Historic battles

[martin goddard]

I will do a couple of historic battle scenarios for CK.

They will be interesting to play, but can only vaguely be any reflection on the real battle.

Many battle refights have been published for many rules but they are only capable of "touching" the situation.
"Touching" is usually good enough for a pleasant game. But no one should claim their refight is just like the real thing.


The important facets of a real battle are :-

1. The Commander's personality/knowledge.
2.What has been happening leading up to the battle.

Without being able to replicate these, the scenario is compromised to a degree.


However a battle will still be enjoyable?


martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

I think the battle scenarios are a nice feature of certain RFCM rules (e.g. Bloody Barons, Hammerin' Iron...). They also allow the option of offering smaller battles that are more readily accessible to folk as they build up their forces, rather than having to complete a full army.

Simon

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Some of the greatest works of historical fiction are those by ancient historians reimagining events often a century after they took place so you will be in good company with any tabletop recreation.

It is hard to see how Crassus's 7 legions with no cavalry to speak of could ever win against Surena's all-cavalry Parthian army in the open...

If Byrthnoth had not been an honourable man (and said in best Anglo-Saxon "f*** this for a game of soldiers just shoot the b*****s") history would have been quite different but without arguably some of the best poetry of the early Medieval period...

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

No the older, Greek historian, Makesitallupedoes...
and the host of unnamed Medieval copyists who mistranslated and mangled older texts generation after generation. If they can't even agree on the correct number of the beast 666 or 616 (surely something more in their wheelhouse?!) how can we expect them to know exactly how many people fought so-and-so, when and where...
People often 'bigged up' the opposition to make a victory sound more resounding, or exaggerated how few men they had or outright neglected to mention allies who fought alongside them (ignoring the Mexicans who fought alongside the Texicans at the Alamo or the Prussians omitted from Cpt. Siborne's tableau of Waterloo). Just rounding up to the nearest hundred can be escalated like Chinese whispers over generations of retelling.
Take the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. They fought alongside 700 Thespians, and probably 900 Helots and 400 Thebans as well. That make's Leonidas' force just 13% of the manpower... For the Thespians, the Spartans were just too tough an act to follow...

[simmo2]

Well I think recreating a historical battle is an important measure for a set of rules. There was a recent set which couldn't reproduce the ' Cannae effect' so had to include an amendment. I see no reason why C&K can't look to do this. After all we have Phil Sabin's Lost Battle book. The battles in his book can be easily lifted as they are laid out in a grid format. Hmmm thinking about it, the battles on the Command and colors could also be tried. Here's Cannae

https://www.commandsandcolors.net/ancients/maps/60-second-punic-war-218-202-bc/260-007-cannae-216-bc.html

Quite an impressive list of battles
https://www.commandsandcolors.net/ancients/maps/scenario-list.html

Martyn S

[martin goddard]

Those are great resources Martyn.
The narrative is good too. Not too complicated.
Thanks

martin