Sounds like great fun... but cross-pollination -- and 'beginner's mind' -- can be extremely important in testing and balancing games.

It's an interesting question what impact the mega-games have on your perception of game balance: on the one hand, I think the tendency to have tight victory conditions tend to generate more varied and creative play: it's easy to problem-solve back from fairly visible and simple goal, and often it's in that problem-solving that you dream up new strategems. On the other hand, there's much to be said for 'sleeping on' a game that's set up: stepping away from the game, going home, getting food, is often -- consciously or unconsciously, a good way of finding inspiration.

We find that the nature of the requirements to obtain the objectives changes in huge games. How does it change when Basilisks and Manticores can no longer reach the entire board? In our last game we had 80 activations per side. Granted early on there is much marching, and roads become greatly important for tread heads. As Sgt. Balicki mentioned before, you must now manage real fronts and the decision to sacrifice a couple tank companies in order to increase the odds of some Rough Riders crossing the half-board line is a real possibility. Often his Manticores do me a favor by piling on blastmarkers to break units early in the game, that gives me two more movements to get closer to objectives!

_________________
~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

Regardless of all other comments, I'd love to play epic on that scale. Although I'd probably tweak a lot of units/fms before giving it a go.

_________________

Ah, I see where you are coming from now Lsrwolf.
Ok, historically, many debates on the various forums have been marred by the assumption that the debaters are all playing *exactly* the same game (the Tournament game and objectives, 3000 points, 6'x4' table, 12 pieces of terrain giving ~30% table coverage etc). You are playing something completely different, more akin to fighting a campaign or 'front' in WWII. Well like Carlos, I envy your scale, vision and tenacity. Most of us have to make do with paper equivalents.

What additional transport mechanisms are you providing the players? At your scale there ought to be the equivalent of river transport, railways, airborne transport, teleport centres, giant web portals etc. And you are correct that these transport 'hubs' take on a strategic significance not found in the usual E:A games. Equally you should also have 'impassable' stuff; rivers, forests, deserts and mountains, where only 'specialised' troops can survive, and 'wasteland' devoid of viable transport features.

If you consider your games to be more like "Kursk", a giant battle approximately 250km wide x 150km deep, you should have many of the above features. Or perhaps you consider your battles to be equivalent to "the battle of the Bulge" some 100km wide x 70km deep.
Note "Kursk" was fought between 17 German and 34 Rusian "corps" or ~1.4m Germans vs 1.9m Russians, while "the Bulge" had 8 US vs 10 German "corps" or ~840k allies vs 300k Germans.
This equates roughly to 88 men (from both sides) per square km for Kursk and 163 men per sq km for the Bulge. In E:A terms this is roughly 18 units and 33 units respectively from both sides!

One of the design features in E:A is the elastic ground scale employed to allow a degree of strategic perspective to be represented on the table while also representing local firefights between opposing forces at a few hundred yds range.
IIRC the scales went something like

15cm = ~150 metres
30cm = ~ 1 km
60cm = ~ 5 km
120cm = ~30 km

While this works reasonably well for representing a relatively small battle, it does not really support scaling beyond the 6' x 4' board available to most people. If we convert the table area we get somewhere between 300 sq km (at 120cm = ~30km), 24 sq km (at 30cm = 1km) and 2.16 sq km (at 15cm = 150 metres). Using these ratios for the more usual E:A Tournament game fought between ~200 units total or 1000 men for both sides, gives the following ratios

• 3.3 men per sq km - - - (120cm = ~30km so approximately 300 sq km)
• 41.6 men per sq km - - - (30cm = 1km so approximately 24 sq km)
• 463 men per sq km - - - (15cm = 150 metress so approximately 2.16 km)

As you can see, while the extremes are obviously exagerated, the 30cm = 1 km scale actually represents reality quite well.

The point I am trying to make here is that in making the table bigger you are actually breaking one of the fundemental design mechanics - so of course it will behave differently to what you see written on the boards. And scaling up the table size does not necesarily mean you can scale up the army sizes accordingly.

To bring it back in-line, I would still strongly recommend preserving the 4'-5' deep battlefield which will restore the relative capabilities of the various E:A units. You could do this by keeping a strip on opposing sides for the 'strategic' area, where all troops get double moves (so inf move at 30cm etc), but where 'normal' shooting ranges are halved. Or if space permits, perhaps you might consider using the additional space around the 6'x4' 'batlefield' more like a strategic map for strategic manoeuvers of many hundreds of kms which will allow a more reasonable deployment of strategic reserves etc that seems to be one of your aims / features.

Finally please POST PICTURES!
80 activations per side is a really massive game, and those of us less blessed really want to see this!

Try the second page of the thread for some photos Ginger? Though the more the better.

Thinking about it I'm a bit surprised we haven't collectively thrown together some guidelines for playing big battles before now, rather than just telling those playing the rules 'aren't balanced' for them. Even if such games aren't as balanced we could still work out ways to make them play better for those who can.

This was born from the question "Why can't we just field everything we have?" It has grown from there.

