"Comitatus & Flexible Scale" Topic

From my reading of the rules, it seems that Legio Wargames' Comitatus uses two varieties of 'flexible scale':

1. While it is 'normal' for a stand to represent a few hundred men, the rules are entirely flexible – if you want a stand to represent eight men, that's fine, too.

2. The designer (on p.16) mentions the term 'flexible scale' in a sidebar commentary, without fully explaining what he means. Seems to be something to do with ground scale, and possibly missile ranges. (Simon, if you read this, would you care to elucidate?)

Units are scaleable so that they can represent 1 stand equals 200 or 1000 depending on the size of the battle being fought.

Thanks,

John

I could care less about scale so long as the game looks "right" to me. So if you have stands of 8 figures and you say each stand equals 1 man, that would not look right to me. If you say they are 8-1000 men, I'd be ok with that.

Units are scaleable so that they can represent 1 stand equals 200 or 1000 depending on the size of the battle being fought.

Fine, but ranges should vary to match.

True Margard but some designers don't seem to think that matters much.

In some WW2 rules the change of representation gets really silly – I really wonder if the authors actually know much about how command and control varied with the unit size being commanded.

Scale will always distort things one way or another as long as we play in 3 dimensions and at less than 1:1 scale.
The editor is correct that in Comitatus I do not have a fixed figure:man or stand:men ratio.
In most of my games a stand usually will represent in the range of 250 – 1000 men depending on the action. But technically there is nothing to stop you having a stand represent only a few dozen men.
Clearly if the stand represents a flexible amount of men your ground scale needs to be flexible as well. But the important things are that ranges and movement should match, be proportionate and look/feel right for the size of figures you are using. This is why I take all measurements as multiples of base frontages rather than saying that so many cms on the ground represents so many metres in real life.
If you wanted to be absolutly technically correct and say that a 28mm stand with a frontage of 60mm represented 1000 men for one game and then only 500 in another your missile ranges should change also. I do not do this. I have chosen to deliberately keep everything proportionate to the base sizes rather than what is technically correct. This works for a wargame as it keeps missile ranges and move distances in proportion to each other and looking right for the height of the figures.
Simon

Scale will always distort things one way or another as long as we play in 3 dimensions and at less than 1:1 scale.

Agreed!

and looking right for the height of the figures.

In all but a skirmish game where 1 figure is 1 man, the figures are so massively oversized compared to the ground scale that any range that looks right for the height of the figures will be orders of magnitude too large.

I have no problem in using short ranges (for example in DBA). The figures are just there (in many cases) to make the bases look pretty.

Actually, move distances have very little relationship with ranges, being much more closely aligned to the time scale. In many wargames, our troops move too slowly and shoot too far. Personally, I quite like the way a game such as "Lost Battles" abstracts the problem away almost completely.

Of course YMMV. If Comitatus (or any other game) works for you then that's great!

Thanks, Simon. So my case #2 above is actually the same (or a result) of case #1. Got it.

Personally, I'd say that whether the "scale" is important depends upon which part of the word "wargame" you place the emphasis. War or Game.

For myself, I choose to emphasise the "game" portion. I am interested in easily learned and workable mechanics that allow me to play with my nicely painted units. If I was truly interested in a simulation of ancient warfare, I'd either be playing 1:1 skirmish rules or SPI-type board games.

That's not a slam at anyone else. It's just my personal view that has developed over the past 50+ years.

Thanks, Simon. So my case #2 above is actually the same (or a result) of case #1.

Yes indeed!

Time and ground scales will distort no matter what, as does figure height. It is hard to write rules that show how a unit could cover "x" distance in "y" time, as if real life is like that. Oops. Fell over.

When you say flexible, how would Comnitatus scale up to Infantry units with a total width of 120mm and a depth of 100mm of 120mm?

For Heavy Cavalry 150mm wide by a 100mm depth?

For Light Cavalry- Horse Archers etc 250mm wide by 100mm deep?