"Dealing with Houses on the Game Table" Topic

One of the features of Civil War battlefields is the number of indvidual Houses dotted around the place. OK sometimes these may have been a farm house and a couple of out buildings but we are not talking a New York City block here.

Now of course the options are sometimes laid down in the rules you play but if you don't stick to these, what's your preference?

After some years we are trying a proposal where the model is pretty much decoration. This based on the general inequality between troop scale and ground scale. That's to say the building is the right height for 28mm figures (in our case) but the foot print is out of whack with the frontage of a Regiment.

So, for us, it doesn't block LoS on level ground, unless the unit on the other side is in road column heading toward or directly away from it. Similarly it doesn't provide cover other than to a unit in Line of Battle at 'right angles' to one of its sides.

Meaning you can both shoot and be shot at but we do say any chargers will be disordered if they pass through the area of the building.

Logic(?) here being that both these formations are only a few men wide/deep rather than a unit of 400 men where even the side of most houses wouldn't hide a Company.

On the same basis you can't hide a Battery either. OK the deployed guns could be screened by the side of a house in reality (until they fired, of course) but the horse teams and limbers couldn't be so that's the rule.

Any thoughts or comments on how you deal with this?

I like your approach. It makes a lot of sense.

Yes, that all makes sense and I use that myself. A house could screen a battery depending on the angle and distance, but not from a whole regiment or brigade. And probably never the whole battery but a gun or two.

Yep, when your dealing with individual houses at that 'troop scale' I'd tend to agree with your premise. If the house features as a model at all it is a virtual house and will have little if any effect on combat.

Here, if such a terrain feature gets in the way of the action we will happily slightly move, or even remove, it until a suitable moment when it can be put back into its 'marked' position for aesthetic purposes.

We quite often have virtual terrain such as trees, fields, isolated buildings and the like that are purely there for the look of a game.

It does make sense.

For instance, I've never read of the Union troops occupying the McPherson barn on the first day of Gettysburg or of any comment about it affecting the fighting.

But I can also think of circumstances where individual buildings featured in the fight.

At Salem Church in 1863 the Confederates occupied the church and made a sort of bastion out of it.

And who hasn't heard of the role the Benjamin Chew house played during the battle of Germantown? (not ACW, but you see what I mean) That's just one admittedly large house.

So, maybe there are some historical scenarios where the structures need to be more than landmarks.

Yep most of ours are decoration and can be relocated for convenience. Same goes for single trees (only groups of trees are terraib).

Yes, they are mostly decoration.

When we played JOHNNY REB, a building represented an entire block (if town) or a group of buildings (if a farm house or barn). A unit could enter but only in disorder, if occupying buildings, or could move through without penalty if in column. Wooden houses gave cover as rail fences, stone/brick houses as stone walls. They did block LOS.

See: link

And: link

For some considerations on terrain, including using structures of a smaller scale, and demarking village/ town/ chateau by using standard mounting bases.

What you do with the buildings should depend on the ground scale, unit scale, etc.

In skirmish or "mass skirmish" level games, clearly you would want all the terrain bits to be "real" and not movable.

Since I've normally played games where units represent battalions, regiments or brigades, my standing rule has been that building and trees are decorations and move out of the way when the troops come through. I put down flat pieces of felt to mark the outline of woods, towns, swamps and other area features so that when the nice models move away you can still see which troops are in or out of the terrain. I have a few special buildings that I made felt cutouts for (a stone inn, a stone seminary, etc.), so that when the building moves away its exact footprint remains on the table. I use these to represent the occasional structure or collection of structures that is smaller than a village but stout enough to affect tactics. In game terms they make tiny but sometimes critical sub-unit-sized terrain features that can anchor a flank, disrupt a charge, cover a gun battery, etc.

- Ix

Yea, i do it the same way.

