20 BW vs 15 BW

Deployment is an immediate issue I notice when I play on both sizes. With the smaller size, you don’t really have many options for how to deploy. 

A possible complication of the 24x36 board is that it might give the defender an advantage by allowing him to set up to the right or left where terrain blocks the invader immediately across, but I suppose there’s no rule saying the invader has to put his forces immediately across from the defender.

When we tried a bigger board, it didn’t seem to make too much difference to the ability of the light horse army to gain an advantage.

With a 24x36” board the main disadvantage is that there are now effectively only two directions of play (unlike a roadless square board). This might play into the hands of the terrain-placing player.

The 'Ulmer Strategen' always use the bigger Board option for their tournaments, and they are always fun to play. 

One special issue with theses boards is: players normally use their standard terrain pieces which fit better on a smaller board, so the chances are relatively high that you have to fight on vast and empty plains of billiard table terrain.

But I think the bigger the landscape and the bigger your terrain pieces the more tactical possibilities you'll get out of it, only if you try and use it in your favour...

...and on the other hand: I found that quite a lot of generals tend to neglect the advantages and disadvantages of the terrain. Sometimes the time and order distances slow them down remarkably. My funniest victories happened when I fought their weaker wing while their stronger wing staggered through some marsh or wood or remained in shelter behind some river or hill...

So, think of Napoleon: "Never interrupt the enemy when he's about to make some blunder."

And, like him, use your terrain in your favour.

Dimensionality of the board wasn’t something I’d thought of as a problem. Can’t the defender already choose the axis of the board by placing their army? I think requiring both camps to be in the middle third of the board would do a lot to prevent deployment shenanigans. I’m not a very experienced DBA player and most of my games have been friendly, not competitive, so I’m sure the tournament masters here know better.

I was hoping someone would have input on which board size the terrain rules fits better, Brian Ború makes the point that 20 BW boards seem quite open. I personally have terrain pieces on the bigger end of things and think they work better on a 15 BW board.

The specific reason I’m asking is that I was thinking of making tiles with terrain on them and building the game board that way, whether by the defender choosing or a more random system. It’s just much easier to work with 12” tiles than 8” ones, so I was thinking about how to make that work.

Sounds nice. Will surely provide beautiful terrain and is a kind of 'back to the roots'.

As far as I remember the first ruleset of DBA (before its name) used ready built landscapes... 

I do have the 3 terrain mate that I made, 60x60cm (metric...oh yes) 90x90cm and the hybrid one 60x90cm which is your 24x36', as we extensively played I think the last one give more challenge and opportunity 4 side of the board can be chosen more terrain can be placed better for flanking and add variety it is like given you the opportunity to be in deep but narrow battle field like in Agincourt, or widht extended aisle friendly terrain.