What 'historical' period offers the greatest variety of scenarios?

[carlos marighela]

Terrain is also a factor. Not too many Old West scenarios that sees the opposing bands slogging through rice paddies and steaming jungles or scaling mounatin peaks, where the need for oxygen and warmth is as critical as ammunition.

[AndrewBeasley]

Just have a look at the One Hour Wargames rules book by Neil Thomas.

It has 30 scenarios in it that can be used with the included rules in any period firm Ancients to WW 2


Imagination is the limit in my mind (see what I did there) 

[Easy E]

I mean the period needs to scale from model vs model, to squad vs squad, to unit vs unit, to army unit vs army unit.  Honestly, most "historical" periods can handle that.

[Khusru2]

I was supporting the WW2 proposers but choose the ancients period, as it was known including upto thé renaissance. I'm a 6th Ed. man!
Firstly, the breadth of warfare which can cover the world.
Secondly, the number of different armies and styles of warfare.
No tanks, but elephants. No jeeps, but chariots. Artillery for sure. Specialist troops in abundance. Fast raiding troops like Mongols, Scythians. Weapon types by the hundred. Land and Sea warfare. Sièges. Invasions. Raids. It has everything.
Variety is the spice of life.

[2010sunburst]

For sheer variety of forces and asymmetric gaming possibilities, surely the Nineteenth century Victorian age of empires is difficult to beat?  Everything from African Queen type river warfare, through North West frontier and Boxer rebellion skirmish, to large campaigns such as the Anglo Zulu war or Boer war, all fought on pretty much any terrain from around the world…..but then that would include the old west….

I suppose that any scenario you could devise could be transposed to any era really, with a few tweaks to fit the period or geographic region.

To me, the question then becomes impossible to answer because it depends upon your focus.  Are you talking about a worldwide period of time, or a region and time period, or a specific conflict etc…..Ancients, for example, cover a huge time period (many hundreds of years) compared to the few years of later conflicts such as WW2, so really they are not comparable, or are they? 

Seems that the way to go I’d think of a scenario, then fit it to whatever time period and geographic location you want, because it will probably work 

Ain’t this hobby great 

[bluewillow]

Anything global

1. 7 years war
2. napoleonic
3. ww1
4. ww2

Ww2 would have the most is suspect

Cheers
Matt

[Pijlie]

I'll go out on a limb here and propose the Modern Period!

Although not everyone's cake (but what is?) Modern really offers everything. From large invasions (Korea) and massive land battles (WW3 what-if) to small squad based struggles: anything goes.

It is even suitable to be injected with a bit of SciFi/Near Future or Fantasy (modern troops battling Great Old One or simple zombies). Land, sea or air: you can do it all.

[Patrice]

It certainly depends on the scale and size of the fightings, skirmish, or large battle?

Skrimishes between small groups of fighters or soldiers can be imagined in almost any context.
Most of the small skirmishes I play or have played with various scenarios are Dark Ages, Late medieval, Samurai, Wars of Religion, TYW, F&IW, FRW... but sometimes also Napoleonic a context more usually associated with very large battles but we find reasons for small units or groups of stragglers wandering in the wild in Spain or in Russia.

[Cubs]

For sheer variety of forces and asymmetric gaming possibilities, surely the Nineteenth century Victorian age of empires is difficult to beat?

Yeah, this wasn't what I was going to say, but actually it makes sense. You want lots of hand-to-hand? No problem. You want ranged combat with artillery? No problem. You want small narrative-driven actions? No problem. You want large scale strategic battles? No problem.

You've really got everything from almost iron-age levels of technological clashing with the gunpowder age, cavalry and steam engines, historical and sci-fi fantasy, with any number of literary sources to draw on for inspiration. You could play any nation against any other and still each could claim to be the 'good guy'.

[Mammoth miniatures]

The Emu War will struggle to generate too much variety!

Clearly you haven't heard of the later stages of the war when the Emus were close to developing the A-bomb and the Australian special forces conducted the famous outback raids to sow terror amongst the emu elite reserves.

[FifteensAway]

"I'm not understanding your "focus on the scenarios rather than lots of different armies and tech". The armies and tech make the scenarios, don't they?"

I would say no, the armies and tech define the "period" but, as others have stated, scenarios are 'period' free.  About the only thing that might be truly restrictive are 'air landings' but aren't they just another form of 'amphibious landing' and amphibious landings have occurred throughout many periods of history.  I suspect some will quibble with that - and quibble hard - but air landings are just a different technology.  Not sure I can argue against aerial combat or bombardment - although aerial bombardment is, in a way, another form of artillery bombardment just with a much greater reach.

So, from my perspective, neither the army nor the tech make a scenario - though they may influence how a scenario is designed.  A scenario revolves around objectives and objectives can exist in any time period and within any technology.  I'd say Sun Tzu's Art of War is a much better guide to scenario variety than "lots of different armies and tech to choose from".  At a guess, Art of War is still being taught/required reading in most strategic studies programs - and not just military but business and politics as well.

So, I guess I've just argued that there is a restriction on how many different scenario types there might be if we adhere to Sun Tzu.  Sort of like there are only so many themes in fiction/screenwriting - just different points of view to give variety.

And, thus, there is no right answer to the question, just many different points of view.  But it is fun reading the discussion.

[Belligerentparrot]

Sorry Fifteens, thanks for the answer, but if scenarios are period-free as you state, I can't make sense of your original question. Its logical form turns out to be "What [thing-that-is-contextual-in-a-particular-way] offers the greatest variety of [thing-that-cannot-be-contextual-in-that-very-same-way]?" 

I can't make sense of that so perhaps had better drop out of the discussion.

[Elbows]

Re: Fifteens

So you're just arguing vocabulary and how people use the word scenario?  Doesn't seem to add anything to the conversation.

Scenario 01: Taking an enemy occupied airfield by helicopter-borne commandos at night in 1984.

Scenario 02: Storming an island fortress/castle by ship in the late 1300's.

Those are vastly different games, and we're on a wargaming forum.  It adds nothing to say "Well that scenario is just 'Take Stuff'".  Reducing a concept to the vaguest possible form isn't what this thread is discussing.  Tech and armies absolutely do have a vast impact on the scenarios you're going to play in a tabletop wargame.

[carlos marighela]

Yup. Quite right. You can't go too wrong if you think in terms of  SMEAC* The format for battle orders.

Situation

Mission.

Execution

Administration

Command and  Sigs.

Mission is always the shortest line, hence it's given twice in verbal orders. It's also fairly simple, straightforward and quite generic. 'Your mission is to seize the hill/castle/airfield and to hold until relieved'. That bit could be applied to anything from prehistoric man to the present day and beyond.

Execution which is the nuts and bolts bits and contains the concept of operations is going to be radically changed by the means of insertion or transport to and from the line of departure and/ or the fire support available. Tech will weigh in heavily here indeed it can be key to the concept of operation determining the scheme of manouver.

Command and Sigs is pretty obviously another area where tech levels are pretty important.
Not many 14th C raiding parties are radio equipped. Not many WW2 platoons are radio equipped for that matter and it does have a bearing on your concept of operations.

So yes, in the very broadest sense a gaming scenario is the Mission bit. Assault/Seize/ Ambush/Hold etc but it's largely meaningless without at least the execution bit, ie how that general directive will be  given effect.

* Yeah I know the acronym has varied slightly but that was the pnemonic when I had it bashed into my skull.