Based on our 12' x 16' (3.65 m x 4.88m) board, we increased the deployment depth to 45cm deep. By increasing the area by 8x we figured we would have sufficent space for 8x the activations. Our next increment is 32,000 points per side on our goal of a true Epic 40K game with 40,000 points per side. We already know the board will have to get bigger just to have room. I am awaiting Sgt Balicki's acquisition of more IG to get there.

Now another thought may be to grid the board into normal table sized sections allowing deployment into opposite corners of each miniboard. That would certainly increase the speed for engagements faster. Allowing the 0-1 limit to be applied to each set of 5,000 would be way cool. How that would apply to Supreme Commanders, Avatar summons and Spacecraft (yummy, 16 orbital bombardments) would need to be determined of course.

What was the logic behind a limit of one spacecraft arrival per turn?

We did try one early game where we allowed "allied forces" just to get the points level higher. IG plus SM and Eldar plus Orks. IG/SM were slaughtered. Clearly that combo needs more work.

Additionally, while I would love to try the other craftworlds, the Warhost/Troupe ratio prevents me from getting to 20,000 points, much less 40K. That is in part why I was asking about an Iyanden Warhost option that would allow swapping Wraithlords for Wraithguard, so I could deploy all the models in some configuration. Thats why I tried Yme-Loc this time, just to field 90 Falcons. I really missed my Void Spinners.

Games of this size could have provisions for joint operations between craftworlds or SM Chapters for example. Tho the differences in strategy ratings would have to be accounted for. This could allow for another option to overcome the 0-1 limit as well.

_________________
~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

27K Battle pics in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20844

These are a challenge to document. But we'll try.

_________________
~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

To carry on the theme a moment, you are correct the foot-slogging infantry will have very limited mobility on the size of table you are considering. Eldar mobility is actually most eveident in assaults because of their consolidation move - but you have to get them into position first. For Warp Spiders I would normally recommend Storm Serpents; indeed for your game I would recommend *lots* of Storm Serpents in formations of three SHTs (probably 2x SS and 1x Scorpion of Cobra) to deliver the required shock troops into the right areas. You can march the SHTs 75cm and retain to assault targets a further 45cm away, or a total of 150cms from the SS starting point - but you do need to have other formations in the area (otherwise the assault infantry just get eaten in very short order ). The second SS gives another attack, and together the infantry and SHTs can provide mutual support, or the infantry can consolidate away from the enemy - or into support of further assaults (eg Vampire air assaults). Once in place near the enemy, Warp Spiders really come into their own as they can threaten targets in a 90cm diameter circle (or 1' 6" in old money) - and you can always pick them up in Vampires to be moved elsewhere. So the moral here would be . . . make sure you have enough strategic transports around. Used in conjunction with WraithGuards this tactic can really dominate a relatively small area (in your terms) and disrupt enemy strategic deployment, in the same way that commandos and paratroopers were used in WWII

This brings us to strategic airpower. One of the reasons that the Battle of the Bulge went they way it did was the lack of initial air-cover (nothing was flying in the snow) and the subsequent Allied air superiority. So here, if you employ Vampires, you will also need a reasonable number of NightWings and Phoenix bombers to clear away enemy fighters and bombers (in that order). Phoenix bombers are rarely used in the 'tournament' game as they are quite expensive, but will come into their own here by providing the equivalent of artillery support anywhere on the table, outside the range of the Void Spinners.

In your games I would still recommend the use of Objectives placed on strategic points, but I would recommend more of them on a ratio of 1 per every 2'x2' portion of the 'battlefield', with a pair of 'Blitz' objectives for every 6' width of the battlefield (representing major transport centres or hubs). Equally I would not limit the games to the normal "3x" turns of the tornament game, (though perhaps you could consider separate 'battles' in particular parts of the table under tournament conditions).
Looking at the few photos published, I would think they might be a bit light on terrain:- use 2x pieces for every 2'x2' portion of the battlefield to achieve ~30% coverage.
If you have a very wide table, you could even consider introducing the concept of air sectors, each supported by an 'airfield'. if this is damaged / destroyed, air operations in that sector are reduced or entirely prevented.
I am sure you could think up other concepts that would be more appropriate to your scale of games. Please keep us informed of your progress.

As I have tried to suggest, increasing the table size does not necessarily mean you can increase the army size in a corresponding ratio - though I do like your style

To 'supreme commanders', I would suggest thinking in terms of 'armies' of ~5k-6k (ie the equivalent of a corps). so yes you should have more, but not an excessive number. If you go down this path, you might also give each commander the extra retain that the Eldar have - again returning the Eldar force to the look & feel of the smaller armes. As to Spacecraft, these are considered to be strategic assets - so only one for the normal Tournament game. However, you could possibly scale this up if you want to, though you would also need to consider the effects of space battles at that point - which would bring in a whole new meta game (do you play BFG? )

So use Phoenix bombers to make up the deficit here

Here, perhaps you should average out the strategy values of the forces on each side in relation to their troop ratios - so IG:SM ratio of 4:1 would yield a strategy ratio of 2.6, while with the ratio at 50:50 it would be 3.5.

Battle pics here

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=20844