Quote from: getagrip on 29 March 2015, 06:42:56 PM
If Boney had attacked earlier, refused the left flank and swung his cavalry to the right, I think he'd have won!

Might work, Grip ..... if the Allied Army sits there and does nothing. 

Quote from: paulr on 29 March 2015, 06:57:24 PM
The key to all the games was getting the players into the right mindset before the game.

Agree. Either you use subterfuge (as you did) or you incorporate rules that somehow inhibit (but not prohibit) deviations from actual decisions made on the day (I suppose, somehow like the Blunder rules in Black Powder - but more tuned into events of the actual battle?).

Another (old) approach is to re-fight a historical battle in a different era (and hope none of the players recognise it).

Quote from: Westmarcher on 29 March 2015, 07:08:12 PM
Might work, Grip ..... if the Allied Army sits there and does nothing. 

Kinda proves my point really; no set of rules will survive contact with the enemy...or FSN!

Quote from: Westmarcher on 29 March 2015, 07:08:12 PM
Another (old) approach is to re-fight a historical battle in a different era (and hope none of the players recognise it).

This is always a doozy; works well in fantasy too

We did Market Garden as a Sci Fi games which worked well

Remember the wargames scenarios in Battle magazine?  

Quote from: getagrip on 29 March 2015, 07:14:23 PM
Kinda proves my point really; no set of rules will survive contact with the enemy...or FSN!

I eat rule sets for breakfast!  

I need the roughage

Quote from: fsn on 29 March 2015, 07:16:30 PM

I need the roughage

When did roughage become fibre?

Discuss...

I think any battle depends on the smaller outcome of the individual skirmishes/charges.

We all know the heroic tales of some of the most known regiments of the different conflicts, and how they affected the course of battles. So i strongly believe that in any wargame, the end result can be changed because of the troops' behaviour.

Example:

What would happen if in your refight of gettysburg, the 20th maine got shattered at little round top? Many people say that the union line would have been flanked if that happened. This could make a major difference in the outcome of the battle.

Quote from: getagrip on 29 March 2015, 07:19:54 PM
When did roughage become fibre?

When it got to somewhere south of the duodenum?

Quote from: fsn on 29 March 2015, 07:29:21 PM
When it got to somewhere south of the duodenum?

Is it good for the Synapses?

Quote from: petercooman on 29 March 2015, 07:24:59 PM
I think any battle depends on the smaller outcome of the individual skirmishes/charges.

We all know the heroic tales of some of the most known regiments of the different conflicts, and how they affected the course of battles. So i strongly believe that in any wargame, the end result can be changed because of the troops' behaviour.

That, right there, is the point!  Rules can never account for the vagaries of human emotion; they only attempt to represent it's randomness.

Ipso facto, you'll end up with "strange" (or certainly non-historical) results.

Quote from: Fenton on 29 March 2015, 07:31:07 PM
Is it good for the Synapses?

Not unless you're brown nosing

Quote from: getagrip on 29 March 2015, 07:32:16 PM
Not unless you're brown nosing

This discussion is disappearing down the tube.

Quote from: Westmarcher on 29 March 2015, 07:36:33 PM
This discussion is disappearing down the tube.

Most of the threads on this forum, we've rectum!

Cannae: any historically-literate Roman will post triarii on the wings and almost certainly win by a central breakthrough.

Nagashino: Ieyasu himself said that if Katsutori had waited, the allies would have been forced to advance over an open field dominated by the Takeda cavalry, and thus smashed.

So the question now raises it's head,  can you genuinely play a historical battle?

Apart from Cannae which, we all know,  I don't have the first clue about!

Naw ye canna(e)