Battle of Beaver Dam Creek 1862

[Norm S]

This boardgame went onto the table last night. Playing the first scenario (Beaver Dam Creek) sees a small engagement last just 6 turns long that involves three divisions per side.

The Union are behind the creek, a fairly formidable obstacle for the Confederates to assault across.

On one of the forums, the designer has said that this is a tough one for the Confederates and it is, but never-the-less gives engaging play to both sides.

There are 8 scenarios all together, covering the 4 major engagements of the Seven Days Battles 1862.

I have done a bit of a write-up on the blog if interested. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-seven-days-battles-1862.html 

[hammurabi70]

Very interesting.  Which is better: cardboard or some miniatures and a set of rules like Bloody Big Battles?

www.olivercromwell.org; www.battlefieldstrust.com
6mm wargames group: [email protected]; 2mm wargames group: [email protected]

[Norm S]

Discuss :-).

I do both, generally each is doing a different job for me. I used boardgames for a higher strategic level and figures for their aesthetic when looking at divisional or smaller actions, so they can complement each other rather than compete.

Sometimes I come across a really interesting situation in a boardgame and record it, so I can also play it out on the tabletop later.

One advantage of figures is that IF one was able to have just 1 set of go to rules, then you can pretty much do any action while becoming very familiar with one ruleset, whereas in boardgames you might have to visit several systems to get the coverage of games you like and that means several rulebooks.

one advantage of boardgames is that if you want to a big battle with every road, stream and settlement present, while accurately show every elevation you can, without any compromise.

solution …. Do both 🙂

 

[hammurabi70]

Norm S wrote:

Discuss :-).

Yes.

The glib answers:
(a) Depends on what the player wants
(b) Both

As you have started discussing, the deeper query is what do people think the merits of each one is.  I am interested to see what people think as I have the impression that there is something of a convergence between cardboard and miniatures gaming systems.

www.olivercromwell.org; www.battlefieldstrust.com
6mm wargames group: [email protected]; 2mm wargames group: [email protected]

[Norm S]

There is certainly a greater convergence of interest in that there is a growing body of people who collect and play both, compared to 30 – 40 years ago, when the two camps were much more insulated from each other, one tended to one or the other, not both – of course that may have been a money thing because budgets were very tight for a lot of ordinary folk.

Back in the lates 80’s and early 90’s, a bloke called Clive Lane was writing articles on using hexes with figure games, which was the first time that I saw a physical correlation between the two genres. Kallistra have based their manufacturing capability of hex based terrain and tied the 4” hex to their 12mm figure scale.

Some boardgames, such as Memoire ‘44 have used a hex board, but with plastic vehicles and infantry and there seems quite a lot of activity with Command & Colors fans converting the blocks in their games to hexes and figures on the table.

The boardgame Panzer (tactical WWII) published by Yaquinto in late 70’s was converted fully to a figures tabletop system and then later in 2015, GMT converted it back to a boardgame.

There seem to be plenty of figure gamers around that recall owning and playing the boardgame Panzerblitz from the late 70’s. So have people dabbled in both genres at different times or is there a (growing) body of gamers that are comfortable slipping between figure and boardgames and have both in their collections and has the playing of computer games been an influence in that?

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