same scenario: Outposts Stage; Redoubts Stage; and Als Invasion Stage. Prussian numbers make Danish military defeat virtually inevitable. The trick to making it a challenge was to put the Prussians under time pressure with a turn limit. The idea is that the Danes are trying to buy time for the other great powers to intervene and lean on Prussia and Austria to call their dogs off. Thus, for each stage I set certain objectives the Prussians have to take before moving on to the next: e.g., if they overrun the outposts swiftly, they gain time for a more methodical assault on the redoubts, etc. Ultimately, they have to take all the objectives within 10 turns to win or 11 to draw; otherwise, they lose.

Crispin made a custom battlemat and rolled it out for us at OWS last week. Luke, Ben and John fancied defending the Danish cause, so Mark, Dave W and I took the Prussians. AAR in three captioned photos below, followed by some reflections.

Looking southeast across the battlefield. Top left is the island of Als, separated from the mainland by the Alssund. Pontoon bridge top centre links it to the high ground defended by the Dybbøl redoubts (the light green strips with gun embrasures). White counters mark the objectives. Prussians are marching on from bottom left and bottom right. One lone Danish brigade is forward in the lowest wood on the right; two more in the villages behind it; the other Danish division in the redoubts.

Mark commanded our left. As time was critical, his sensible advice was that we should ignore and bypass the forward brigade initially, press ahead as fast as possible, and let it be tackled by our follow-on forces arriving on Turns 2 & 3. However, I could not resist getting my jaegers into action , so I let two of my brigades get involved in a fight in the woods immediately. I did bypass with the other two, but carelessly failed to bring them on as far east as I could have.

My carelessness was compounded by a spate of dismal movement rolls across the Prussian army. One turn I rolled 2, 2 and 3 for three of my brigades, which therefore failed to move at all, while Mark did little better. Consequently, I think it took us 5 turns to take all the Outposts and be able to move on to the Redoubts Stage.

First Prussian assault on the redoubts. Our massed siege guns line the hill in the foreground. We outnumber the Danes about 4:1. The pic isn't big enough to fit all the Prussians in. The good news for the Danes is that the tardy Rolf Krake has finally got up steam and is raking the German attackers. That plus kind dice meant it took two goes before we could break into the redoubts. Turns 6 and 7 gone - we really needed to clear the remaining Danish brigade off the hill in Turn 8.

Keeping the red flag flying! That blue counter and Dannebrog flag belong to the last unit of the Redoubts garrison, a Spent 2-base Danish brigade, being assaulted by four Prussian brigades. It was swept aside, of course. However, the clock die reveals that it had survived the crucial Turn 8 the turn before, as most of our troops failed to get the movement they needed to reach it, and Danish fire stalled those that did.

We moved on to the Als Invasion Stage. We knew we needed at least two turns of movement to reach the Als objectives, so with nine turns gone it was impossible for us to take them on Turn 10 to win. A draw was still possible if fortune favoured us a little. But Lady Luck was against us - one more turn and we would have done it, but we had failed, and victory went to the gallant Danes.

Reflections:

It's a micro-campaign! I'm rather proud of the scenario structure. My Reflections on Wargaming essay on "Changing Situations Mid-Game" didn't mention this scenario, but probably should have. The three stages give two opportunities to reset and they create repeated peaks of excitement in between, as the Prussians try desperately to complete each stage and the Danes try to fend them off. The Danes also have important decisions about how many troops to commit and where during the first two stages. All told, it definitely has more options and more replay value than a straight assault would have.

Mistakes in Deployment are not Easily Rectified. Isn't that a von Moltke saying? Maybe Moltke the Younger in 1914? Anyway, I managed to prove it right this time. By letting myself be distracted by one irrelevant outpost brigade, I cost our advance precious time that we could never recoup.

The Maritime Dimension. Having a naval element in the game - in this case, the Rolf Krake (loved it) and then the crossing of the Alssund (albeit that is basically abstracted) - enhances both the aesthetic and the game interest. 

Right and Wrong Ways to Divide Command. On the German side, we didn't divide very sensibly: Mark on the left had a clear sector to himself, but on the right, I had the leading forces while Dave took the ones arriving on Turns 2 & 3 in the same sector. I'm sure that contributed to my carelessness. By contrast, the three Danish players decided they didn't have enough troops to divide up, so they made the interesting decision to divide command by time instead, each of them commanding in a different stage of the game (except Luke got the Rolf Krake throughout as his stage was going to be the shortest). This meant they always had unified command and therefore a clearer, more focused approach, vindicated by victory.

Yes, Assaulting Redoubts Can Make a Good Game! (To answer my own question in the headline.) It was a rocking good time, complete with whoops of success, cries of woe and wails of dismay. Even though the Danish force was largely wiped out, the Danish players greeted each turn that they survived with jubilation. Happy days!