Big Battle Skirmish?

[irishserb]

So, I’m curious…

I was introduced to miniatures gaming from about 1978, and the majority of games that I came into contact with back then (roughly two-thirds), used individually mounted figs, assigned values to individual figures, and resolved their actions (shooting, movement, etc.) individually.  Eventually, I came to thing of this style of rules as being “skirmish style”.  None of these games were presented as what we think of today as a “skirmish” game, with one exception they all had hundreds of figs, and the exception was probably upwards of 80 figs each side.

Over the years, I’ve played a tremendous variety of games, and rules with various levels of management, organization, and command, and since the early 1990s, I slowly weeded out all of my games, rules and periods that involved non-skirmish style, and above 6mm (which I have mounted at squad level, and am considering selling off) now have only individually mounted armies, that I use to game “skirmish style” , but not “skirmish Level” games.

Since my introduction to miniatures gaming, and as soon as we had figs to do it, we gamed “big battles” with skirmish style rules.  In this case, I am using “big battles” to refer to large numbers of figs on the table with skirmish style rules in use, which seemed to be the preference of all of the members of our group through the 1980s, and for those of us who still game together, through the modern day.  I’m guessing that we never exceeded more than around 2000 figs in any of these battles, and more typically use 200-800 figs on tables ranging 6’x9′ to 7’x16′.

Now I have been schooled, several times very recently in fact (really part of  the reason for my asking the question), that this is not the right or proper way to play toy soldiers, especially with skirmish style rules; supposed to played with 5-30 figs, loses context, too much control, no fog of war, outdated idea/rules, takes too long, can’t be done,  and otherwise just sucks to do/makes your head explode, etc., etc.  I understand that, and please just accept that I’m damaged, play this way, complete my games in an afternoon, and enjoy it.

My question is… does anybody else play large games (by figure count) this way?  Do you use what you could call a skirmish style game for more than squad or platoon by modern standards?  Or, is my and my old group’s experience and gaming style rare?

[MartinR]

I am the diametric opposite. I stopped playing single figure ‘big battle’ type games in the late 1970s, the last being Middle Earth games. I’d already moved to elements for WW2 and Napoleonics some years before (thank you WRG).

Whether my experience is typical or not, I don’t know, but most people at the club only play skirmish type games with small numbers of figures. But its a hobby not a job, so whatever floats your boat.

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Rhoderic]

So, many hundreds of figures, sometimes close to a thousand, each resolving actions individually? No die rolling in groups, no movement in cohesive units?

There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I am however impressed as hell. Perhaps I need some schooling because it instinctively strikes me as impracticable, but I take your word for it that it isn’t.

[Victoria Dickson]

irishserb wrote:

Now I have been schooled, several times very recently in fact (really part of the reason for my asking the question), that this is not the right or proper way to play toy soldiers, especially with skirmish style rules; supposed to played with 5-30 figs, loses context, too much control, no fog of war, outdated idea/rules, takes too long, can’t be done, and otherwise just sucks to do/makes your head explode, etc., etc. I understand that, and please just accept that I’m damaged, play this way, complete my games in an afternoon, and enjoy it.

Not the right way?  Methinks the person schooling you takes the hobby too seriously.

If you are having fun you are doing it the right way, the only wrong way is if you don’t enjoy it.

I’m sort of heading to what you do with my current voyage of discovery into Dan Mersey’s rules.  If I had the numbers of figures you do and the table size I’d be there already.  🙂

 

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

There’s absolutely nothing wrong in the way you play your games, Irishserb. In my mind a ‘skirmish level’ game means that each figure on the table represents one person. I think they’re quite popular now for economic and space considerations. Not much money and not much table space needed.

On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d call your preferred games ‘skirmish style’. The word ‘skirmish’ comes with a certain context these days and I think that’s where the confusion comes from. To me, what you do sounds like ‘old school’, per figure determination. It’s a perfectly viable way of handling the mechanics of the game and tracking strength. The individual figures probably represent more than one person and that’s fine. There may be no actual correlation between figures and ‘real life’ soldiers. It’s an abstraction. Reminds me of TSR’s ‘Chainmail’ and similar games of the 1970s – 1980s.

If you like it, go with it.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Blackhat]

I agree that I wouldn’t call those games Skirmish Games – they are simply old school style “roll a dice for each man” style a la Featherstone or Wesencraft…

Mike

 

[Noel]

We all like different things.