So, maybe there are some historical scenarios where the structures need to be more than landmarks

Absolutely agree there are exceptions. For the most part those that I can think of (outside of real street fighting like at Gettysburg and Fredericksberg) were generally where companies of sharpshooters, or just plain old detached companies, were sent off to hold a position or make a nuisance of themselves!

I guess at that point things need looking at in terms of the scale of the game, as others have mentioned and of course how and if, the rules you use can handle such subdivision.

Obviously if you were playing at the level where one stand equals a Brigade, its not really going to work! :o)

I guess we tend not to do it even though we play at a Regimental level due to many an argument on how many men could (or could not) fit into/fight from, a particular building and the hassle of representing losses. In my experience the matter being below the level of most rules, you no sooner get the number inside agreed than they end up dead in one turn anyway! :o)

FWIW, I once played in a game where the players used much smaller scale houses to try and make up for the ground/figure scale disparity.

I've heard of that being done but we ducked it. We have put on a number convention games over the years and while its cool to discuss things with attendees, I for one couldn't take a whole day of questions or muttered comments about the schmucks whose figures are bigger than their buildings! :o)

I play pretty much the same way. I use a 1" equals 50 paces ground scale and a 1" frontage represents about 75 men in line. Can you imagine 75 people in your house!

I use a 2"x2" base to represent a farm complex (including the house, out buildings and fenced enclosures) and place a 1"x1" house on it just for show. The farm is really more of an impediment than anything else. Since I use three 2"x1" bases to represent a regiment of anything from 450 to 750 men it's not really possible to have an entire regiment "occupy" the farm. The cover the farm provides doesn't compensate for the reduced fire power from adopting an open order formation.

I have used buildings of a smaller scale than the figures, such as 1:300 buildings with 15mm troops.

I tend to use buildings that are smaller in scale than the figures I use. They may not be correct with the ground scale but they do give a better visual representation of their effect.

There are a couple of things which would bother me about your ideas Trajanus. Rural buildings in the 19th century were seldom that isolated. A farmhouse is likely to have a number of dependent structures around it. While only a handful of men might be able to occupy and fight from a particular structure, a far greater number can hide behind them. This may not be a consideration when you are dealing with troops operating in formal battle lines. When you get to the ACW though, that would not always be the case. While you would still have a vague idea that the enemy was "over there at that farmhouse", you probably wouldn't know how many, or be able to hit them as effectively as if they were in open ground.

One issue in the ACW was the topography created dead zones where it is much harder to hit them unless the opponent is in the right location. I treated farms in the same manner, only on a smaller scale.

We simply use small building of the right scale in all cases, but ignore them as scenery when set out individually. Any buildings as terrain features are on a multiple building/farm stand. We make the stands with 'courtyard' areas for the stands of troops 'in' it. with 50-100 yard scales, most are 2-4 inches square. That would be 100-400 yards of area which is pretty typical for large farms or towns. Several stands can make respectable large towns.

Since we are on the subject and I have been wanting to solicit opinions; I am trying to put together a Franklin "breakthrough" game that will focus on the attacks of Brown's and Cleburne's Divisions for NashCon. The Carter House and Cotton Mill will both be featured on the table. I plan on doing the game in 28mm. Should those buildings then be 20mm??

The Carter House and Cotton Mill will both be featured on the table. I plan on doing the game in 28mm. Should those buildings then be 20mm??

Yes, or possibley even 15mm … whatever looks right to you.

I think consideration should be given to whether or not the house/farm affected the battle. In other words, although an individual house may not have an impact, a larger farm and its outbuildings might.

Generally in our games the house is mostly there for decoration.

Rural buildings in the 19th century were seldom that isolated. A farmhouse is likely to have a number of dependent structures around it.

I agree on the "dependent structures" but these varied along with the size of the owners house. However "isolated" is a relative term.

There may be a number buildings on any given battlefield but even if you look at somewhere with a lot of men on show like Gettysburg,there's a good distance between indvidual properties. On a table this is harder to achieve.

Then again its not just farms. Not everyone who built a house out of town was a farmer, there's more than one period photo of just a house on its own. Not to mention churches, meeting houses etc.

