Jcfrog | 13 Jul 2014 3:41 a.m. PST |
How many units max do you feel comfortable using in a game? both interesting (lowering freak dice impact) and not overwhelming? Average complexity= horse and musket era. |
79thPA | 13 Jul 2014 3:56 a.m. PST |
6-12 depending on the rules and unit size. If playing a game like Volley and Bayonet or DBA, where a stand is a unit, dozens of units are reasonable. |
rdjktjrfdj | 13 Jul 2014 3:59 a.m. PST |
The most I have played with was about 35 units per side, using Johnny reb III rules. We have tried it several times and it was magnificent, although I think it would have been unplayable had there been several players. Each side was commanded by one player without an umpire. |
Timbo W | 13 Jul 2014 4:10 a.m. PST |
I reckon 15 to 20 per player, though could be more or less depending on simplicity of rules. Played some bigger games but they can get too congested and unmanageable. Perhaps a bigger table and more time allows more units? |
Jcfrog | 13 Jul 2014 4:12 a.m. PST |
Say in a multi player (disciplined= doing their stuff together) game? I have played many games, notably Fire & Fury types, with less than 6-8 units in multi-players game, a bit bored and very much unchallenging. After 30-40, units i tend to lose grasp with some part s of the details as there are effectively several different sub-fights. Yet computer and board gamers do use hundreds of units as a habit? |
Ottoathome | 13 Jul 2014 5:25 a.m. PST |
Depends entiely on the rules. My game "Oh God! Anything but a six!" I wrote and designed for the Renaissance to 1880 (but not colonial). It easily handles 32 units on a side and these are BIG units (on 4.5 ": by 8" stands for infantry, 5 by 7 inch for cavalry, and 4 by 5 inch stands for artillery, on a 6 x 9 table. and the game works and is interesting down to a game with 7 units on a side. All the figures are mounted on these stands so an infantry regiment 4.5 by 8" has it's one colonel, 1 under officer, 2 sergeant, 2 colors, 1 fifer, 1 drummer and 28 infnatryman in three reanks all on one stand. But so what? It depends on what you think is "challenging." and the time you can spend on it. The games I run above usually take about five to six hours to play, and always reach a definite conclusion. But things happens VERY quickly and combat is very decisive. But the game assumes that the player "enters" the game at the high level of a wing commander of an army (left, right, or center, or the supreme commander), and therefore he deals only with the issues that such a person would deal with. Thus all the folderol of mounting/dismounting – limbering/unlimbering, formations, and wether you're firing a French Charleville Model 23-92 -43 A130 or a French Charleville Model 23-92 -A43- B130 tossed out. Even flanking is a function of the rules. If a unit takes you in the flank and you have no one to the front as this is the 18th century and troops were drilled to do this to exhaustion, the flanked unit simply turns to face. If you're taken front and flank, oh well, you chose which one you want to face. The enemy hits you twice once from both units, you hit both of them once. You can split up your combat factors to put some on one and some on the other but that's that. If you run is all decided by the hits made and that decision takes about two seconds. The rules are 12 pages long, single spaced, 12 point Times Roman three quarter inch margains with all rules, illustrations, charts, tables,diagrams, pictures, cover art and the like in that 12 pages. No cheat cards or ephemerratta. Game Designer drivel is on a seperate four page folder but that can easily be tossed out as there's nothing needed for the game in it. Kt's must me gassing on abot how I developed the rules and some concepts behind it. BUT!!!! Again!!! This is not bragging, the game yielded has a distinct character that not a lot of people like. There are wide swings of fortune in an OGABAS game. |
Doug MSC | 13 Jul 2014 5:41 a.m. PST |
I have played with 60 units per side in my 40mm AWI collection. The game lasted three days but loads of fun as more reinforcements kept coming into the battle and the battle continued to take many twists and turns. Just when you think you had won it, the enemy would send a few units galloping into the field at a point you didn't expect them or an artillery battery would show up and blunt your attack. And NO we didn't play for three days and nights straight. I can just hear some brains getting ready to play on this. :) |
olicana | 13 Jul 2014 5:59 a.m. PST |
We played this 96 unit game, two players plus me helping to move stuff around occasionally, in five hours.