That’s actually really great.

 

[willz]

It sounds fun, as long as you enjoy it,  There is no right way or wrong way, its all about what you and your group gets out of the experience.

In the real world of war how many generals plan for a skirmish and end up with a large scale battle or vice versa.  I was just skim reading some old Miniature war games or Wargames illustrated prior to reading this and the article was all about playing skirmish games with lots of figures and large battles with a small number of figures.  I shall go and re-read them in detail now.

Happy gaming.

[Rhoderic]

Blackhat wrote:

they are simply old school style “roll a dice for each man” style

Is this “all at once, roll a die for each figure involved in the given situation” (where the given situation is a combat, a morale check or something such involving a whole group of figures), or “roll a die to resolve one figure’s individual action, and proceed to do so for each figure one at a time until all individual actions have been resolved”? I took irishserb to be talking about the latter, given the following:

irishserb wrote:

…and resolved their actions (shooting, movement, etc.) individually.

If we’re talking about “buckets of dice” style gameplay where each figure gets to contribute a die to the bucket, I don’t think that qualifies as resolving actions individually. The actions of numerous figures become interchangeable and muddled together into a kind of “mean aggregate” where, for instance, one no longer has to keep track of which individual shooter is aiming at which individual target. That is, assuming a system of colour-coded dice or something similar isn’t in use and being utilised to its fullest, most complex potential. It may still qualify as skirmish gaming (I’m ambivalent as to what exactly that term delineates), but surely it isn’t skirmish gaming with individually resolved actions? I don’t mean to sound like I’m enforcing a definition, but, well… by what reasoning are actions to be seen as resolved individually in a “buckets of dice” system? I don’t see it.

Of course, I may have misunderstood, and no one was talking about buckets of dice at all.

[Mike]

When I started wargaming it was with WFB.
You would say have a unit that was 10 figures wide and 3 figures deep.

When that front rank of 10 figures got into HTH you would roll for the first figure and see if it hit, then see if it caused a wound, then the other player would roll to see if their armour saved them.
Then you would move onto the second figure in that front rank and do the same and so on, working your way through that first rank.
Some figures, such as those with long pointy sticks meant the second rank could fight, so you would do the same again for the second rank.
Each figure in HTH could result in 3 rolls for that figure alone.
So 2 ranks of pointy sticks could result in 60 die rolls in theory.

This in my mind is not skirmish gaming as you could indeed have a ‘full army’ on the table.

[Deleted User]

Those 12 figures, mounted in 4s on 3 bases, are the equivalent of a battalion of Napoleonic French some 500 men strong.

Whereas those 12 Khaki Devils, mounted individually on washers, represent a platoon of British infantry in the Sudan: ie representing  12 actual men.

Hmmm. Like much of wargaming, whether you’re fighting Waterloo or a messy little skirmish involving a handful of soldiers depends on your perspective.

As for rolling dice for each figure or each unit; I think that really depends on speed of play versus the amount of gaming detail you desire.

We’d all agree wargaming is primarily an act of imagination. What you “see” when your figures are placed on the table is up to you.

 

donald

 

[irishserb]

Thinking about this further today, the thing that surprised me, was that in discussing this with guys my age or older, say 50-70 years old for the most part.  They qualified my gaming style as being skirmish, and almost uniformly shared that they had never experienced or  didn’t remember “old school’ games along the lines of what I described.  The general perspective shared was that my style of game was a mutated version of contemporary skirmish gaming, and that it was a relatively recent manifestation.  This was very surprising to me.

Most of the guys seemed to have an agenda, or at least a view that these new skirmish games were less “valid” (for lack of a better term) than classic big battle games.  Which I don’t really care about.  My comments about not playing right, were more about not getting into a series of posts by those who might similarly have the need to set me straight.

[irishserb]

@Rhoderic, Regarding cohesive unit movment, it really depends on the specific rules and period.  Generally in and my old groups homebrew rules, a unit is rewarded for functioning as a unit.  In my WWII to modern era a unit benefits from following doctrine and maintaining cohesion by gaining benefits from leadership, and being more resilient in managing casualties, morale, etc.  As a unit breaks down into smaller groups, whether a company functions as independent platoons, or a squad breaks into fire teams or less, leaders impact smaller groups of men, i.e., leadership only benefits the men still attached to the leader, and casualties more rapidly take away initiative, and steadfastness among other things.  So unit cohesion does matter, but the mechanics can allow every fig to do something different if the player wants.

