"Entrenchments in Demo games." Topic

I'm looking at running a scenario that involves the defender putting down lots of defenses such as entrenchments and pillboxes.

Now for a Demo game how would people like to see the terrain.
I.E Standard commercially figure base wide trenches that are very over scale width wise.
Purpose built trenches that have figures already in them OR scaled trenches that have removable figures .

Should i build the defenses already on to the game board or leave them loose for the defending player to decide on locations?

All ideas and thoughts welcome.

Andy

I generally try to model entrenched positions in scale with the ground scale – which means the figures end up standing on them or behind them. This is not to everyones taste, and your own tastes may differ.

For a demo game I wouldn't let the defenders position all the defences, it will take ages and they will make mistakes and/or do silly things which will ruin the game for everyone. Laying out fixed defences to make best the use of ground takes a fair degree of thought and time.

As a compromise lay out the broad shape of the position (particular major fixed trench lines) and give the players some fortification elements to position – barbed wire & minefields are ever popular, possibly some concreted strongpoints and short sections of entrenchment.

That way the overall shape of the position will be consistent (linear, deep, strongpoint based, forward slope, reverse slope or whatever) which will govern the flow of the game but the defending player will have some control over their destiny.

I would build them lose, otherwise you are fighting over the same terrain over and over again.

Will the attackers have engineering or other special assault assets? How carefully planned will the attack need to be to have a chance of success? This can really mess up the balance.

Just a suggestion. I run a game at both RECON and HURRICON in Orlando. Years ago I decided, in order to speed the game up and especially to deal with folks new to the system (I use Rapid Fire) that the games would be one sided. I found many excellent historical situations where one side was typically on the defense. Once any decisions were made on placement there was really very little for the defensive player to do other than fire. So borrowing from my military career I set these games up as battle problems with one side and its moves predetermined according to historical reading of the actual battle.

Your demo seems perfectly suited for this! You decide ahead of time where the defenses will be and what forces occupy them. You then brief the players and watch how they tackle the problem. Now players can ask questions on the rules or on situations without fear of revealing plans to the enemy. Hidden movement is a breeze as the game master just reacts to what he can see. You will speed your games up and yet provide an interesting situation for those new to the rules you use!

By the way this can work even with both sides on the offense such as a meeting engagement. This takes a little more work and usually the services of more than one game master but you restrict the non-player side to historical moves and/or moves based on doctrine for that side.

Totally agree with Marc33594, the player(s) vs umpire method works very well for attack/defence games and is a simple way of doing hidden movement etc.

It is possible to make participation game out of defence, but it is quite hard work – Rorkes Drift is a popular subject, and I did a 1914 BEF anniversary game like that, but somehow you need to introduce elements of manouvre and resource management or it just becomes a tedious game of Space Invaders.

I like entrenchments/bunkers that can accommodate separately based figures.

I too like the idea of the players all being on the attacking side, but if you go with player-defenders, I'd still suggest pre-positioning the defenses and perhaps give the defenders the option to relocate a small number of the entrenchments/bunkers.

The game will be BFWW2 annual demo game (excuse to catch up with friends and get drunk).
This one will be a pacific island assault from the sea.

I,ll do all the major heavy weapons as fixed and Infantry support weapons as movable.

Greetings

Depending what scale you are using I found 15mm Command Decision infantry in foxholes packs useful. Not sure they do Japanese though?

In 10mm I converted Soviets by cutting them off at the waist and having filled defences along with equivalent empty ones. In a demo game having defences fixed is probably a better idea.

Regards

Edward