Some thoughts on period specific wargames rules

It may have not escaped your notice, but I've been a bit quiet for a week or so. That's because I haven't actually played any games as we've been away becoming grandparents, and then other stuff happened too.

I have managed to finish a project for the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society, along with another member, to deliver on a promise made back in this blog post in May. That was to publish the rules I wrote for our quick play Edgcote game. That wouldn't have been much of a booklet, so we've added a load of newly researched heraldry, and produced an Edgcote wargaming guide. Unlike other NBS publications we haven't gone for print on demand through Amazon, but have had 250 copies printed up for us. This enabled us to have the booklets printed on high quality glossy paper, for better reproduction of the heraldry*, at a really affordable price. The booklet is 48 pages, has 14 pages of heraldry with 60 coats of arms, mini biographies of the people concerned and suggested groupings for affinities. This is in addition to a timeline, short campaign history, loads of 28mm eye candy and the rules for "Edgcote Made Easy". So it's a booklet for anyone who wants to produce armies for the period. It sells at £5 to NBS members, £7.50 to anyone else if you buy in person from us (we're at "The Other Partizan" in Newark this Sunday, for example). Price including P&P is £10 for UK, £15 for USA and £16 for Australia. To order a copy or get a quote for anywhere else, email wildrat1460@gmail.com. 

The rules in the booklet were written specifically for the Edgcote game and are quick and simple. The original game we took round shows in 2019 used "Hail Caesar", which I never liked. I think they aren't a great set of ancients rules, let alone good for medievals**, so I was always going to replace them if I had to take over the display, which I have.

It just so happens that whilst I was away over the last week or so I missed a Zoom lecture given by Dr Rob Jones on "The challenges and pitfalls of an 'authentic' medieval wargame" that I'd signed up for. Luckily the host has released it on Youtube:

It's about 90 minutes, including questions. Rob uses a few slides but they are incidental, so it's a good listen whilst you're painting. The central thesis is that specific periods aren't well served by generic rules. He talks a lot about the narrative of a game and explains that our approach to wargaming is heavily influenced by our understanding of how armies fought in the 18th & 19th centuries and beyond when they became more permanent and professional.

I think that his originating hypothesis is open to question, but not his conclusions. Medieval warfare isn't monolithic, and even if it was, it wouldn't have a lot in common with more recent methods of warfare, nor possibly older ones. Medieval warfare differs depending upon century and physical location, to name two major influences. Our sources are often small and not always reliable if taken literally. All Welshmen are not poorly armed spears, for example, as that preconception comes from one line in one chronicle written by one man trying to point out how backwards they all were compared with Anglo-Norman nobility. So I heartily recommend this as a good listen (he doesn't like Oman, either, so he's all right by me).

The questions and reactions to the whole thing were interesting as if what Rob said was a revelation, and here is where I come back to one of the founding ideas behind "Wargaming for Grown Ups", both blog and publications. In essence I believe that each war/campaign is unique in the way it was fought and that specific rules sets or a specific approach probably needs to be adopted for each one to get anywhere near an experience for the little metal and plastic guys that is anyway authentic. Hence the obscure periods that I've published rules for, and also hence why most of the rules are standalone. I tend to work from the "what's the best way of refighting this period" rather than "what else can I use these rules for" approach.

In truth my wargaming since I was at University has been heavily influenced by the people I have met through Wargame Developments. At the originating conference "New Directions in Wargaming" in 1980, Andy Callan of "Billhooks" fame, gave a paper in which he attacked the short comings in the use of generic rules for specific campaigns, and challenged the notion that there was anything valid in the prevailing WRG orthodoxy that each ancient period had commonality with each other and that you could run a game with Egyptians v Normans, because chariots were just like knights or whatever (a concept still carried forwards into DBA to this day). Paddy Griffith also discussed the concept of "cultural wargaming", where players should play in accordance with the cultural approaches of the time. Reading the conference report was a revelation, as was my attendance at the following year's conference and so on pretty much ever since, bar two or three exceptions.

So I suppose what I'm saying is that I like to look for what is different, or makes a period different, rather than what makes it the same. That's not to say I won't play generic games. As readers will know I play a lot of DBA, a system for which I have a lot of respect. But it is what it is: it is an artificially constrained, stylised system like chess. The only difference being for me is that I like playing DBA and I don't like playing chess (see a 15 year old blog post for details).

So, watch the video, come and see me at the Other Partizan and buy my rules. Although not necessarily in that order.

*So you can scan it for making your own flags.

** That's not to say they don't give a good game, it just has nothing to do with how warfare looked at the time.