Is everything pre-Napoleon really linear and limited?

[Hertsblue]

A cursory examination of Frederick the Great's battles would cure anyone of the notion that "linear tactics", so called, consisted solely of two rows of infantry blazing away futilely at each other. Rossbach and Leuthen both involved daring and superbly executed flank marches that enabled him to attack a small part of the enemy's force with all of his own. Conversely, his defeat at Hochkirk was the result of a brilliantly effective concentric attack by the Austrians. At Leignitz and Torgau Old Fritz actually split his army, using one part to hold off one enemy while the other dealt with the rest. Napoleon, himself, was a great admirer of Frederick, a fact that speaks for itself.

The problem is not that linear tactics are uninteresting, but that wargamers exhibit a "convention" mentality, where all units must be posted end to end and parallel to the baseline. Try re-fighting some of Frederick's battles (or Marlborough's or Charles XII's) and you'll find that there is as much tactical flexibility as the so-called "impusle armies". After all, how many battles did Wellington lose?   

   

[FierceKitty]

Leuthen was dam' near the perfect battle. It didn't depend on a stupid enemy, or on one weak in technology or discipline.

[irregularwars]

"Anything pre-Napoleon" I would assume to be just that.

Indeed. Otherwise the original post would have gone a long the lines of: "Hey guys, 18th century warefare is pretty boring innit?" But it didn't.

[barbarian]

I'd say it depends on the scale of representation you use.
WWII can be played at skirmish level, company level, battalion, armies...
Each has a different appeal, and you can ignore the range of a rifle if you play at big scales and only consider Arty and Air as long range weapons.

It depends of your ruleset and mainly on the number of troops you deploy on a fixed table size :
Any period can be pretty boring if you fill your table with troops from one end to another.

In the end, I don't play history, I play my representation of history (mainly based on "bad" movies in my case) : I have a fantasy of what the WWII eastern front should be (lots of tanks) and put it on the table because I like the idea.

[Chris Pringle]

Thanks very much for all the interesting, well-informed and informative replies so far. I'll try to respond to them all, but it may take me more than one message. First, a reminder of perhaps my key point, which I made from the perspective of a tabletop wargamer, wanting the situation to change each turn and to present me with interesting choices each turn:

"realistically the interesting decisions a PNW general has to make are limited to pre-battle ones ... The decisions a PNW general can make during the battle are more limited: - When/where to commit the second line / reserve?"

@fsn: surely Lake Trasimene supports my case? The interesting bit happens in setting up the ambush. Then the ambusher's line falls upon the ambushee's (disjointed and disadvantaged) line. From that point it's just an exercise in rolling dice to see who escapes the massacre. Realistically, what are the significant in-game choices either player is going to get to make?

@fsn: absolutely agree, variety of troop types is fascinating, their asymmetric interactions can be interesting, setting up your line to get the best match-ups and win the rock-scissors-paper contests is an art. I just don't think the in-game decisions are that interesting.

@fsn: absolutely agree not all C19 or C20 conflicts make for interesting decisions either, WWI trench warfare being the prime example. BUT generally speaking, C19 / C20 produces much more interesting in-game decisions (for me).

@Maenoferren: I'm talking about proper battles, not skirmish, and I think FIW counts as skirmish. Nothing wrong with PNW skirmish if skirmish is your thing.

@paulr: really?

@getagrip: nice colours matter, aesthetics matter, I approve of pretty armies. Ideally I'd like a game to offer me good-looking armies AND interesting decisions. If it's a choice, I'll take the latter.

@Fig.ht: Gaugamela again supports my case, I think. Two armies line up facing each other on a billiard table. Some preliminary skirmishing by chariots and cavalry fighting on the wings. Alexander commits his reserve and goes right-flanking and wins. That's it. Where's the ebb and flow and the interesting in-game decisions for players?

@irregularwars: tunnel vision? Possibly. I'm probably jaundiced by years of watching our tournament gamers first with WRG, then with DBM and DBR, now with FOG and FOGR, playing what looks like exactly the same stereotyped formulaic linear game. I could be conflating PNW battles with tournament games and unfairly attributing the vices of one to the other. Perhaps if people at the club played some more imaginative PNW games I'd see out of my tunnel. On the other hand, could it be that the stereotyped formulaic linear nature of PNW lends itself to tournament games?