However, all this is moving off the original intent. For the most part Regiments did not deploy with a building directly to their front, nor did they move through one or more if it could be helped as it was too disruptive.

The prevention of structures being turned into mini Stalingrads was our original aim. So the exact number of buildings being represented (unless its an historical refight) is less important to us than the action taking place around it.

It really is the area occupied by 'buildings' and such rather than a single structure for the most part. A few ce ould large and significant during the fighting, such as the Battle of Atlanta, but even a small village of only a few buildings could occupy an area two or more hundred yards on a side with all the attendant fences, yards and such.

In general, we play BUAs rather than buildings per se, except in a few rare cases with games that have scales larger than 30-40 yards to an inch.

Unless you are playing skirmish, then a useful rule of thumb is to use buildings that are one size down. Reduces the footprint but doesn't look completely ridiculous. So, for 25/28mm use 1/72nd scale buildings. For 15/18mm use 10mm. For 10mm use 1/300.

Using smaller scale building isn't necessary if you can find small buildings in the figure scale. Not easy, but not impossible either. It's the footprint that counts instead of the number of buildings in the area….

Yes indeed, the footprint is the key.

We are playing in 6mm but I think you can apply what we are doing to any scale. The first is our units are on single bases 60x30mm. Our buildings are on the same bases with some on 60x60mm. Only one unit can occupy either base size. In most cases the buildings represent a small village or a farm/chateau complex. We don't use a building to represent a single building unless it's of some historical value. Even then there are probably other buildings around that would be included in the foot print of our single model. In most cases we dress up the area around the building to look like a farm or the outskirts of a village, so it looks like it belongs on the table. Our buildings do offer protection from sight and fire, which is a natural assumption.

So clearly the first step is there must be a balance between the size of your units and your buildings. I played in a 25mm game not that long ago where there was a single model of a chateau with out buildings that looked just fabulous and there were limits on the number of figures that could be within the model. The problem was the actual footprint of the model occupied way too much table space. An entire corp could hide behind it.

The second is to try and use smaller buildings not smaller in scale as they look really funny with cavalry towering over them. One clever idea I have seen is to use damaged or derelict buildings if your really aiming to show only one building. They can generally be compressed into a fairly small footprint and won't allow entire units to hide behind them. Again it makes sense to the players and they look perfectly natural on the table.

I use buildings of the same scale as my figures. I don't care about ground scale. It has no real significance to me. I am playing a game, not a military simulation.

I don't care about ground scale. It has no real significance to me

It doesn't seem to have much significance to commercial rules writers these days either.

However,that as they say,is a whole other story! :o)

"I use buildings of the same scale as my figures. I don't care about ground scale. It has no real significance to me. I am playing a game, not a military simulation."

Well, there is no rule that says you have to care. Do you have building on the table just for looks, or are they something providing defensive benefits, LOS and movement restrictions?

Well, there is no rule that says you have to care. Do you have building on the table just for looks, or are they something providing defensive benefits, LOS and movement restrictions?

It depends. Most often it represents both the eye candy, helping to "set the stage" as it were, enhancing the visual appeal of the game, etc.

Many times it/they also represent some bit of terrain difficulty/disadvantage, cover, concealment, etc. Depends upon the scenario.

I want my games to be fun and visually appealing, like a moving diorama, if you will. I want them to reflect my views on the flavor of the period, how things more or less worked, etc. But mostly, I want them to be fun and visually appealing. For hyper-accurate simulations I can use board games.

For hyper-accurate simulations I can use board games.

Yep, I hear those are pretty popular in some quarters.

Luckily, the ACW doesn't have a whole lot of fighting in BUAs or buildings. For the Napoleonic wars you have things like the Hougoumont which had a 800 X 700 yard footprint, the La Haye Sainte 100 X 800 yards. Sort of hard to ignore at any scale.

[Love the meaning of La Haye Sainte: "The Sacred Hedge."]