"Biggest TSATF game you ever ran or played ?" Topic

Biggest in the number of figs ?

1200 figures per side. It was a Sudan game.
It is possible to play TSATF with that many figures, but it's an exercise in megalomania. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
The game wasn't designed for that. All the whining about how unworkable the melee system is, are justified.

When I play now, players have a maximum of 4 units each. Guess what happens then. You CARE more about each unit. And you play better, and the game doesn't drag.

i played in a TSAF Zulu game in Chicago at little wars. It had something like 3000+ figures in 25mm. We moved the Zulu IMp's on large metal trays and it was heavy.

Biggest was too big

Agree with Winston – 4 units a piece is a max

My friend wrote a variant for Mars. We used to host games regularly and in the early 2000's would carry it off to conventions in Seattle. The games were designed for about 12, but inevitably we'd have over 20 players with two GM's. It was a nightmare. It wasn't the number of units, but the number of players.

Approx. 200 Anglo-Indians vs. approx. 500 Afghans (mix of tribals, ghazis, & regulars).

In games that big I use the movement and morale rules from 800FE, the TSATF "Big Battle" variant, to speed things up.

I run very large battles with my Variant The Hive and the Flame. We have dozens of units and hundreds of vehicles.

I use several methods to hurry things along. In terms of melee I have a clear plastic compartmented box with pairs of colored D6 in rows. For melee the box gets shaken and the pairs of dice are compared and results enacted. So instead of rolling one pair of dice for every figure to figure conflict it allows rolls for the entire unit to be made simultaneously. Each round of melee requires a single shake. It also doesn't change the odds at all.

I do the same sort of thing with a box of D20 for firing.

These also save time because you don't have to chase dice around the table or floor and they are right there ready to be read.

We generally have two or three referees and up to a dozen players. We've been able to do between 4 and 1 turn an hour depending upon how much melee and shooting is going on. Since these games at Origins and Diecon run for several sessions that means we can often get in twenty or more turns during the convention.