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CATenWolde | 13 Jul 2014 6:02 a.m. PST |
Some players will be very fiddly and exact and suffer from Analysis Paralysis, and be best with 6 units. Others will be more comfortable with the broad sweep and would prefer a dozen or two. It depends on both the player type and the rules type. For me, about a dozen – which I've found to be a good average for the H&M period over the years. |
CATenWolde | 13 Jul 2014 6:03 a.m. PST |
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Jcfrog | 13 Jul 2014 6:06 a.m. PST |
olicana can-I move to live nearby, if it does not rain too much (I was told east coast was better?)? Challenging/ I meant when you had a good time, probably reached a conclusion etc. and felt challenged in the fight, like lose half the time ;)) I have to admit I was a bit hard put to write properly my question. This all has much to do with tastes and aims, as with many wargaming subjects. |
olicana | 13 Jul 2014 6:21 a.m. PST |
Hi Jcfrog We play a lot of battles like this. Lots of figures is lots of fun – not always, but usually. Like this Roman Vs Gallic
Or this Crusades (Harran) battle
Or this Punic naval game where every ship is a unit.
Or this WW2 (2nd day at Sidi Rezegh) game
Or this Punic (Lake Trasimine) game
Or this Italian Wars (Cerignola?) game
We like fighting with lots of stuff. We like a target rich environment. |
Doug MSC | 13 Jul 2014 6:30 a.m. PST |
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Jcfrog | 13 Jul 2014 6:36 a.m. PST |
Olicana all very much after my tastes. I think I might have seen one of your games at carronade. yes more troops also means a right for mistakes less impact of a few freak dice rolls. |
ScottWashburn | 13 Jul 2014 7:07 a.m. PST |
The Ambler Gamers' motto is: "More troops!" :) But seriously, a major factor is how familiar the players are with the rules. The more familiar, the more troops they can handle. |
Frederick the Grape | 13 Jul 2014 7:58 a.m. PST |
Why do so many photos of wargames show the "backs" of the individual figures rather than the front of the figures. . James: can you hire me as your butler? That way I can help you move figures about the table.
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Bandit | 13 Jul 2014 8:05 a.m. PST |
I would say generally speaking any given player can make 5-8 "decisions" during their turn. Thus, it depends on rules, tactical rules where I'm making all the decisions that a regiment will execute, that limits me to about one brigade, maybe two totaling about 5-8 "regiments". Grand tactical rules typically just have single units and call them something bigger like brigades which means that if I play a game like that I'm limited to about a corps made up of 4-8 "brigades". Grand tactical rules where I have all my units represented but I only make decisions about divisions or brigades as groupings then give me a higher unit count (~25-60) but I am still making decisions for ~4-8 elements. Players can and I have played mammoth games where a given player controls a couple dozen tactical units doing tactical things but: 1) in small numbered player games (2-4) if the players are well motivated and strong on the rules, works OK 2) in large number player games (6+) it breaks down easy. Cheers, The Bandit |
waaslandwarrior | 13 Jul 2014 8:21 a.m. PST |
Inspiring pictures, James. I hope to get enough figures painted some day to set up a large game like that. My problem is that I'm working on too many projects at the same time… Back on topic, I think around 10-15 units/player is OK. |
Early morning writer | 13 Jul 2014 8:42 a.m. PST |
Actually, if I can bend a portion of the question a bit, I think it may really be more a factor of how many stands a player can handle rather than how many units (unless, as in OGABAS, they are one and the same, I believe). Though the points made above about decisions per player and individualized player tolerance do factor in. I believe asking it this way addresses a key element and that is the pure physical time it takes to move a given number of stands around – whether they represent one unit with 80 stands or those same 80 stands represent 16 units. Of course, that element does beg the question of the decision making process about what all of those stands will be doing. If just one unit, then very few decisions. If 16 units, then a higher number of decisions though not necessarily 16 because some units may be doing the same thing (conforming to each other) and some units may require more than one decision. But I really suspect that we do need to factor in the stand number to arrive at a reasonable answer to the question. Oh, and I tend to collect my periods in a manner similar to Olicana, large numbers of figures in large numbers of units. Though to date I only have three of those periods with enough painted to have such large games: ACW, Pirate, and French and Indian War (currently being worked on – or would be if the wife would just stop pestering me! : )…) |
