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Famous Battles that dont get simulated alot in wargames.
Dan Rivera
United States
Fountain
Colorado
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I thought I would start a list of favorite battles that havent been simulated very much in Wargames. I have chosen two of interest to me. Please add your own and if you know a game that simulates those battles. Please add them so i can look them up.
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Dan Rivera
United States
Fountain
Colorado
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The Battle of Kadesh ~ around 1274BC
Between the Egyptians and Hitites located in modern day Syria.
Brief Summary: The battle is the result of the conquests of Ramsey II and his goal of increasing the egyptian empire to the size of the Tuthmosis kings many centuries before.
Due to a false reports says they hitites were hiding in terror of the egyptions (planted by the Hitites) Ramsey and his advanced guard seperated themselves from the egyptian main force in Ramseys urge to destroy the hitites. After torturing spies caught in his miss ramsey learns that he is about to be surrounded and destroyed by a larger hitite army he quickly orders his larger army to make haste to him. One of the divisions of that army was destroyed in there haste to rescue there pharoh while at the same time Ramseys advanced guard was under attack by hitite chariots. Facing personal death and possible capture Ramsey courageously leads multiple charges with his personal guards and some chariots against the attacking force using his lighter chariots and the eqyptian bow that had a greater distance then there opponents they tired out the hitite heavy chariots. Meawhile after routing the main egyptian force the hitites fell on the siege train and started looting and were woefully unprepaired for ramseys counter attack and were routed themselves.
This was a political but pyrhic victory for ramsey and he never captured Kadesh as planed.
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Dan Rivera
United States
Fountain
Colorado
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Battle of Gaugamela. ~ 331 BC
Between the Macendonian army led by Alexander the great and the the persian army led by Darius the second located in modern day Iraq
Brief summary: A victory of Alexander against a vastly supperior foe on the grounds of there choosing and one that they had prepared for the battle. This and the battle of Issus might well be Alexander at his greatest
Though his Generals had adviced Alexander to attack at night to counter the much larger persian force. Alexander waited till daybreak to give battle. While darius had keep his men up all night expecting the night attack.
Alexander began by marching his phalanxes towards the center of the persian line with the purpouse of just holding the center while the persians sent the majority of there cavalry to attack the greek left. Alexanders strategy was to seperate the persian line in order to perform to get a decisive strike again the persian center and darius himself. This worked to perfection while fully engaged on the left flank alexander had his companion calvery slowly trickle back to the rear and reform and when the gap between the persian forces was large enough lead a massive calvary charge straight at Darius and Darius panicked and retreated.
This was the end of the Persian Empire and one of Alexanders greatest moments.
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Michael B.
Canada
Stratford
Ontario
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Say "1066" and everyone thinks "Battle of Hastings", which is right, of course, but 2 scant weeks before that battle where poor King Harold Godwinson met his death, he marched to meet King Harald Hardrada and his invading Norwegian army at a place called Stamford Bridge.
The majority of the invaders were knocked off, as they left their armour in their ships (not expecting an actual fight), and worse (much worse) their army was divided by the famous bridge crossing the River Derwent. Story goes that one great Norseman blocked the bridge against the Saxon attack until he was bested from beneath by a man floating on a barrel.
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Jason Matthews
United States
Alexandria
Virginia
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The Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Custer's Last Stand is surely one of the most familiar battles that has ever occurred on US Soil. But where are the games? Well, to be honest, I think there are a lot of reasons for this. First of course, is that it is a pretty lopsided affair. To give the "battle" some balance, you would probably need to cover the whole campaign.
Secondarily, I think the Indian Wars are still politically touchy. As a topic, it tends to be off putting.
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Jason Matthews
United States
Alexandria
Virginia
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Not really much of a battle. There were a couple of night sorties to capture British positions, but otherwise, it was a classical siege. Still, to the best of my knowledge, this is the ONLY game exclusively about Yorktown, and I think it should qualify as famous 'round these parts.
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Harmonica
Netherlands
Tilburg
Noord-Brabant
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The Anglo-Dutch Wars
Any naval battle from the three Anglo-Dutch Wars and a grand strategy game as well.
This is also due to lack of scientific research. There were many naval battles, but only the 2nd Battle of Schooneveld has been researched. An order of battle exists and maps of the flow of the battle.
Much is also known on the Voyage to Chatham.
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pronoblem baalberith
United States
Pleasantville
Massachusetts
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MMP is developing a game based on King Philip's War.
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Mark Mahaffey
United States
Columbia
South Carolina
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Lepanto (1571) was one of the lynchpin battles of Western history, but is now rarely taught, much less gamed. Wikipedia, as ever, is excellent to provide at least a basic overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto_%281571%29
It's now popular to view the battle as strategically insignficant, as Selim's government managed to rebuild the Ottoman fleet quite rapidly. But that's something akin to saying the defense at Thermopylae was a failure because the Persians finally broke through.
There are a few good miniatures rulesets for the battle and certainly for the period, but no standard wargames. So, a year or so ago I decided to amend this fact and am now finishing up my first design, The Inmost Sea, a detailed game on the battle. There has also been some talk that Richard Berg may do a Lepanto module for War Galley.