@irregularwars: Leuktra another that supports my case, surely? Theban innovation consists of pre-battle decision about how to line up the line-up, and to attack in echelon. Two decisions. Where's the in-game interest?

@irregularwars: Macedonian warfare I don't know about. Can you cite a battle? Or is it skirmish action?

@irregularwars: I'm not claiming the armies aren't varied and fascinating. I love chariots and elephants and camelry as much as the next man. It's just that the battles they fight in generate relatively limited in-game decisions for a player.

@irregularwars: Glenmalure and Ford of the Biscuits I would discount as skirmishes, but Kinsale looks as though it could be interesting to play - basically because it is a fluid battle with reinforcements arriving to change the situation, rather than the usual line-out. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm going to stop (pause) there. I do intend to reply to later messages as well when I get a chance. Thanks again for all the responses, and please do keep them coming.

Chris

[Maenoferren]

@Maenoferren: I'm talking about proper battles, not skirmish, and I think FIW counts as skirmish. Nothing wrong with PNW skirmish if skirmish is your thing.

Fair point however, I would argue that the people getting shot at wouldn't really see the difference

[Leman]

Know nothing about tactics but it's dead pretty.

[Ithoriel]

Chris,

I'd say my main disagreement with what you say is that you seem to think Napoleonic warfare and onwards is any different.

All wars in all eras are basically lining up troops and hoping your men hit harder, fire faster or stand fast longer than the enemy.

The real decisions are, as you say, taken long before the day of battle. Things like training, equipment and supply happen (or don't!) well before the day of decision and are merely manifestations of the political, moral, religious, etc., etc. ethos of the society they represent.

In the 5000 years or so of historical warfare I'm not sure anything has changed except the hardware. I've seen nothing to suggest that the average conscript with an AK-47 runs faster, fights harder or obeys orders any better than a conscript spearmen turning out to fight for his Sumerian god. Armies may be bigger, death may come from further afar but the decision on where to apply air-power or when to loose the "donkey carts" don't seem to me to be intrinsically more interesting to game.

Besides, lining up the troops is only part of the story, the best match-up can still result in your overconfident elite getting roughly handled by some grubby peasants at which point you need to decide how to plug a gap in the line. I'm happy to make a game out of those sort of decisions.

Deciding whether loosing the reserves now is too early or if you are saving them for a future your army doesn't have seems to me a worthwhile thing to game.

Hmm, this has turned out to be a longer ramble than I intended!

[Westmarcher]

Had a brief look at this yesterday. Had a long think. Looked at it again today to offer my own thoughts and ... crikey ... the discussions have certainly moved on apace since! I agree with what a lot of the guys have said (FK, Last Hussar, Upgraydd and many more) so apologies for covering old ground.

Anything and everything you say, Chris? Well, I've given this Deep Thought and I think the answer is 17.*

Such an all encompassing question (you scamp).  I have good fun playing SYW/WAS and ACW. These are eras which straddle the Napoleonic Wars yet, in your generalised characterisation for PNW, my decisions are essentially the same.

Arguably, most set piece battles are linear regardless of era; table-top games more so. Hastings; linear. El Alamein; linear. Even, Waterloo. We line up our forces on one edge and the other player does the same on the opposite edge. On a featureless table, two lines facing each other can look very boring. Throw in terrain that disrupts, impedes or splits opposing forces and it starts getting more interesting. Then throw in objectives, late arrivals, flank attacks, etc. and you have lots of options and decisions.

I confess I have my preconceptions of various eras no doubt influenced in part by Hollywood, line 'em up wargames, general histories, the preconceptions of other rules designers and poor research on my part.  The more I read about 18th century warfare, the more I am amazed how tactically aware, how more mobile and less rigid they actually were and when I read what they actually got up to, I realise that some wargame rules don't allow this to happen (and, in so doing, perpetuating misconceptions). 

Therefore, I would say less options do not necessarily mean less fun with good scenario design and greater knowledge of our chosen eras being the key to getting more fun out of our games.


*based on the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything (of course).

[getagrip]

Hmm, this has turned out to be a longer ramble than I intended!