@ Victoria, regarding not playing right, my approach is simply that you should game whatever you enjoy.  In my case, I tend to enjoy skirmish and otherwise, games that use a 1 to 1 representation of figs to troops, but I can enjoy and appreciate games that are outside of my favorite.  I suspect that my preference is a function of that which most reminds me of playing plastic army men, when I was a kid. Those were always good times.

[Altius]

irishserb wrote:

Thinking about this further today, the thing that surprised me, was that in discussing this with guys my age or older, say 50-70 years old for the most part. They qualified my gaming style as being skirmish, and almost uniformly shared that they had never experienced or didn’t remember “old school’ games along the lines of what I described. The general perspective shared was that my style of game was a mutated version of contemporary skirmish gaming, and that it was a relatively recent manifestation. This was very surprising to me.

I started wargaming as a boy in the late ‘70s also. No “agenda” here, but I don’t remember many games like what you’re describing. In fact, pushing around anything more than, say, 50 individually based figures per side just seems unfeasible, but I’m sure that’s just my opinion. If I had to move that many figures, I’d immediately think of basing them in groups.

At that time, I was playing a lot of napoleonics and medievals, but we generally based them on popsicle sticks. I did a little WWII skirmish gaming at that time (one figure = one man) but the games involved maybe at most a dozen figures per side and you’d play with one figure.

Nowadays, I’m a big believer in group basing. I’ve got very little that’s based individually. But I’m a strong believer that there is no wrong way to game, and if you enjoy it, go with it.

Where there is fire, we will carry gasoline

[Phil Dutré]

After 30 years of wargaming, I still don’t know what “skirmish game” means.

For me, it sort of means “a game with 10 to 50 figures, each figure is individually based, and can move and act independently, and can often do more actions than simply move-shoot-melee.”

But I have learned over the years that “skirmish game” might mean many different things to different people … 😉

I guess it might be determined by how you got introduced into the hobby. The first formative years often shape your wargaming mind in terms of terminology and conventions. For me that was roleplaying games and early Warhammer …

[Shaun Travers]

A long time ago (late 70s, early 80s) when I first got into wargaming, we used to play WW2 Tractics this way with about 100 Airfix figures and about a dozen tanks a side, on a table tennis table.  You roll a die for each soldier firing.  Great fun.  We never really called it skirmish gaming as it was the only WW2 gaming we did at the time!

Nowadays, I would play with only about 30-40 figures a side on the same sized table so I would say I do not do it anymore.

I think of skirmish-type gaming when you have singly based figures that you tend to roll a die for each one, so skirmish can be anything from a few figures a side up to hundreds.  But that is just my internal label and I don’t really use it in conversation as skirmish means so many things to so many people.  To me there is no right or wrong way to play with miniatures, whether skirmish, stands, movement trays, size, scale, or table width and depth. It is weird to think that there is a wrong way to have fun playing with toy soldiers.

[irishserb]

A lot of the terms that gamers use are ambiguous.  For example, I’ve seen games referred to as “company level” where it means that company sized formations are the smallest element in the game, and others where it is the largest.  We’ve all seen the chaos that any reference to the term “scale” without  a stated ratio can cause.  And in this case, I used the term “skirmish” to describe the styles of rules mechanics, as opposed to the scope of a game, which is probably its most frequent use.

In the real world, if you say a skirmish took place, I tend to thing of it as an often inadvertent encounter between small numbers of two forces.  Generally low intensity with few casualties.

Of those early games that introduced me to the hobby, the only set of rules I remember by name is Heritage’s Panzer Troops, a set of rules for 15mm  miniatures.  They were the last of the rules introduced to me, before I started playing miniatures regularly.  We played them for about a year and a half, before moving on to other things circa 1981-82.  The names of those other introductory rules (for me) are unfortunately lost in time.

[Mike]

irishserb wrote:

In the real world, if you say a skirmish took place, I tend to thing of it as an often inadvertent encounter between small numbers of two forces.  Generally low intensity with few casualties.

It is a funny old thing, you could probably argue that some Napoleonic battles with thousands of troops are skirmishes when compared to the bigger battles with many tens of thousands?

[Author]

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