"I am outgrowing megalomania" Topic

Back in the days of Yore, I thought that playing a Sword and the Flame with fewer than 1500 figures per side was … wimpy.
I HAD the figures, after all.

Now, I have come over to playing with 10 figure units, and 4 units per player. (I know for some that is still a lot. )

One thing I have noticed, besides the obvious that cleanup and setup times are a lot shorter, is that it makes each unit more valuable. If you have 15 units, you can be more callous and cavalier about one unit of 20 guys. You are a lot more likely to sacrifice 5% of your force "for the greater good" than you are with 25%. Your style of play changes when you have more to lose.

Any thoughts?

Small is beautiful.

One doesn't simply outgrow megalomania. I think you are lulling us into a false sense of security!

I've played a mix of TSATF. At a convention, I played in one that had lots and lots of 10 man units. Limited on the European (AKA British) side but the native side could recycle units over and over again. It was a buying time to escape sort of scenario.

Also played at the club years ago which was smaller in scope, along the lines of your new way. 2-4 units per player from what I remember.

I prefer smaller because I prefer simpler these days. As well you bring up the point of laying out and cleaning up time is much shorter. Either way works. I get a hankering for big games every now and then but mostly because of time it's shorter and simpler for me.

I agree with you John. Also, many of us now game at game stores rather than at home. This means we have to reduce the size of our games in order to finish in a reasonable amount of time. No longer can we leave a game overnight.

What's next, John, are you getting into Lacepunk?

I still like the look of a large pike block on the tabletop, but I've moved to mostly smaller forces and skirmish games, myself.

My megalomania is in a lifelong struggle against my penuriousness. After a long string of defeats, however, my megalomania seems to be regaining the upper hand. Which explains why I now have the entire 7th Armored Division in Opration.BattleAxe for Command Decision

TSATF plays best (IMO) with few units per player. I am also toying with the idea of 8-10 man units for the F&IW. I have recently started to revise my thinking, which was 'well, you gotta have at least 600 25s to even think about playing a game' to a sometimes less is more philosophy.

I'm moving more and more to skirmish type games, Wild West, Darkest Africa etc. At 63, I just don't have an interest in painting large armies any longer. For TSATF though, we never had more than 100 figures per side between three players.

I have had to live with my megalomania. Thankfully I let it loose only on the table top. My God think what I would do without war games and I would be forced to let it loose on humanity!

I like mass battles, but I like those mass battles to have stands of minis. Moving hundreds of individual minis just gets tedious.

A smaller game that I can actually set up, play, COMPLETE, and take down, is far better than one where we only get through two enormous turns and then call it quits.

Hmm, not yet. I'm making sure I have all the figures for all the forces for 15-18 June 1815. Plan on running it as one big continuous battle, at a Con in February.

And that is only Napoleonics…

The fact that you think you can outgrow megalomania is megalomanic in itself….

What a strange concept…

Is the next step up from megalomaniac a gigalomaniac?

Well it's good to know one can grow out of it, but cleanup time isn't going to be the cause for me. Set up time maybe.

We use TSATF as the basis for our Space 1889 games. 10 man units for the human infantry. The Martians tend to be 20 man units. Cavalry are 6. Most of the players have between 3 and 5 units each. Don't forget the mechanicals which are an each.

Well I started with TSATF but using The Sword In Africa rules in the back of the 20th anniversary rule set. There all of your units are 8-10. I also play a lot of Brother against Brother and its VSF off shoot Valor & Steel & Flesh, again, the units are a strength of 10 figures in most cases.

Now I do dream of one day doing TSATF proper with the big 20 man units when I have all those Perry Sudan figures. Or…just stick to what I have. I agree that running games at both conventions and at local gaming stores disciplines you to scale down the unit sizes and the rule of a player having two to three units to run seems to make for a good game experience. Not needing an hour or more to pack up is also good.

for huge game I went 15mm…

I don't have to worry about megalomania any more, I understand a very heavy layer of sun block will protect you from it.

I dont think the Megalomanians have an army list in TSATF.