But an erudite one.  Agree with all of this Ithoriel

[Fenton]

I remember reading in a SCiFi novel which I think was a Renegade Legion one by FASA where one of the characters says something along  the lines of

" No matter how much of a sweeping advance of classic pincer movement the generals do on their fancy maps, all it means to us on the ground is that we go head to head with the enemy"

Not sure how that helps but I hadnt written anything on this thread yet

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

No help at all really, and neither had I !!!

IanS

[cbr3d.com]

Chris, may I suggest you look at Gaugamela again as I think you have misinterpreted the battle almost entirely.

As it is others have commented that nearly all battles, irrespective of period, can be classed as a linear battle whereby troops are lined up against the enemy positions in either an offensive or defensive mode, or indeed both.  The 'linear' effect held by army positions is just the jump off point of a battle.

[Westmarcher]

Fenton and Ianrs     

.... sorry ... trying to be serious again ....

Fig.ht  - good point (seriously).

[Zippee]

i think whether a game lacks decision nodes is a function of the rules, style of play and the granularity of the representation.

Leuthen for instance may indeed have grand manouvres and outflanking but they don't show up if you've got a wargame based on fielding 6 battalions.

This granularity has already been acknowledged in terms of FIW and skirmish games - different periods generate decisions at different points on that axis.

Additionally Chris's point about rules is, I think, telling - I can play DBx or FOG ancients and it's very much rock-paper-scissors with the majority of decisions made as Chris points out. When I play Impetus, however, the decisions are continuous throughout the game. Both are PNW, both have similar granularity in terms of numbers and representation but the rules give a very different game. I know which I prefer.

18th century is the prime candidate for PNW "line 'em up games" - so Maurice gives a card deck to replicate events and command decisions so that we have decisions to make about how to orchestrate the force under command. Other rules (not all of course) offer a bland decisionless arena of musketry and morale dice rolls.

Style of play is also a factor - how many Napoleonic games have you seen with tables groaning under hordes of units mushed shoulder-to-shoulder with no room to manouvre and no alternative to head-on collision stand-fight-die dice fests. If there's no room to manouvre and no option other than to step forward and roll dice then there are no decisions to be made.

So in short I don't think it's the period - it's the rules used, the style of play adopted and the granularity of the command level we're engaging with that produces a good (decisions) game or a dull (no decision) game

[Luddite]

As it is others have commented that nearly all battles, irrespective of period, can be classed as a linear battle whereby troops are lined up against the enemy positions in either an offensive or defensive mode, or indeed both.  The 'linear' effect held by army positions is just the jump off point of a battle.

Absolutely.  My previous comment echoed this view.  When you look past the period specific 'tools of the trade', there isn't much difference.

Roman soldier
1.  Advance to contact on the front line
2.  Use available arms to drive off the enemy.
3.  Back to camp for wine and medals.

Napoleonic soldier
1.  Advance to contact on the front line
2.  Use available arms to drive off the enemy.
3.  Back to camp for grog and medals.

WWII soldier
1.  Advance to contact on the front line
2.  Use available arms to drive off the enemy.
3.  Back to camp for tea and medals.

Space marine
1.  Advance to contact on the front line
2.  Use available arms to drive off the enemy.
3.  Back to camp for prayers and medals.

The only real difference i can see is armoud no.2

The Roman uses a sword (with balista support)
The Napoleonic soldier uses a bayonet and musket (with smoothbore cannon support)
The WWII soldier uses bayonet and rifle (with a whole slew of support from MGs to Flying Fortresses)
The space marine uses chainsword and bolter (with all manner of support)

So bringing it to the substantive point - that in a wargame there are more tactical decisions that need to be ade 'post-linear', for me doesn't really stack up.  I make very similar choices when playing DBM as i do when playing Bolt Action.  

'How do i bolster the failing point in my line?  How do a reinforce my successful attack? Where can i get a dice that doesn't roll '1'?'

[getagrip]

You forgot:

1)  Advance to contact on the front line.
2)  Served a cease and desist order by GW.
3)  Err....

[Leman]

So where does my matchstick firing cannon fit in?

[Luddite]

So where does my matchstick firing cannon fit in?

The gentleman's club.  In the billiards room.   

[getagrip]

So where does my matchstick firing cannon fit in?

I've got a few suggestions