Wargaming Challenges
The NZ wars pose some severe challenges for the wargamer. Here are my thoughts on the challenges and possible ways to over come them.
I've come up with some scenarios based on DBA sized armies. Most of them would not make interesting games because the Maori are vastly outnumbered by the British. Kororareka is the best scenario at the moment because both sides are fairly balanced; Boulcott's Farm might be interesting as well.
The problem is how to make the game interesting when the pattern of conflict is large British forces attacking much smaller groups of entrenched Maori. And doing this without scaling up the number of figures to field a reasonable number of Maori elements; if I did that I'd have to get thousands of Brits.
I have some ideas to solve this problem but haven't pursued them. Here are a couple of them:
- Make it a mini-campaign rather than just a wargame of an assault. That is why I wrote up the objectives of the participants in the Northern War. The various leaders took sensible actions based on their objectives. For example it was sensible for the British Generals to frontally assault entrenched Maori; political/time pressure meant they could do nothing else.
- Don't wargame the assaults on Pa at all - focus on the bush warfare, or Maori attacks on European settlements.
- Don't depict the entire Brit force at a Pa, only those engaged at any particular time. For example, the British assault forces were only a small proportion of their entire army, thus making it a more even match, hence I could use 12 elements per side each time.
I think something useful will come out of these ideas.
That last point I still find puzzling - not being a soldier and all. Why can't a attacking force just swarm the defenders with all their troops. It never happened in any of the periods I'm aware of, hence presumably it couldn't happen. Why do they have to send small (usually elite) assault columns instead. I can see the value of elite assault forces, but why not have every other chap plastering the walls at the same time? I can't think of a reason why. Any ideas?
Some thoughts from Darren McGregor
Often the Maori built there Pas in dense bush so it was very difficult for the attackers to get at the sides of the pa that were not breached. I seem to recall that Maori kept forces outside the pa for the express purpose of ambushing attackers moving through bush to assault the Pa. I imagine that imposed some circumspection on the attackers! Maori often I think had escape tunnels dug from the pa which could be used for sallies even if they didn't start with men posted outside.
I think that perhaps some of the pas were also placed so some of their sides were physically inaccessible eg I remember reading about one pa where after it was stormed the fleeing Maori had to jump down a steep slope. Certainly the big pre-European pa near Waitara (sorry can't remember name) which I have visited is located with its back on a bluff with a fall of a hundred feet plus to a river. The friend of a friend who showed me the pa, one of the tribe members, said the pa was starved out during the musket wars and the survivors jumped down the bluff. His great great grandmother (don't quote me on any of this) was one of the lucky ones whose fall was cushioned by those who jumped first!
I think that the attackers did sometimes send parties to demonstrate against the sides and rear of some pas, mostly to try and stop the occupants doing a runner I think.
Given the sophisticated nature of the post-musket Maori Pa there would not have been much profit in attacking sides that weren't breached. If the Maori kept their nerve they could probably ignore attacks away from a breach and jus post token forces to keep an eye on such demonstrations.
Then even if the sides and rear of the Pa were in theory accessible there is the issue of what ground was accessible to the artillery which was the only weapon able to make a breach.
As a general point away from the NZ Wars attackers did often make general assaults along all of a castle walls eg English assault on Stirling castle in early years of Elizabeth I. The English were repulsed at the breach, but the French garrison didn't have enough troops to guard the whole length of the walls so the English were poised to capture the walls using ladders. Except they cut the ladders too short and the garrison's wives and prostitutes beat them off! But in general if the defenders had enough troops to man their defences properly attacking unbreached walls would be suicide. That is why so many castles were starved out or taken by treachery.
I have rabbitted on a bit here so I will finish with my recommendation for gaming the NZ Wars. I would use individually based figures ala Warhammer, perhaps even a variant of Warhammer rules. Play skirmish games with relatively few figures. Individually based figures allow for the looser formations of this period and heroic one on one match-ups. I would personally play the pa assaults as well. There is a set of Warhammer 5th Ed Siege rules (published 1998) which has an excellent set of simple rules for a siege mini-campaign which could easily be adapted for NZ wars. There are also 3rd Ed Siege rules if you want more detailed rules and some older rule sets like the Renaissance Tercio set have sections on sieges (do you fancy Renaissance flamethrowers?). All of these old sets could easily be picked up cheap at club/convention bring and buys or off Ebay. My biggest issue with the NZ Wars was always what figures to use. Do you have any suggestions?