So hopefully this fascinating confrontation will spread over our tables sooner rather than later.
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Tom Grant
United States
Washington
DC
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Most battles of the Vietnam War continue to get very little attention, relative to other modern conflicts.
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Tom Grant
United States
Washington
DC
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Another pivotal event in history, and certainly not a bad topic for a wargame. The Ottomans rolling up their big guns to blast away at the walls of Constantinople...The tiny number of defenders rushing back and forth to stop the Muslim armies from breaking into the city...Heroic last stands, with the Emperor himself jumping into the fray...
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J.L. Robert
United States
Sherman Oaks
California
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The Battle of the Ice (Lake Peipus), 1242
A legendary battle (probably more legend than historical truth), made popular by Sergei Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky. Perhaps the very small supply of historical documentation makes designing a game on this battle difficult.
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Mr. Heat Miser
United States
Gilbert
Arizona
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Very few games deal with the Philippine-American War. Those that do usually treat it as a very small and unimportant part of the Spanish-Amercan War.
This war lasted 4 years and took the lives of about 4000 US soldiers.
The Battle of Manila was the opening battle of this war.
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13.
Board Game: Agincourt
[Average Rating:6.25 Unranked]
[Average Rating:6.25 Unranked]
Matthew Barratt
United Kingdom
Royal Leamington Spa
Warwickshire
Beware the nun of doom
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Know ye not Agincourt?
Probably one of the four most famous battles in pre-20th century English history (the others being Hastings, Trafalgar and Waterloo) and yet there are hardly any games on it.
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Matthew Barratt
United Kingdom
Royal Leamington Spa
Warwickshire
Beware the nun of doom
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This appears to be the only game dedicated to the last land battle in Great Britain. (Although there are a couple of games on the whole campaign.)
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suPUR DUEper
United States
Villa Hills
Kentucky
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Okay, this is a war and not a battle... But there aren't a lot of games out there being done on the battles, campaigns or even the entire War of 1812.
Was there something going on in Europe at that time?
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David Pearsall
United States
Pikeville
North Carolina
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There are very few wargames out there covering this early aspect of WWII. Ethiopia was the first country to be liberated from a facist power.
This is one of the games of the "Battles for North Africa" series by Vance von Borries.
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David Pearsall
United States
Pikeville
North Carolina
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This is actually four battles in one package.
One of the battles is the Battle of Bentonville. This battle happened in March of 1865 near the end of the Civil War.
To my knowledge this is the only wargame to cover that battle.
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18.
Board Game: Leyte
[Average Rating:6.29 Unranked]
David Pearsall
United States
Pikeville
North Carolina
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The first island to be invaded in the recapturing of the Phillipines. It also caused one of the most pivotal naval actions of the Pacific War.
Yet I don't know of another wargame that covers this battle.
Anyone else know of another?
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heh heh! There have been quite a few actually, to wit: 
Royal Leamington Spa
Warwickshire
1) The situation is grossly unbalanced (Little Big Horn, Seige of Constantinople)
2) 'Idiot rules' are needed to prevent a player that knows of the battle from avoiding his historical counterparts mistakes and thus making the game play nothing like the battle (Lake Peipus, Agincourt)
3) Lack of historical sources means that we have little idea of what actually happened (Battle of Badon, Battle of Maldon, Battle of Tours)
Stratford
Ontario
1) The situation is grossly unbalanced (Little Big Horn, Seige of Constantinople)
Perfect for solitaire.
2) 'Idiot rules' are needed to prevent a player that knows of the battle from avoiding his historical counterparts mistakes and thus making the game play nothing like the battle (Lake Peipus, Agincourt)
Activation chits or random events can easily be worked into a set of rules to prevent "goal-sucking".
3) Lack of historical sources means that we have little idea of what actually happened (Battle of Badon, Battle of Maldon, Battle of Tours)
In the case of Maldon, the book I have here says that an epic poem describing the battle has survived. Sometimes games can be based on materials available, whether or not they have reliable referential sources.
South Carolina
There is actually quite a bit of information about Tours . . .i know, i did a game on it. Try some of the Bronze Age battles if you thunk sources are minimal . . .
RHB
Albuquerque
New Mexico
Mesa
Arizona
There are also the games with the supermen Germans, Germinitis games, that take up a massive amount of printing, die cutting, and ink that always sell. And the mass of Rebelitis games that do the same.
RB is correct about the bronze age only one Sumerian battle and two Egyptian Battles (maybe three but the last is an opposed landing always tough to do) have enough primary and seconday information to design something close to reality. But you need a university library to do them right.
Things get better with ancient Greece and Rome but who translates or writes anything about the massive military history of China.
But that is less true when you hit the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but what do American gamers know about anything but their own "special" history? Then there is the rather brutal fact that in Meso-America the bringers of civilization burned many sources as works of the devil. As for Russia there the problem is the same as China.
After that there is a great ignorance. You will not simulate Tuyuti unless you paint up Freikorps' horrible 15s. And the only battle of the Chaco war to be simulated is a Desk top job.
As for the last stand ("I might lose."
) fear I find that a rather strange idea.