Frederick | 13 Jul 2014 9:00 a.m. PST |
I agree with Ottoathome – depends on the rules We do Grand Tactical and usually have 18 – 24 units per side – with skirmish we have had as few as five, but with our campaign game we had one battle with 92 units on one side and 110 on the other (we did, to be fair, have two players per side) |
pbishop12 | 13 Jul 2014 9:14 a.m. PST |
Beautiful pictures above there. I play GdBde on a 12x6 table. I can get about 20 units per side including batteries. I find it best however, to feed in reinforcements to prevent crowding as much as possible. |
Idaho Wargamer | 13 Jul 2014 9:43 a.m. PST |
So many wonderful looking games from Olicana! Thank you sooo much for sharing those. Truly inspiring!! |
jeffreyw3 | 13 Jul 2014 10:06 a.m. PST |
Gorgeous games--I are officially jealous… I like the idea of giving the player more than he can handle at one time, so units get forgotten or left in less than desirable positions…that way you could ease off a bit on artificial command and control rules. |
Jcfrog | 13 Jul 2014 10:48 a.m. PST |
Early morning writer this question has been puzzling me for a while: why can we manoeuvre so many counters on different Schwerpunk in a boardgame, and get stuck so easily (depends on people and rules) with minis? Local concerting was: time it takes to do each sub thing; move a counter, put one on top to declare an attack= a few seconds. move 8 stands and do the same a few minutes. meanwhile our brains get lost on things we did 10 minutes ago. As jeffreyw3 said: get less and less efficient. Which in turn leads to frustration or poorer liking of the game. |
Lion in the Stars | 13 Jul 2014 11:59 a.m. PST |
6-12 units needing decisions made about them per player. This could mean 6-12 groups of multiple bases, but it's still 6-12 things all moving (or not) together. 6-12 individual models in Infinity, 6-12 fireteams and/or vehicles in Ambush Alley, 6-12 platoons in Flames of War, 6-12 battalions in LaSalle, and/or 6-12 brigades in Legacy of Glory (if I could ever figure out the rules there) lower numbers per player when you're new to a game, higher numbers when you're very familiar with the game, but still no more than 12 groups of figures to deal with. |
xxxxxxx | 13 Jul 2014 2:33 p.m. PST |
"How many units can you use in a game?" All of them, I hope. [Sorry …. I was waiting, but no one else said it, and I couldn't resist any longer.] :-) - Sasha |
etotheipi | 13 Jul 2014 2:49 p.m. PST |
Agree with Bandit. Number of units, irrelevant. Decision space is what is important. I generally follow the rule of "Three threes" – three aggregate evaluations with three degrees of freedom and three levels of sensitivity each. That leads to 27 or so elements, which generally breaks down to 7 or so major command decisions. That's what I design to for scenarios, also. |
1968billsfan | 13 Jul 2014 3:50 p.m. PST |
Hruuuph!! rules of 3? Don't tease, explain more. |
John the OFM | 13 Jul 2014 4:51 p.m. PST |
"REALISTICALLY", one should not handle more than 5 units. But, we are gamers, and "realism" flies out the window. |
Old Contemptibles | 13 Jul 2014 5:29 p.m. PST |
With JR2 we played a 100+ regiment game and many 50 to 80 unit games. That's back when I was much younger and we had so few players where I lived then, that we just got use to playing large games with fewer players. We played most of the battle of Antietam with only the size of the table and length of our arms limiting us. We had to play the sunken road as a separate scenario. I think we had three players to a side. For the anniversary of Borodino at brigade level (AOE) we did the battle with about 12 players and 129 units on the battlefield. Took us two days. Got our picture in "Wargames Illustrated." The most I have commanded in a JR2 game were about three full divisions. Not as grand but I did play the Americans by myself in a battalion scale Guilford Court House scenario against two very good British players. Doesn't sound like much but it wore me out running from one side of the table to the other. |
spontoon | 13 Jul 2014 10:31 p.m. PST |
How many units? As many as I can get! 'Coz I lose so many! |
basileus66 | 13 Jul 2014 11:13 p.m. PST |
10-16 units. More than that and I start to lose focus. |
(Phil Dutre) | 14 Jul 2014 3:07 a.m. PST |
I have an idea! Let's make all soccer fields 4 times as large and play with 44 players per team! Anyway, more units should mean fewer stats and decision points per unit. That's why in a roleplaying game, in which a player controls 1 character, the character is fleshed out in much more detail, and combat is down to the level of individual body parts getting hit, different degrees of injuries etc.
