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Post by bruce on Jan 11, 2017 1:43:01 GMT
I have been fighting a number of small battles solo using my modified Neil Thomas rules and have spent quite a bit of time thinking about scenarios.
In the early days of modern wargaming, it seems like scenarios were generic small scale tactical actions and this is reflected in the work of Charles Grant and now Neil Thomas. They may involve controlling a town, assaulting a fortress, escaping pursuit, capturing a bridge or crossroads and holding it a certain number of turns to win. I have been enjoying these because they are fun, easy to set up and play fairly quickly. They can be used for multiple periods in some cases and can get quite creative.
But one of the great things about 6mm is the impression of massed forces and the generic tactical scenarios feel more like Richard Sharpe could handle them. I rarely use more than a few stands of figures on each side for these.
Historical scenarios look great, but it took me 3 sessions to play out an Elchingen scenario I found online using about 1000 figures a side. It looked good but felt a bit tedious at times for a solo player. I feel kind of like I should be fighting these historical battles to enjoy my 6mm to the max, and the generic tactical scenarios are kind of a guilty pleasure like going back to playing with green army men as a kid. Silly, really, but I am like that.
So..what do you guys prefer and why: Big historical scenarios based on actual battles? Or smaller encounters? Anybody write their own scenarios or have an outline for doing so? Some rules provide scenarios, Et Sans Resultat has some great looking campaign books that seem to have it all, but they are out of my price range for now.
How much of a role do scenarios play in your enjoyment and satisfaction re wargaming? Bruce
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Post by bandit on Jan 11, 2017 6:07:57 GMT
Thank you for the compliment on the look of our Campaign Guides :-D As you can tell from them, I'm obviously biased towards historical scenarios, but with that said, when playing in our local gaming groups – whether it be ESR or something else (Guns of Liberty, Johnny Reb 2, The Sword & the Flame, others…) – a fair proportion of our scenarios are fictional, some of those are pretty generic. For me, personally, the scope of a scenario tends to go with the period. For the Napoleonic Wars, I lean towards fairly large scenarios because that is how I picture the period. For World War II, I see things as either massive or tiny, either we are moving around divisions or we're (more likely) moving squads or platoons (maybe just individual men) to defend a block in a town. Part of the flavor of different periods seems to be the scope of scenario one associates with it. I think Napoleonic skirmish games are likely really cool, but to-date, I have a hard time really picturing Napoleonics as a skirmish period. Whereas WW2, I can completely picture that way. From a practical design perspective there is what you note about Elchingen. Depending on the scope and scale of the rule system used to play it, it could take drastically longer or shorter periods of time. Out of curiosity – what rules did you use for your game of it and how long was a "session"? For comparison sake, the Mir scenario we provide in Master of the World, 1812 in Russia – plays very, very fast with ESR. You can conclude it in under an hour depending on the choices players make. But, using a more tactical game system, you could stretch that to maybe 2-3 times as long, easily. Totally different experience. Not good or bad, just a question of picking the tool desired for the experience desired. Cheers, The Bandit
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Post by bruce on Jan 11, 2017 19:13:48 GMT
An interesting way of looking at it, David. I have often wondered whether there really was a lot of small scale contact and ongoing fighting between Napoleonic armies such as developed in later wars.
I used Neil Thomas's Napoleonic rules for Elchingen, slightly modified. As its not a big battle I thought I could get away with it but it took a good 4 hours over 15 or so turns even as relatively simple as these rules are. I like figure removal and casualty bases on the table following loses to give a visual sense of impact but it does slow things down. I would have been better off with ESR or Blucher.
The sample pages of your ESR campaign guides look great - best looking scenario maps around for gaming with any rules. I know the price reflects the value and cost of putting these together. Bruce
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Post by bandit on Jan 11, 2017 19:29:16 GMT
An interesting way of looking at it, David. I have often wondered whether there really was a lot of small scale contact and ongoing fighting between Napoleonic armies such as developed in later wars.
I used Neil Thomas's Napoleonic rules for Elchingen, slightly modified. As its not a big battle I thought I could get away with it but it took a good 4 hours over 15 or so turns even as relatively simple as these rules are. I like figure removal and casualty bases on the table following loses to give a visual sense of impact but it does slow things down. I would have been better off with ESR or Blucher.
The sample pages of your ESR campaign guides look great - best looking scenario maps around for gaming with any rules. I know the price reflects the value and cost of putting these together. Bruce There are more small scale fights than one might think. Our Campaign Guides try to feature a variety of sizes of actions so they are useful with a variety of game systems and collections, our 1813 Campaign Guide is an exception in that the vast majority of the scenarios are quite large. The 1805 campaign offers several smaller actions play that have historical significance: Wertigen, Günzburg, Amstetten, and Wischau all feature less than a corps per side. Using ESR these become very fast games for just a couple players. Using a more tactical system – I've not read or played Neil Thomas's rules – they could become more involved and support several players. 1812 is similar, Mir is about three brigades vs two brigades (all cavalry), Ostrovno, Vitebsk, and Krasne could all be "medium sized" battles if you use a rule system with a tactical focus. With ESR, those three become fairly small 2-5 player affairs that can be played in an evening. I think it seems difficult to use different rule systems for different scales of scenario within the same period for some groups. It is for ours, not entirely sure why. In any case, I think players who do so are probably very well served for it. And thank you again for the compliments on our Campaign Guides. No offense taken regarding their price, they are a premium product, we try hard to make them worth it and I am glad to hear they appear the part to you. Cheers, The Bandit
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