Gaming Great Bridge V: Alternate Rules

 “For me, it is always important that I go through all the possible options for a decision.”

— Angela Merkel

My Battle of Great Bridge set-up on site.

This past weekend I displayed and ran my Battle of Great Bridge wargame demo at a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the mustering of the Culpeper Minutemen in the very field where they assembled...before they marhced off to Williamsburg and ultimately Great Bridge. Despite cool but sunny weather (quite nice for autumn in central Virginia), the attendance and participation was less than I had hoped, but it was still a positive day. Everyone who stopped by to admire the diorama, play the game, or discuss the battle brought their intelligent curiosity and interest in history. I ran the game twice with young but extremely bright participants and spent much of the day discussing the Battle of Great Bridge with folks, some of whom had never heard of it despite attending an event commemorating a unit which played a pivotal role — and gained its fame — in the engagement. I learned a bit, too, talking with those extremely familiar with the battle and the terrain.

Papercraft British troops march across
the bridge toward rebel militia.

The two games I ran played out according to history. The British marched over the bridge and along the causeway toward the Patriot breastworks, took fire from the well-defended militia and longer-range rifled muskets of the Culpeper Minutemen, and fell back after sustaining serious losses. The kids quickly understood the rules and put them to good use, playing out first-hand the advantages and disadvantages each side faced.

In the earliest stages of my design process — distilling game procedures to their most basic essence for am easy 15-minute experience — numerous other rules tempted me with different means of re-fighting the engagement. As I prepared the demo I reviewed various miniatures rules applicable or adaptable to wargaming the American War of Independence with miniatures.* Some stand on their own (the battle games mentioned below, which many might consider “board” wargames) while others could play on my diorama demo board:

Hold the Line: The American Revolution, a “battle game” from Worthington Publishing, includes a Battle of Great Bridge scenario I’ve played before. Like any board wargame, it abstracts many elements, even balances scenarios so each side has a decent chance at victory (much as it does for Great Bridge). But the game’s overall versatility and a plethora of scenarios allows one to play out numerous battles in the overall campaign. You could easily start off with Lexington, Bunker Hill, and Great Bridge, then proceed through the major battles of the war to Yorktown. I regret this game remains out of print at Worthington Publishing but it lurks in the secondary markets for those willing to track down used copies.

The Portable Wargame by Bob Cordery provides a solid system for running battles on a gridded surface (much like what I set up for my own Great Bridge game). Field them on a huge table, host them on a smaller chessboard. They’re easily adaptable to various periods and battles; in the past I’ve run Napoleonic clashes, American Civil War actions, and even the Battle of Ridgefield for the Revolutionary War. One can easily adjust them to accommodate the tactical nuances of the Battle of Great Bridge. You can purchase The Portable Wargame online from various sources.

Big Battles for Little Hands by John R. “Buck” Surdu and Rob Dean offers “Milk and Cookies Rules for Battles” that educates and challenge younger players with deeper wargaming concepts than you’d expect. With guidance for playing battles in various periods, it’s a basic, functional, and fun system. I’ve seen it run at conventions with my son when he was younger (before he was 10 years old) and kids quickly grasp the more nuanced concepts demonstrated in the rules. One can occasionally find a copy on the secondary market.

One-Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas delivers what the subtitle claims: “Practical Tabletop Battles for Those with Limited Time and Space.” Far more basic than those provided in his Wargaming: An Introduction (as I’ve previously discussed), OHW offers a core rules system along with commentary and specific rules for various periods, from ancients and Dark Ages to American Civil War and World War II. The Horse and Musket rules remain easily adaptable to the nuances of combat in the American War of Independence. For Great Bridge I’d suggest skirmisher units (with greater movement allowance but lower fire effectiveness) have a greater range for the Culpeper Minutemen. The rules remain readily available in various places online.

My library has a few other rules for the American War of Independence I’ve not used given their perceived complexity, but I expect this battle would provide a compact opportunity to try them in a limited way. Osprey Publishing has two entries in this category: Joe Krone’s Land of the Free offers a set of more hardcore rules for the grognards; and Michael Leck and Daniel Mersey’s Rebels and Patriots provides a slightly more accessible system based on the popular Lion Rampant rules. And while I love Richard Borg’s Commands & Colors games, I’ve not acquired Compass Games’ Commands & Colors Tricorne: The American Revolution implementation (using stickered blocks instead of small plastic figures like Worthington’s Hold the Line or Days of Wonder’s Memoir ’44) and I cannot discern if Great Bridge is included in the battle scenarios.

Further Work

I'm fairly happy with how the rules worked, especially with kids; but I may tinker a little with a few of the more fiddly bits to help it run a bit faster and smoother. I’m also mostly satisfied how the board turned out (a few mistakes aside). But the excellent 25mm-scale Peter Dennis miniatures I deployed (from Helion & Company) seemed a little too big for the set-up. In the future I’d like to create a set of figures closer to the 15mm size (assuming I have opportunities to run the demonstration again). The board could also use some additional props, notably a few burned-out building foundations just past the bridge (to open up the field of fire as the two forces traded shots in the weeks before the battle) as well as some buildings to indicate the edge of the town where the Virginia militia camped. It’s not as sturdy as I would have liked, but it holds up and isn’t as heavy for an old curmudgeon to transport.

I was fortunate having most of the supplies on hand to construct the demo board in about two weeks: a stash of polystyrene foam, bits of wood for the bridge, willow for the breastworks, hot glue sticks, paints, sand and grass flocking, remains of a doormat for stands of marshy reeds, and lots of white glue and glossy Mod Podge. While I’ll have to replenish some supplies, their readiness reminds me I’m in a position to customize a game demo board for future projects to highlight historical events and engage folks interested in learning more.

“Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.”

— Petrarch

* The demo board I crafted for the event integrated brads inserted at 5-inch intervals along the wood framing the diorama. Since my game relied on squares to determine movement and ranges (a concept people even slightly familiar with board games could relate to), I wound string around the brads and across the board to create a grid of squares. This works for some of the alternate game rules for exploring the battle (notably Bob Cordery’s Portable Wargame); but I can also remove the string for more free-form rules relying on measurements.