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Post by j on May 12, 2019 22:09:44 GMT
I like a bit of room for manouevre but don't want to mess up the infanrty/cavalry opponents too much & allow cav to circumnavigate an inf line.
I settled on 76mm square (not an easy choice as I already had 75mm boards for HotE) because they were 19BW wide as opposed to the standard 15BW.
I maintain the 3BW from the centre for each side & the centre 7BW restiction for heavy inf etc deployment so, so far, so good.
On a standard table, there is a 2BW "no deployment" zone on each flank & a further 2BW zone where Cv; LH; Ax; Ps can deploy on the flanks of the heavies.
I have been making these 2BW up to 3BW to fit in with the larger table, so 3BW - 3BW - 7BW - 3BW - 3BW = 19BW
Do you think this is ok? Does anyone else use a different approach?
Regards,
j
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Post by pawsbill on May 12, 2019 22:36:34 GMT
I've never had any problems with using the standard 2BW no deployment zones on bigger boards.
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Post by primuspilus on May 13, 2019 3:52:07 GMT
j, that is pretty much how I used to play on larger boards. Not a fan of larger boards, but there was something subtle and tactical about having only 7BW to deploy a HI line. Kind of forced a hoplite reserve, for example. Keeping 3BW from the centre still works.
I used to 3_3_7_3_3 works well. You really do find lights and cavalry operating on the flanks. And it is hard for HI lines to slide about too much.
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Post by j on May 13, 2019 8:28:05 GMT
Yeah, it seems to work for me so far. My opponent wanted to use a 3' x 3' board but I felt that just encouraged wide outflanking moves every game & disadvantaged HI armies, of which we both have many.
Just wondered what other people were doing
Regards,
j
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Post by bob on May 13, 2019 17:38:43 GMT
I suspect that 95% of 15mm games are played on 2 foot square boards. Some folks felt strongly about allowing larger sized ones. Phil finally consented but he had to get in the last word on how bad larger ones were,  "The standard playing area, “the battlefield”, is square; with sides 600mm/24” to 800mm/32” for the smaller scale and 900mm/36” to 1,200mm/48”square for the larger scale. Be warned that areas larger than the minimum are unnecessary and may encourage overly defensive play or result in longer or even unfinished games." |
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Post by Tony Aguilar on May 13, 2019 18:19:08 GMT
"The standard playing area, “the battlefield”, is square; with sides 600mm/24” to 800mm/32” for the smaller scale and 900mm/36” to 1,200mm/48”square for the larger scale. Be warned that areas larger than the minimum are unnecessary and may encourage overly defensive play or result in longer or even unfinished games." We haven't found that to be the case. However, adding a BUA or River or other items you are not familiar with are discouraged in a tournament setting for exactly that same reason since time is limited. |
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Post by primuspilus on May 14, 2019 5:01:07 GMT
We found the bigger board was "necessary" in only about 5-10% of games. The rest of the time, it actually kind of sucked.
Tony, your videos have yet to show a battle that was a washout due to the board size. In fact, you guys barely mention it (unless I missed it) and the games turn out great.
For the tiny fraction of games where one side is all LH and the other intends to create a terrain-heavy board, we strongly encourage limited overs, or a scouting roll, to allow the LH army to select and set up the battlefield. Feels right somehow.
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Post by stevie on May 14, 2019 9:06:39 GMT
Some players like large 20 BW tables...and some prefer the smaller 15 BW battlefields. For me, it all depends upon what type of army I have and what I am facing. Large tables benefit mounted armies (more room for outflanking, and terrain is more spread out). Small tables benefit foot and bad going armies (less outflanking, and Cv/LH risk fleeing off-table). So I have for a long time favoured letting the invader ( not the defender) choose the table size. Most mounted armies have high aggression, and this prevents them from being unfairly penalised. But here is an alternative weird idea:- Always play on a 20 BW by 15 BW table. Then the high aggression army can choose which table edge they want...wide or narrow. And if a mounted aggressive army is worried about their Cv and LH fleeing off-table from enemy Pikes or Spears, they could have a narrow but deep battlefield to reduce this risk. A road will obviously limit this choice, but that costs the defender one of their terrain pieces, which also results in the terrain being more spread out and again helping mounted forces. Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter
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Post by primuspilus on May 14, 2019 14:20:53 GMT
It is not clear to me that the rise of Cavalry in the later part of the Dark Ages was because suddenly Cavalry generals said "hey, look, you know what, there's an extra 2-3BW on either side of our battlefields that we've just been ignoring till now! Get off your lazy @##es and start outflanking them already, you lazy buggers" ...
