Reign of the Neckbeards (or why do historical re-fights).

[avernosKeymaster 34041xp 2]

@angelicdespot feel free to jump in if you make it over here I have no problem in running it. I know it was mentioned on the weekender when I was off enjoying myself and they couldn’t work out whether it was a refight or inspired by the film and in this case it’s both. If I removed the cheesy film quotes and photos from the cards what you are left with is a fairly accurate refight of the engagement at Rorke’s Drift, down to when and where the attacks came from. That was a labour of love for me because I enjoy the research and then the technical difficulties of working out how to accurately portray it on the tabletop.

For other actions it would not be as difficult as many are straight forward fights and off the shelf rules would do the job for you at that stage it is really just the research for the particular engagement you want to replay.

As to why? Well I think @piers summed it up, it’s still a fun game, you may as well ask why do people play games with equal point values, isn’t it always dull? The answer to that is no, but it comes down to the game you’re playing and the people you are playing with and how you use the available forces. Likewise in a historical refight knowing that you are on the losing side from the start the questions become how do I win? In some cases you may know mistakes that were made by your historical counterpart, and if so can you now win, or will your opponent be ready.

A final thing to think about is scale, with the shift in the industry towards 28mm and either smaller scale games or collections is this the reason you don’t see as many people even considering straight refights. The only reason Rorke’s is in 28mm is because I knew I wanted the spectacle for a convention game and it could be played at something approaching 1:1 but I do plan on playing Isandlwana and it will certainly be no larger than 10mm and maybe even 6mm.

Fascinating thread regardless, I don’t think refights are going away but how people consume the hobby is changing and they may not be as easily spotted. WS&S do a fantastic job every issue in leading people to try historic gaming in a more focused way.

Side note, while the majority of the Historicon attendees were grey haired old buggers like myself, there were plenty of younger players getting involved, I think Joby himself said that this year had seen an increase in the whippersnappers, so never fear they are coming into the hobby still. 🙂

[osbad 4279xp 2]

Loving this thread.  Some interesting and informative “positives” of the re-fight and historical genres.

I think the wargaming community is at its best when people promote what they like and enjoy.  Even if it isn’t your own favourite topic it’s still interesting and informative and fun.

Where things go wrong is when people try and promote their strand by complaining about another strand – then people take sides and arguments ensue.

The whole thing that somehow because one style is supported and another less so is somehow a “problem” or a “dumbing down” just grates my years.  This is a hobby, we do it for fun, my fun may not be your fun but that’s not a problem.  It isn’t a zero sum game.

It just boils down to jealousy in my view, lack of empathy and bad manners.  There do seem to be a good few folks around “nerdy hobbies” that simply cannot comprehend that theirs is not the only “correct” view of the world.

[phaidknott 7027xp 0]

I would agree that the use of 28mm does put “limits” onto doing a lot of re-fights. Alas 28mm lends itself more to skirmish actions and there’s not a lot of historical references around for a “platoon” sized battle (there are a few, but hard to find. They are usually linked to an action where a medal has been awarded for the action to appear on the internet).

Smaller scales open up a lot of options, but again the rules used have to move away from Skirmish actions to where it’s either Regt sized (for blackpowder era games) or Platoon sized units as the “minimum” basic unit for most battles.

But we’ve had gamers who found it impossible to paint scales like 6mm due to eyesight or brush control, but as these battle are usually a communal efforts their minis are painted by others while they do all the basing for everyone else (or they my be more involved with doing terrain for the battle). So all are involved with the prep for the battle.

But its the multiplayer aspect (usually any thing up to five players a side for really BIG games) where the re-fights come into their own. Probably doing it with just two players would be arduous to do (even just playing the game), but by bringing in more players you can even while away the dead time (while you wait for others to complete their turns) by simply chatting away with each other (thus it’s a very social event).

But refights can be anything (not just historical), although its easier to copy a ORBAT and map from a reference book than it is trying to devise a new one from scratch. You can devise a “battle” to be refought but using an historical battle as the building blocks for a 40K game (for example) as we did with an Arnhem map and “trying” to pick squads/units the mirrored the ones used historically. Although this technically isn’t a re-fight, it’s half way there…

But of you find battles/re-fights fun in sci-fi and fantasy games, you might then want to try a more historical game (or even one from the campaign the inspired your custom battle). For us in the UK perhaps battles from the ECW or the Dark Ages might be a draw as a battle might have occurred nearby (or involved units raised in your county) that can form a stimulus for getting interested (same could be said for gamers in the US with the ACW or AWI conflicts). European gamers (not in a island like us in the UK and Ireland) have even more possible “local” aspects for looking at doing a refight (anything from the Roman era up to moderns).

But it all boils down to an ORBAT, a map, and a group of gamers for a re-fight. Once you have those anything can happen, and “if” you’ve never tried this aspect of wargaming…give it a try (you might just enjoy it). And on the knotty “research” issue, you might find something that you never knew before that becomes the “hook” to be you inspired to paint a unit, then an army 😀

[torros 23820xp 0]

There are plenty of available  scenarios available without having to do much in the way of research. The following is an example and one of a few free from the skirmish campaigns  website which I’m sure could be converted to BA etc

https://skirmishcampaigns.com/downloads/Bb02.pdf

There are plenty  of other websites and blogs that have scenarios  for various battles/campaigns etc

[angelicdespot 4693xp 0]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I guess another ‘advantage’ of refights is that clubbing together to pull it off aspect.   Which again, doesn’t have to be only associated with refights, but does perhaps make it more exciting to get involved.   (And the additional challenge of managing several people’s efforts is perhaps another barrier for some.)

[phaidknott 7027xp 0]

Nice link for the downloads there Torros. Looking at the site, there’s a fair few books offering about 8 scenarios in each suitable for a large scale skirmish game. Most of the Free/sample downloads are for the early war period however (so no big tanks around for these battles), but early war is actually THE most interesting period in WW2 as the armoured stuff on both sides is barely “fit for purpose” (with no one side having a technological advantage of the other).

You could easily do the refight (Poland vs Germany) by using the Battlefront/Flames of War minis based singularly for rulesets like Bolt Action and either leave ranges as they are (makes it look more believable as max range on the rifle nor look lees like max range you can throw a potato), OR scale everything down for a smaller table by using centimetres.

https://www.flamesofwar.com/online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13259

Still you could rapidly build up an skirmish style “army” for not a not of pennies (as you may not want to bung shedloads of money into early war at the start (until you get the “early war is GREAT wargaming” bug).

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