Home › Forums › Horse and Musket › General Horse and Musket › Stolberg’s Death Ride: pivotal moments in wargames
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vtsaogames.
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01/12/2023 at 08:00 #192978
Chris Pringle
ParticipantOur game of the Franco-Prussian War battle of Loigny/Poupry (1870) set me to musing on the ‘pivotal moment’: that crucial decision, big event, critical roll of the dice mid-game that changes the whole course of the battle and where it could all have gone so differently. My thoughts here, along with some pics of a pretty winter battlefield.
01/12/2023 at 14:28 #192988
Darkest Star GamesParticipantIt would be nice if you could setup the game again to the point where your cavalry charged and see what the result would have been had they succeeded. Maybe too much metagaming would occur based upon other actions from the first go, so it might not work. But, it’d be an interesting exercise.
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
02/12/2023 at 07:17 #192998ParticipantThanks, DSG. Well, even without setting it up again, I can confidently say that without that artillery, the French would not have repelled my assault on Lumeau, so we’d have got a draw. Depending what further havoc my cavalry managed to wreak, it might have been enough to save the Bavarians in Loigny as well and earn us a win. We have the battlemat and the game photos, so it wouldn’t be hard to reset that pivotal moment … but there’s always another battle to fight, another game to play.
Next stop: Chickamauga!
04/12/2023 at 14:54 #193035Darkest Star GamesParticipantWe have the battlemat and the game photos, so it wouldn’t be hard to reset that pivotal moment …
I’d love to see someone do a series of games where they do this, go back to that one moment and see how it could go if there was a rewind button.
Next stop: Chickamauga!
Woa, now there’s a little bit of a venue jump!
"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."
05/12/2023 at 07:43 #193057ParticipantWe have the battlemat and the game photos, so it wouldn’t be hard to reset that pivotal moment …
I’d love to see someone do a series of games where they do this, go back to that one moment and see how it could go if there was a rewind button.
Well, we kind of do that already. We nearly always play historical scenarios, and we often replay them. Replays are a rewind of a sort that let you make different decisions and try different plans. I wrote a whole very popular blog post about this, ‘Replaying scenarios: pros and cons‘.
Next stop: Chickamauga!
Woa, now there’s a little bit of a venue jump!
They’re only six years apart, and it’s another big horse and musket battle. The terrain is much more heavily wooded, though. Maybe that’s why in last night’s Chickamauga game there was no one pivotal moment but intense fighting and ebb and flow across the whole front in that one. Still some remarkable moments in a great game. I’ll write it up soon.
06/12/2023 at 18:28 #193130
vtsaogamesParticipantThe BBB Chickamauga scenario is great. Due to the table being all woods with the odd clearing here and there, it turns into a bunch of separate small, desperate battles.
Last time I played Loigny years back, it made the tin undertakers very happy.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood
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