Former clients over for a visit, so the dining room table had to be cleared of my Brandywine Kriegsspiel.  Here’s a final look.

Well, not quite final.  I did move the British into melee and that’s where I started thinking about the importance of the Umpire in Kriegsspiel.  Not an original or deep thought, but with a twist.  Let the rambling begin…….

The Umpire is The Rules.  In other wargames you have a rulebook and units with attack, defense, morale and movement ratings.  In Kriegsspiel all of these factors are generic.  The Umpire decides and/or arbitrates unit capabilities.

For example:  How well will units fight in melee?  Yes, there are guidelines for the effect of losses, but how well will that unit fight today?  Is that simply a product of die rolls, or is there an intrinsic capability for this particular engagement?  The rules provide for differentiation in capabilities in certain situations – attacking uphill, across barricades, when tired – but not necessarily between units.

Sure, Continental or British Regular units will perform better than militia and/or irregulars, but how about each regular unit?  Are all Continental units inferior to the British in musketry and so use a different die to resolve fire combat?  How about melee, an across the board adjustment?  At Brandywine, Stephen’s and Stirling’s Continentals fought the British toe-to-toe, while Sullivan’s ran.  Yes, they were trying to adjust their position, but what happened?

On top of that, how much research is the player willing to put in to provide a kriegsspiel that takes into account differences that existed on that day?  I learned that is very hard work, even if the resources are available.

This leads to the idea that Kriegsspiel is best suited for the generic and scripted encounters.  Without an Umpire, the player(s) must decide army or unit capabilities and how they are expressed.  What you have is an “ImaginNations” game on a low level operational and tactical scale.  Trying for a historical simulation is just too hard.

After all, Kriegsspiel was developed as a teaching tool, incorporating basic concepts/precepts but then crafted to meet, as we used to say, specific “learning objectives”.

So, the next time I pull my Kriegsspiel maps and counters out, I’ll use them to pursue a theoretical situation or, maybe, a historical one, but be satisfied with broad precepts, especially concerning a fighting force’s intangibles.

The “Room For One More” has its limitations….overhead light doesn’t work.  One of those fan lights with wiggy wall switch.  Trouble shot it.  Must be the bulb.  Two person job to remove since fixture so spindly.  Need a repair accomplice.  So, daylight sessions with the Brandywine scenario.

I want to believe this is a “process over results” effort.  Slow sledding since accounts are conflicting, and the map scale had me puzzled.  According to the Command Post Games site, their Pub Battles’ maps have a 1/1600 scale as opposed to Kriegsspiel’s 1/750-1/800 scale.  I was perplexed because distances seemed off.  When I checked the map’s scale legend against my Kriegsspiel Distance Ruler, the map was, in fact 1/800 or so.

I hammered my way through working out time-distance movements for the Continental right flank’s shift.  Came fairly close, with some help from concepts published at this interesting site.

So, here we are…….Top photo is Cornwallis approaching Osborne Hill, where his forces took a break from their 9-hour flank march.  Bottom photo shows the  British demonstration at Chadd’s (also spelled Chad’s in some accounts) Ford.  Time is approximately 1400.

I’m Home Alone, so the Dining Room Table is available.

Haven’t played Kriegsspiel for a while, and that beautiful Command Post Games Brandywine map has been just sitting in the garage……Why Not?  Use all available horizontal surfaces!

Cycled through any number of Internet sites as well as my West Point Atlas Of American Wars to put together Order of Battle, general dispositions, and background on the battle.  The process was time consuming, but interesting and fun work.

Decided to use Kriegsspiel’s standard scale of one block represents 450-500 men.   Since most of the brigades involved had 1,500-2,000 men, this works just fine.  However, the respective forces were organized in (divisions) groups of two (2) brigades.  I’ll have to ignore this lack of symmetry as my table-top groupings will have three (3) blocks, not  four (4)……just grit my teeth and suppress those compulsive instincts.

Here’s a viable map of the initial dispositions that I will use (North at top).  The Continentals were initially positioned along Brandywine Creek, but have reacted  to Howe’s flanking march from the north by pulling brigades off the line.  The remaining Continental brigades are facing Knyphausen’s force  moving east towards Chad’s Ford.

My map’s scale is roughly 1/16,000, while Kriegsspiel uses 1/8,000 scale maps.  Ranges and rates of movement are reduced by one-half.  Fortunately, the weapons used in 1777 are the same as those used in the 1824 Kriegsspiel rules, so no adjustments for effectiveness needed.

Another set of rules to read and become (semi) fluent with.  Also, I get to re-learn working with Kriegsspiel Dice.  That process is interesting in and of itself.