The Challenges and Pitfalls of an 'Authentic' Medieval Wargame.

Dr Robert Jones will discuss the challenges and pitfalls for 'authentic' medieval wargames -- from myths and misconceptions to research.
About this Event

The medieval period is a perennial favourite amongst the tabletop wargamer. Figure ranges in all scales, from the ubiquitous 28mm down to 6mm, are extensive, and new rulesets come out on a regular basis. However, their treatment of medieval warfare is often based on assumptions that are either outmoded or just plain wrong, even if well-intentioned.

The paper will consider the major pitfalls in the design of medieval wargames, and the reasons for them. It will consider such issues as the difficulties of accessing the source material and latest academic research in the popular market, the persistence of myths and misconceptions about medieval war and combat, and the underlying difficulties of adapting rulesets which, at their heart, are designed to replicate eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European warfare for battles that occurred in a wholly different cultural milieu.

It will consider the vexed question of how one makes a form of battle that often lacked tactical choice and command decisions into an enjoyable and fulfilling game for players, suggesting that the answer lies in focusing on the cultural drives of the combatants, such as the chivalric desire to be seen to be a prud'omme, and rewarding behaviour that is counterintuitive to winning a game, but was wholly in keeping with the ethos of the medieval military mind.

BIO

Dr Robert Jones is a medieval historian specialising in the cultural history of medieval warfare and combat. The author of 'Bloodied Banners: Martial Display on the Medieval Battlefield' and 'A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword: Power, Piety and Play', he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Visiting Scholar in History at Franklin and Marshall College, Pennsylvania. He works for Advnaced Studies in England, a study abroad programme for US undergraduates, based in Bath.

He has been a tabletop wargamer for over thirty years, amd has combined his historical.knowledge with his hobby to produce a mass battle game 'Blood and Hirse Droppings' and a medieval skirmish game 'Écorcheurs' (the former freely available online and latter being published this coming summer).