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Post by Tony Aguilar on May 14, 2019 14:33:25 GMT
We found the bigger board was "necessary" in only about 5-10% of games. The rest of the time, it actually kind of sucked. Tony, your videos have yet to show a battle that was a washout due to the board size. In fact, you guys barely mention it (unless I missed it) and the games turn out great. For the tiny fraction of games where one side is all LH and the other intends to create a terrain-heavy board, we strongly encourage limited overs, or a scouting roll, to allow the LH army to select and set up the battlefield. Feels right somehow. In theory, my personal preference would be to play on a 30x30 but restrict the set up area size to the same a player would have on a 24x24. In other words, the core set up zone would be the same as a 24x24 but just would have more areas on the flanks that could not be set up in. However, I do not want to entertain this idea as it may create bad habits or we like it too much that we feel screwed if we are at another event where we can't do it. |
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Post by bob on May 14, 2019 19:46:12 GMT
Tony, this is a clever idea. Would terrain be placed in the larger square, or restricted to the 24" core. Also, I can see how the side edges would give another 3 inches with out set on troops, but how do you work the back edges. Would players still set up 3BW from center and thus have 3 more inches behind them. Would camps still be on the back edge of the 30" section, or on the back edge of the core 24" with space behind?
While not a regular option, it might be fun once in a while.
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Post by primuspilus on May 14, 2019 19:52:20 GMT
For what it's worth, I support the bigger boards for HotT and fantasy settings: fantasy authors seem to believe wide flanking maneuvers were the only method of reliably defeating an opponent. In history, there are relatively few such cases. Even Cannae involved the Cartho Cv first smashing up the Roman troops in front of them, and then exploiting that breakthrough on the wings to surround the Roman army. Miniatures gamers spend far more time obsessed with flanking maneuvers than their historical counterparts did.
And I am all for more history in DBA, not less!
Unlike WWII in the desert, in ancient warfare, the flank was rarely open to any exploitable degree.
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Post by Tony Aguilar on May 14, 2019 20:03:20 GMT
Tony, this is a clever idea. Would terrain be placed in the larger square, or restricted to the 24" core. Also, I can see how the side edges would give another 3 inches with out set on troops, but how do you work the back edges. Would players still set up 3BW from center and thus have 3 more inches behind them. Would camps still be on the back edge of the 30" section, or on the back edge of the core 24" with space behind? While not a regular option, it might be fun once in a while. Well, we haven't play-tested it so I do not know. My initial impression would be to allow terrain as normal on a 30" x 30" board, but keep the foot print that would be allowed on a 24" x 24". Leave camps on back edge as well. I'm thinking this would be cool to show differences of how much easier a mounted army with Cv and LH can expand compared to when facing a heavy foot army. |
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Post by primuspilus on May 15, 2019 1:00:25 GMT
The other thing you may want to try if you use a larger board is allowing one "oversize" terrain piece. Remember, with the roads as is, you can pretty much force your attacker on a 30" board to deploy in a quarter that is packed with bad and rough, due the relatively more space to place multiple features in the same quarter.
Allowing one feature with length + width no greater than 12-13 BW, say, will prevent some of the other pieces landing, and have more space left over for road victims.
Just a thought. The terrain game ironically can sometimes get worse on the large board, unless almost all your pieces are maximal size.
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Post by Tony Aguilar on May 15, 2019 12:27:23 GMT
Just a thought. The terrain game ironically can sometimes get worse on the large board, unless almost all your pieces are maximal size. I have seen this happen many times. A large sized quadrant means that there is that much more opportunity for a second (or even third) terrain piece to potentially fit in that quadrant. |
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