"On, two, some, lots" Topic

One of the few phrases of merit to come out of games workshop. Looking at lots of terrain on Wargames boards I am struck by how few villages have very small numbers of houses. At the 1:1 model to figure scales I play villages need enough houses to class as lots, while clearly massively below the real number of houses. Practicaly 10 to 16 smallish houses classes as lots provided they are closely spaced. Then the interior houses can't be engaged from outside the village so you get the "lots" effect. On or two, or even 4 does not get the right effect. 20 or more tends to be two many.

How big do you make your villages and why? Do they cover a realistic ground scale area despite having to few houses?

It depends on what village. If I remember right, Tombstone AZ had fewer than a dozen buildings at the time of the famous gunfight. The "downtown" of the rural village for where my parent's farm had six (we lived about five miles from that downtown.

Do they cover a realistic ground scale area despite having to few houses?

Precisely. When playing at a higher scale than model scale, the ground area covered by a village shrinks, but the model buildings don't. I put down a few "public" buildings (church, school, store(s), whatever), then fill in the remaining space with houses. However, since my buildings aren't "real", the built-up area is delineated by a piece of cloth terrain under the buildings, and the buildings are just moved aside as troops/vehicles move in.

- Ix

It can be awkward. We do something similar to what YA described. A village footprint/stand and place buildings around the stand, leaving enough room for figure stands to occupy the village. We have permanent villages that can be landscaped. Multiple village stands can create larger BUAs. Single houses may be placed around the table for appearances or historical reference, but they aren't considered terrain.

A small village could be around 200-300 yards square. That is four to six inches with a 50 yards to an inch, only two to three with 100 yards to the inch. It is easy to get creative with 15mm to 6mm figures and come up with something visually attractive.

I skirmish at 1:1 ground scale, but I don't use a lot of buildings because it's a small village or I'm not fighting the whole town on the map, just a portion of it.

I've recently played Vietnam villages with seven buildings, Afghan with about a dozen, and former Yugoslavia with maybe six or seven. It did what I needed it to do.

V/R,
Jack

Tombstone was a fair metropolis at the time of the gunfight. I left the book with my daughter out west, but I found a map of the town for the period online.

The more famous towns were pretty good sized – thus why they were famous.

My villages are always representative even in a skirmish.

Hasn't it been an accepted good practice for the past 50 years that the number of houses in a village is only a representation, and that the footprint is the thing that matters?

Same goes for trees in a forest, or even soldiers in a regiment ;-)

That's why most rules consider 'forest' or 'BUA' a terrain type.

Only exception would be a true 1:1 scale game, but even then, one has to make compromises w.r.t. Horizontal ground scale vs vertical scale etc.

Dear Phil

That's the way its seemed to me. I've seen it as a single house representing a village. However from what he has said I suspect UshCha is into WWII 1 to 1 or skirmish gaming. That format has no interest for me whatsoever.

Well, you can certainly have a 1:1 scale game where all of your scales are the same. So, assuming a 25/28mm figure is, just for the sake of argument, 1/50 scale, you just need everything else in that scale.

If you do that then you have to adjust your time scale.

A large 6x9 table becomes a mere 300 x 450 feet. Ranges are pretty much "infinite" and limited strictly by LOS and each turn must be kept to a few seconds.

Possible, just not at all interesting to me. I want to be Rommel, not Sgt. Schultz.

You are correct if you just use buildings to represent a terrain type like trees than it matter not. Personaly that makes them to much like forrrests (not identical I agree) and take thetactical interest out. I all depends on what flaots your boat.

To increase the number of houses in a village, it is also common practice to scale down your houses. E.g. In a 25mm gAme you can use 20mm houses and even 15mm houses. In a 15mm use 6 mm houses. Depending on the surrounding terrain and figure representation, movement distances etc, it does work visually.