"How big are your 15 mm Sci-Fi battles?" Topic

Last game I ran of Tommorrow's War which was at Historicon I had roughly a platoon of infantry with support weapons plus an entire platoon of tanks per side. That was a pretty big game and took the full three hours I had allotted to complete. I think that I was pushing the limits of the game mechanics with that scenario but wanted to see what others have experienced. Do you tend to keep you battles small say a couple of squads or do you go for company level or bigger? How has that worked for your games?

This is as big as I have gone:

doodlebot.net/redoubt/?p=618
The Two forces were composed of:

Pan Asian Empire

3x Heavy Tanks (Hover) with Guns and ATGMs
2x Medium Tanks (Hover) with Guns and ATGMs
2x Heavy MICVs (Hover) with Gatlings and ATGMs
2x Combat Patrol Cars (Hover) 3x Tribarrels each
1x ATGM Turret
1x Gun Turret
Mortar Team w/2 Light Mortars
3x 10-man Squads with 2 x Fireteams each (Fire and Assault)
5x Man Command Squad led by Colonel Ho

Legio Drago Mercenary Regiment

3x Heavy Tanks (Grav) with Energy Gun
3x Medium Tanks (Grav) with Energy Gun
3x IFV (Grav) with Twin Gauss Anti-Infantry weapons
3x Recon (Grav) with Light 20mm Gauss Cannons
3x 10-man Squads of Infantry with 2x Fireteams per Squad (With RPG and SAW)

This would be a big sized battle for my group.

chalanekstation.blogspot.com

Platoon with a bit of support or below.

I like lots of tanks – the last game I ran had around 60 elements, 35-40 vehicles and ~20 infantry teams. That was using Hammers Slammers:The Crucible and took around 5 hours (but fortunately my club has all-day meetings so we're able to run big games).

Nice stuff Warlock and Patrick. I should add what rule systems you prefer for this thread.

I use Tomorrow's War and Gruntz primarily.

About this big:

link

Hammer's Slammers: The Crucible.

Preference is for large battalion size games, but time limits often mean small company size games, Hammers being the best out of the box game with army lists aligned with manufacturers.

Those looked great. I want to run reinforced platoons myself. I'll likely use FAD4 or even 40K with alternating activation using Leadership checks or cards.

I've played a couple games of Flames of War with 3-4 companies of Germans on one side, run by one player. Short infantry battalion with all the Heavy Company platoons.

I use either Fubar or my own rules Company Commander for my 20mm Clone Wars/Scifi games. I have 200+ infantry and 20-30 vehicles on the table. Cool thing is the games take 3 hours give or take a little.

From skirmish to platoonish… I like playing with about a dozen bases per sides, a base being either a single mini (for skirmish), a fire team (for platoon games) or a single vehicle. The forces in the pics posted by Goober (but with the infantry based 4 per elements) are about my upper limit.

The format allows for a couple of vehicles while still maintaining low financial and storage footprints thus allowing me to collect multiple forces. Also it keeps games short allowing a whole campaign to be played in an afternoon.

I'm Biased (so Hammer's Slammers: The Crucible).

Games I play are regularly two detachments a side – sometimes more, sometimes less. But rarely more than three detachments a side for a 2.5 hour game unless the players are experienced.

This one was 5 Detachments versus 2 Detachments and needed three hours but got two and a half. It had experienced players. link

For those not familiar with the system, a detachment averages 10 'things'. The 'thing' (a TU or 'Tactical Unit') might be a single AFV (or an AFV with a towed weapon, anti tank gun etc), or a stand of infantry – usually around 4 chaps but often between a single or pair (say a sniper or sniper team) and a larger unit (a double sized mob of untrained vigilante types).

When I have used the Solace Militia, for example (see this game link ) they use a lot of untrained infantry in one of the detachments with just a few transport vehicles. Here they are attacking an AFV of the Waldheim Dragoons:

They are a detachment of 30 TUs of which around 25 are infantry units, all as 4 or 8 man bases.

The other end of the scale would be a Slammers Armoured Detachment: it might just have 8 AFVs and no infantry.

The game I mentioned earlier with 7 detachments had two Slammers armoured units (so 16 or so AFVs and no infantry) versus an amrmoured force with Infantry in AFVs and mounted on bikes. Between them they had about 28 or so AFVs and perhps a dozen or so infantry TUs, mostly in three to a base grav bikes but some on foot (usually 4 to a base).

Finally, there is an option to play a smaller unit than a Detachment: a half sized one called a 'Troop'. I've played games with, say, a Troop of Slammers versus a troop of Antargran Regulars (so 4 Slammers AFVs versus 8 Antargran AFVs and infantry) and the game might only last an hour or so – less with experienced players.

Troops are a good way of introducing folks to the rules: at Salute 2013 we had members of the public run Troops of Slammers AFVs (4 tanks, 4 combat cars etc) versus detachments of opponents run by the umpire and the game lasted all day with almost a conclusion.

Mind you there were 6 Troops of Slammers (so 24 AFVs) plus some artillery and probably 200 opponents on the table at any one time.

And the table was a scale kilometre long at over 10 metres.

Does any of that help at all?

John T

From squad level up to Battalion.
Depending on the rules and the scenario, together with who is taking part.
Most rules for the smaller games.Normally most rule sets have a ceiling of approx reinforced platoon or understrength company.
For larger games I use my own 30th anniversary edition of GZG's G-Cav.
Also a lot of the size depends on the TOE of the forces involved – some of my higher tech motorised troops have a 17 man platoon carried in two vehicles.
Also I cater the game size to the time allowed and space considerations.

I normally play platoon to company size battles (Priority level 1, 2 and 3 battles respectively) in PMC 2640. Single unit is either ground vehicle, aircraft or infantry team (from 2 to 8, normally about six soldiers).
Average battle time on Priority level 1 (about 6 units per side) is from 1 to 2 hours depending on battle flow and scenario. From experience I know that every Priority level adds about 1 hour of game. Every priority level adds about 6 units per side.

Marcin G.

Yep, John is definitely my 'science fiction gaming' hero.

Patrick

You're a very kind man :)

John T

20-30 men aside. plus 3 or 4 vehicles and a few drones.

Games range from small strike teams (4-8 troopers) against an enemy platoon to cross-attached companies with supporting elements on each side. Using Close Quarters for the smaller games and Platoon Leader for the bigger ones.

I aspire to run games that look as good as John's. Nazrat picked up a copy of Hammer's Slammers at a flea market last Historicon but we have yet to try a game.

@Goober, those look great and looks about what I try to run. But I have so much in 15 mm Science Fiction I really want to put on some bigger games but do not want to spend five plus hours running it. Three to four seems to be the top end of what I feel most game masters and players can handle before fatigue sets in. Please continue to post your thoughts.

For what it's worth (regarding Hammer's Slammers: The Crucible) there's a page on the Slammers website called Introduction which has the topic How does the game Play link and there's a more detailed explanation in a pdf on the same page PDF link

That goes into a bit more detail about forces, ranges and such like as well.

John T