That's why boardgames can handle more units: there are usually fewer decisions to be made per counter. And if you have let's say 100 counters per side, one tends to think in groups of counters moving together rather then each counter individually. I once played a game of Russian Campaign against someone who considered each counter as a problem to be optimized by itself. One turn lasted 3 hours or so… And of course, the speed of play and habits in a group – sometimes encouraged by the rules – play a role too. When I was a young padawan and inexperienced wargamer, still on a diet of Warhammer only, we all made a fuss about this or that unit moving exactly 12.5 cm (not 12 or 13, but 12.5), and each wheeling manouever had to be measured exactly down to the millimeter. Heck, we even had a guy who insisted that each inch be converted to 2.54cm (not 2.5!), because otherwise we would upset the careful crafted play balance intended by the game designers. Then I played in another game with a group I had never played with before, and they were much more loose about measurements. "If your unit can move 12, anything between 11 and 13 will do, and don't worry about the inane millimeters". For me, that attitude was a very liberating thought, because up to that point, I assumed that proper wargaming was all about millimeters. Once we adopted the more freestyle mode of movement, games went much more quickly. These days, I prefer Black Powder over DBx for exactly the same reasons. |
olicana | 14 Jul 2014 4:11 a.m. PST |
Then I played in another game with a group I had never played with before, and they were much more loose about measurements. "If your unit can move 12, anything between 11 and 13 will do, and don't worry about the inane millimeters". For me, that attitude was a very liberating thought, because up to that point, I assumed that proper wargaming was all about millimeters. Once we adopted the more freestyle mode of movement, games went much more quickly. Yep, measure quickly for one, judge for those near it with a hand span.
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etotheipi | 14 Jul 2014 6:08 a.m. PST |
We tend to handle measurements like that functionally. We're not so much worried about the precision as the effect. F'r'ex, if your guy and my guy have the same range (for whatever) and you move in and fire, don't ask me to measure when I fire back later. (I have seen people do this at cons. Someone tried to do this at my table, and I disallowed it. The dude was on the verge of tears.) |
TelesticWarrior | 14 Jul 2014 7:04 a.m. PST |
It depends on the command and control mechanism and the scope of the game. If you are playing grand strategic games where you have to think and act like a C-in-C then you have to make it easy for yourself and the opposing player/s, in terms of the level of involvement you have with the lower level formations. With my home-grown rules for Napoleonic games where the Brigade is the basic manouvre element (with battalions that can sometimes un-zip out), a confident player can handle up to 50 brigades, maybe more. This is because the player ordinarily gives pre-game orders to Corps or Divisional sized commands and the brigades/battalions just respond automatically to unfolding events, without the player having to make scores of complex decisions every turn. It's possible for the player to micro-manage a few brigades (or even battalions) each turn, but constant tinkering with lots of units is not permitted.
If the rules are done right it is possible to have scores of units per player and still have a pretty fast grand strategic game.
