What is Renaissance Wargaming?
Basic Wargaming The most famous wargame is Chess. The battlefield is the board. And the armies are made up of foot soldiers (pawns), knights, castles, etc. There are two players each commanding their own army (white and black). Now, instead of a checkerboard have a table much like a table-tennis table. Instead of chess pieces, one uses metal or plastic miniatures designed to represent various soldiers: Infantry, cavalry and artillery. As in all games, there are rules. Instead of moving game pieces a number of squares, wargame pieces are moved a given distance, usually inches. Instead of moving individual pieces, wargame figures are often joined together in 'units' and moved collectively. In chess, 'combat' is carried out by simply removing pieces, and there is no chance or luck involved. Wargames generally break combat into long-rang firing from bows, javelins, guns, etc. and melee where hand-to-hand combat is simulated. Shooting is often conducted by measuring the range from the firing unit to the target unit, then rolling dice to see how many casualties are inflicted. Melee is often simulated by the players moving two opposing units into physical contact] and rolling dice to see which unit wins the fight. The losing unit may be driven back a certain distance, or it might be eliminated from the 'battlefield'. If the opposing 'army' inflicts more 'casualties' than they receive and they have more effective units on the 'battlefield' than their opponent, they are considered the winner of the game. Renaissance Wargaming That is the basics of wargaming. But wargaming is much more than that. To begin with you can choose almost any historical period in which to wargame, or even choose a fantasy setting such as Middle Earth or the Hyborian Age of Conan the Barbarian. What is important is that the historical (or otherwise) background should capture your imagination. And this brings us to Renaissance wargaming. The period in which our members choose to wargame (among others) is that of the Renaissance, roughly from the late 15th Century to the early 18th Century, also known as the Pike and Shot era. In Europe, this coincides with the use of pike-armed infantry. The early Renaissance period is among the most colorful of all gaming periods. There are the beautiful Landsknecht and Swiss costumes. The fully-armored knights each with their own distinct heraldic trappings. Then you have some of the most varied artillery equipment ever seen, as nations experimented with this new arm of battle. There are large guns, small guns, multi-barrelled organ guns, even guns shooting marble cannon balls. This period is a blaze of color. If sea battles capture your fancy once again you can't beat the Renaissance. Ships had begun to carry cannon, but the galley was still the dominant platform, especially in the Mediterranean. There were towering carracks, slim galleons, lethal galleys, and strange hybrids such as the galleases used at Lepanto. In addition, this was the Golden Age of piracy (by har!) when the depredations of Drake and Hawkins made the Spanish King tremble with rage. The later Renaissance is dominated by the grim Thirty Years and English Civil Wars, and the period ends with the final demise of the pike in the early 18th Century. However, if you wish to game outside of Europe we have the Samurai wars of the 16th Century in Japan. Again, a very colorful and exotic period in which to wargame. Exotic is what you would call the Moghuls and their wars in India. You have all kinds of different and interesting troop types but you also have war elephants. How about that for exotic? Renaissance wargaming is without a doubt one of the most interesting and exotic periods in which to wargame. Also, as the armies tended to be small, you don't have to break the bank in order to collect figures for your army. In order to help out even further, the Renaissance Wargame Society can give you substantial discounts off the cost of your figure purchases. Bibliography Click here to view a PDF format basic bibliography of the Italian Wars. | ||||||
o begin with, it is a time period subset of wargaming in general.
But this doesn't say much.
For it leads to the obvious question: What is wargaming?
One could say a wargame is a contest with rules played to determine a winner.
As with most games the contest revolves around a theme.
The theme with wargaming is obviously battle.