Saturday, January 17, 2015

Big Game planning

Campaign of Nations Map positions for 12 Sept 1813 (fictional)
The Campaign of Nations game that I have been moderating since 2012 has reached a potential HUGE BATTLE point.

In examining the base stands needed (from a Fast Play Grand Armee point of view), I would need 105 3"x3" stands and 50 of the 1.5"x3" artillery stands.  I could do the guns (yes I have at least 50 artillery pieces now - I think), what I cannot support with my current game set are the 100+ brigade stands!

This was the same problem in trying to tackle Leipzig as a single battle situation in Garden Wars.  So likewise this time I am faced with either scaling down to a single segment of the greater action or modifying the rules to cover a larger area -or- making up a new set of rules to cover the situation so as to make maximum use of the troops and tools that I have.

At the moment I am in discussions with the other campaign players and one of the tabletop team to see what we can come up with.

Have you ever 'scaled UP' your game table actions?

2 comments:

Archduke Piccolo said...

I have 'scaled up' but not with the type of rule sets that you have been using. Mind you, it might be worth considering substituting brigade stands for Divisions, and scaling the artillery on a pro rata basis.

To take an example, suppose your standard division comprises 3 brigade stands. Then 105 brigade stands becomes 35 stands for the Grande Armee, and your 50 artillery stands 17 (seems rather a lot to me, but still). You simply play the game with the rules and scales unmodified.

It's a crude method, but might serve as a 'dummy run' for the full scale project at that.

Sun of York said...

I was looking at scaling a scenario and got into problems with the area one of my units took up.

Basically I was halving and in column my four bases went to one, but in line my four bases went to two.

I ended up scratching my head and moved on to other ideas.

As for scaling up, given I use brigade level units I would probably look for a battalion level ruleset rather than just filed big units.

Alternatively, I have upscaled figures, but by keeping base sizes and going to 6mm rather than 15mm,.