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Kevin in Albuquerque | 14 Jul 2014 11:42 a.m. PST |
I'm with CATenWolde, about twelve works well. Twelve sailing ships, twelve airplanes, twelve units of a pike army, twelve units of a division etc. Modified by amount of time available to play (more time equals more units) and rules knowledge (less knowledge equals less units). Twelve is about right to enjoy the details but not get swamped by the mass. And have enough to do. And to add to the above, really impressive pictures. Jealous, jealous, jealous. |
Glenn Pearce | 14 Jul 2014 2:12 p.m. PST |
Hello Jcfrog! A very, very interesting question, with even more amazing answers. For many years my group (Napoleonic Miniatures Wargame Society of Toronto now the Miniature Brigade) studied all of our games in an effort to improve them. One of the questions we studied was in fact "how many units can one person handle in a game". In the end the number we were comfortable with was 12. We nick named it the "dirty dozen". It seemed that most people were able to deal with up to 12 units. Once most people go beyond 12 units they seem to get bogged down, miss things, make mistakes etc. Of course this can happen with handing just one unit. It just seemed to be more prevalent when people were asked to look after more then 12 units. So it's just amazing that so many respondents seem to be confirming the same number. Best regards, Glenn |
Weasel | 14 Jul 2014 2:41 p.m. PST |
Personally, I tend to prefer games in the 6-12 range. The bigger stuff can be a ton of fun but I find I enjoy a game more when it's a little bit more focused. |
christot | 15 Jul 2014 1:09 p.m. PST |
Some players will struggle with 4 units, others will handle 25+ comfortably. Depends on the rules, the players and their familiarity with those rules. What's often more important is the balance between capability/size with opposing players, particularly in multi player games. Nothing worse than a single dithering player out of his depth with a large force having to play against 2 opponents. No one has a good time. |
etotheipi | 16 Jul 2014 7:07 a.m. PST |
Hruuuph!! rules of 3? Don't tease, explain more. OK. It goes back to Bandit's statement about decisions rather than units. I use a triple of (unit, decision, sensitivity) with three of each component to define the "sweet spot" where you keep people engaged but not overwhelmed. This leads to 27 "things" to "consider" each turn. Of course, this is just a structure for defining the state space, and the leaf level "things" can be allocated in different ways and still have the same level of engagement. The strict case would be having three units where you make three decisions (maneuver, attack, change posture) and there are roughly three levels of sensitivity in each decision. I can move forward, flank, or stay. (Maybe retreat is an option, but it usually isn't something you are always considering, and usually some other option drops off the menu before that happens.) In freespace, there are an infinite number of "forward" movement implementations. But they all pretty much achieve the same thing, have obvious immediate implications, and the implications of the differences on long term success are likely indistinguishable. The other decisions would sort out similarly. (Of course, you can't dictate what cognitive process a player will go through on a turn, but you can manage the state space he is interacting with.) In terms of flexibility, that "27 things" might be more like four units, two decisions, and three levels (=24) or five units, one decision, and five levels (=25) for any given case. Or maybe 7, 2, and 2 (=28). Most of this is loosely (not scientifically) based on some cognitive science research I have been involved with. Ideas like how many "things" can a person juggle at one time or how many different "levels" of something can a person really distinguish. Depends on the rules, the players and their familiarity with those rules. This is also an important factor. It is interesting that in learning a process (like how to operate units in a wargame) that one of the predominant things people learn is what things in the process to ignore (and when) rather than what things to do. Generally, it feels to us like it is the other way around. |
Early morning writer | 16 Jul 2014 8:56 p.m. PST |
There seems to be something about that number 12 and these handling units discussions. Asked essentially the same question here a couple of years back and that 12 number roamed about that thread pretty regularly. But I don't really think that is a consensus answer. I've been in games where it was easy for most players to handle double to triple that number and avoided games where it would be hard to handle a handful of figures (anything that complex for a hobby activity is just not my cup of tequila). So there is no simple or correct answer but 12 is as good an answer as anything else. Perhaps better in the sense that it tends to limit some of us from going over the deep end in collecting units excessively for a particular period (like I too!). |
Early morning writer | 16 Jul 2014 8:56 p.m. PST |
There seems to be something about that number 12 and these handling units discussions. Asked essentially the same question here a couple of years back and that 12 number roamed about that thread pretty regularly. But I don't really think that is a consensus answer. I've been in games where it was easy for most players to handle double to triple that number and avoided games where it would be hard to handle a handful of figures (anything that complex for a hobby activity is just not my cup of tequila). So there is no simple or correct answer but 12 is as good an answer as anything else. Perhaps better in the sense that it tends to limit some of us from going over the deep end in collecting units excessively for a particular period (like I too!). |