For last Friday evening we decided to dive into our large army archives at the BOD in Utrecht. Most are DBM archives. Some even 7th edition. This is not the pile of shame. It is the pile of what a shame.
Still, the great thing I always found with miniatures is that they literally can last a lifetime. So yes it’s a shame these brave little guys have spend years patiently waiting in a box stored in an attic or basement, but they persevered.
And where miniatures last, wargame rules came and went. And now I have recently introduced Der Söldner. But that will not be the end of what I have named Arguing When… wargame rules. Currently I am developing The Warrior as a supplement to cover the ancient to medieval period. The scenario based on the battle of Hattin is one of the test games for tuning The Warrior to fit the period while maintaining the game engine.
When designing the scenario I decided to categorise the various troop types with testing the rules in mind. The Warrior uses more generic troop types as Der Söldner to allow covering a very large period across many different regions. Units are either close combat troops, or dual purpose, or pure skirmishers. The dual purpose category is an interesting one. Also very flexible. It consists of units that could and would use ranged weapons to engage their enemy, but would also not shy away from a fight at close quarters. In the case of Hattin the Ayyubid cavalry may well fit into this. On the other hand, traditionally mamluks and askari are classified as, back in the days of the 7th, heavy cavalry, or superior/ordinary cavalry in the days of DBM. Close combat might be more in line with this. I decided to go for dual purpose and emphasise the bow over the lance. This also giving a nice contrast to crusader knights that were perhaps as single minded as single purposed.
The second part of designing a scenario for Arguing When… wargames is to consider adding any specific keywords. For Hattin I decided on just two. First DEUS VULT to mark how discussions within the crusader high command preceding the battle were settled. Prudent and wise advice being over-shouted by accusations of cowardice and not being committed to the true faith. During the battle no knight would allow similar accusations or risk ending up being described as such in the chronicles. The other keyword I added was WATER & SMOKE to mark the lack of water and its effect in the summer heat on the crusaders. In the night before the battle the Ayyubids had set fire to the dry bushes of the area and the smoke had drifted into the crusader camp. It had been a terrible night for them.
The scenario started just after dawn on 4 July 1187. It was hot. The crusaders were thirsty and had decided to take a northern route because that would bring to the springs of Kafr Hattin. It would bring them to water! But they had to pass a hill with two peaks: the horns of Hattin.
The Ayyubids were waiting just beyond the crest to the east of the crusaders. Saladin had already send forward swarms of mounted skirmishes to pin and wear down the crusaders. The scenario prescribed that all crusader commands had orders to advance towards Kafr Hattin. The Ayyubids had the opportunity to give pre-battle orders.
The game can best be described as skirmishers aiming to delay and pin down the crusaders to allow the heat and lack of water to wear them down. In particular at the flanks the crusader infantry turned and faced the Ayyubid mounted skirmishers. Some lucky shots were scored, but these did not impact the overall situation as capitalising on such opportunities was difficult with the Ayyubid main body still far off.
At the head of the crusader column some turcomans engaged the advance guard of the crusaders. We judged that this interaction would be with the turcomans having the edge, but the dice decided otherwise. The turcomans were send back with a big bloody nose. Still, over the course of the next ROSEs they regained themselves and went back to harass the crusaders. Again drawing the shorter straw, but less dramatic than before. Eventually the Ayyubid players proposed that the turcomans would force the issue and engage the crusader skirmishers are close quarters. Nobody objected, other than arguing that the crusader knights right after the skirmishers would charge the turcomans while their skirmishers fell back. This was not disputed as the Ayyubids saw an opportunity to draw the knights out of the safety of their overall crusader formation. It worked although the turcomans were now a spend force that fled back towards the Ayyubid main body. The crusader knights in hot pursuit crashed into the frontmost Ayyubid mamluks, and got the worse of it. In contrast to the historic battle they did not break through. They did not got away this time.
Back at the beginning of the game, the Ayyubids did not make much use of the option for pre-battle orders. This delayed the advance of their main body considerably. By evening-end we had played just over one hour of real battle time. At that moment the Ayyubid main body was getting near but was still uncommitted. Except those being hit by the pursuing crusader knights. ROSE after ROSE I saw the Ayyubid giving parts of their main body orders to advance. But only by a little bit.
When discussing I noted they had played it Black Powder style. In one of my earliest blogs I also mention noting how I had to get used to how Arguing When… wargames handle orders very differently than, for example, Black Powder and its derivatives. In the latter you give an order for the turn. If you want units to continue following that order next turn you must re-issue the order. A failure to do so, or a not doing it, stops the unit in its tracks. A strange mechanic in a way because when a unit has gotten the order to advance and engage an enemy, and have started doing so, they wouldn’t stop after having advanced just some 100 or 200 paces. Wether you like it or not. Giving such a unit a new order would indeed be when you no longer like it and want them to do something else. Or when the officers of the unit have clear and present reasons to take matters into their own hands. If not the unit moves on instead of stopping and wait for their kind and caring player to pay them some attention.
In Arguing When… wargames orders create a new fact about the unit when it receives it. The fact that it has those orders, and that is very effective in proposing or arguing what the unit will do or not do. But even when the unit doesn’t immediately start acting on the order, as there is no automatism in it, it still has those orders until others are received. This means that good orders in Arguing When… wargames are more overarching, more forward looking, more like what real commanders would issue. In this scenario the Ayyubids could have told the different parts of their main body to advance towards some part of the crusader army, add a route to follow, and how to engage when near. Done. And over the course of several ROSEs the Ayyubid players could use this in their arguments to great effect, or after having started acting on the orders rely on the ongoing events as part of the closing step of each ROSE. This might also have put the game in a faster flow, perhaps.
When we closed the evening we looked back at a good game. Also a good test. A few details game forwards that I have now fixed in the manuscript. On to the next games… and the players have already pointed at other crusader scenario’s the would like to play… and a re-match of Hattin!
Photo’s kindly provided by Gerco Blok and Anton Boot.
Arguing when... wargames 