"TSATF big battles" Topic

okay I tried searching and I couldn't find anything.

what do you guys do to the rules to play big battles?
I've seen a couple things such as using D 20 s and all hits are pills but counting it as 1 through 20.
I have 800 fighting Englishman, but I seem to recall not caring for it.

tell me what you guys do. probably looking for about 100 figures on the Imperial side.

thanks in advance,
Joe

We used to play massive TSATF games with 1500 figures per side. We did it strictly by the book, melees and all.
Now that we are older and wiser, and each guy commands at most 4 units.

Now, if you HAVE to do big battles, I would recommend using the Battles by GASKIGHT charts for melees, which give roughly the same results, but take a lot less time.

For shooting, you HAVE to have wounded on the Imperial side, to give the natives something to kill to lower British morale with blood curdling shrieks of agony. It forces you to carry your wounded, bring along Wagons of Endless Capacity, etc. So I use the 20th Anniversary charts, with card flips as per the book.
Once the first prisoner is killed by the Bad Guys, carrying your wounded is … optional.
A few months ago, a horrified reader who had never read the rules was shocked by this.

When I run large battles using tsatf all native hits are kills and early on in the game I sometimes have all tribes move on one card. I use the custom decks from the virtual armchair general and remove the halt card on until units get closer. Melees take time in large battles I just go though them at quicker pace. Firing I roll max dice on a dice tray to speed the game up.

Yes, all native hits are removed and treated as kills. I forgot that.

We have a house rule that really speeds up the game. On a red card, every British player can move one unit. On black card, every Zulu player can move one unit. Firing is still done one unit per card.

For big games we roll a D4 and that many units move on a red (British) or black (native) card. Firing is still done unit by unit and as others, all native hits are kills.

Jim

We do similar to Col. Campbell. Either roll a die a D4 as they do, or roll a D6, 1-2, (1) unit moves per card, 3-4 (2) unit move per card, and 5-6 (3) units move, or as we do to cut out a step, pull a card, 2-5 (1) unit moves per card, 6-10 (2) units move, face cards (3) units move. Another alternate movement option is to have a command move per card with each command equalling 2 to 4 units. All firing is done as normal but throw all fire dice at once. We keep pulling cards until the deck is done and then reshuffle. Melee, of course must be done as normal, but we split the table up and will run multiple mellees at once if needed. You can really move the game along with these options and with player cooperation. We have played tons of games with these options running up to 6-12imperial forces vs 12-18 native units. We've completed large games in 4-5 hours. We are actually running (5) very large TSATF games at Hurricon 2014 this coming September in Orlando Fl. There will be a Zulu game, two Boxer games, a TSIA game, and a The Wind And The Lion game.
hmgs-south.com

Cheers,
JB
sgtguinness@blogspot.com

so do the native auxilaries for the Imperial side suffer wounds still or are there hit kills. same question for Askari.
Our just imperial regulars

also assuming only Imperial regulars get wounded, what making all red card skills in all black cards wounds work out well?

what I think I may do is considering each of my players will be given a to platoon command when an imperial card comes up it will be in imperial players force instead of unit and same for natives

Thanks for the help guys

Dobber,

Any Askari unit in imperial service takes wounded and needs to carry or tend to their wounded. Native aux wouldn't have to take their wounded per say, but that may be a good option, unless they are commanded/led by imperial officers, then they would be held to the same restrictions.

Native figs wounded in a large battle are usually considered kills once the parent unit moves away from the fallen figs or the unit is destroyed. Otherwise we leave wounded on the table during firefights as diamond cards hit wounded figs.

Making one platoon or tribe move per card is a great idea to speed up play. But I would make units shoot at one unit per card to prevent an overly unfair advantage.