I think it would have to. Otherwise, arty would be extremely defensible against teleporters, air assaults and other assault-oriented deepstrike forces.

With 3-4 Russ Companies running around, and 6-8 feet of range, they are a tough nut to completely destroy! Especially the fearless commissar one.

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~Laserwolf

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

Yes, I envisaged combats occuring in the 'strategic backfield', but note that the shooting ranges are halved to generate the extreme distance effect. There are two ways of doing this

• The simplest is to say that anything shooting into or out of the strategic area has it's range halved - so Basilisks get 90cm range when firing indirect, while Russ can only shoot 37.5cm.
• The alternative (more complex) way is to double the distance of the strategic area being shot through. So if a unit fires through 20cm of the strategic area and 30cm of the 'battlefield', it counts as firing over 70cm.

I would start by assuming that assaults in the 'backfield' still follow the normal rules - but you may want to change that as well.
Also while movement entirely within the 'Strategic backfield' is doubled, assume that you make normal movement if any part of the move is on the Battlefield.

The main reasoning here is to allow the players to switch reserves from one side of the table to the other, while forcing them to then commit the strategic reserves from the rear of any given sector. On your table, this would result in a 'battlefield' of 5'-6' with both players having 'strategic' areas of ~3' deep

Lsrwolf and I have been discussing the idea of adding a higher level formation HQ to our larger games. Like a battalion/regimental/legion/etc. commander HQ. Taking one would allow for X of 5000pt armies. Such an august personage would be quite the bonus to kill so we were thinking that they might qualify as a goal. Of course, being so important they would have to have some type of game benefit to make up for their liability. Thoughts?

Also were discussing the idea presented here of a "strategic border" that encompassed a 4' x6' centrally located area that would have normal distance effects and where objectives would be placed. My first thought is that it would act as a vortex drawing all forces towards it as thats where the objectives are. It strikes me that there would be very little action occurring in the strategic areas other than movement and perhaps some teleporting/air assualting to get rid of artillery parks, etc.

Sounds like a cool idea. How about letting such a formation grant a reroll to the strategy roll at the start of the turn?

I am less sure about restricting the width to 6' is such a good idea in your case - given that you normally use an 18' wide table. However I think that 12' depth to the table could be excessive - and you have aluded to that yourself by complaining that the initial turn consists of formations marching into position. My thought therefore was to have a "strategic rear" to both player's edges, thus making the actual battlefield 18' x 6' (or perhaps 18' x 5'). Formations that move entirely within the "strategic rear" would have their movement doubled, and any firing to or from the "strategic rear" would have it's ranges halved - so yes this would encourage the actual fighting to be largely on the battlefield, but would not preclude 'deep strikes' into the rear to take out Deathstrikes etc.
(Note, I have no idea how this would work for enemy formations and assaults, which would need to be considered)

The first thing I'd suggest doing with such big games is doubling all formation sizes and costs!

Note to the forum, our last 3 games have all been corner to corner deployments, so the strategic backfield may make deployment...odd.

As for the marching, it really makes roads a precious resource... and don;t let Sgt. Balicki fool ya, he still had LOTS of firing happening on turn 1.

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~Laserwolf

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

why? To cut down on the activations?

_________________
~Laserwolf

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

If you want to adopt the "strategic rear" idea, let us assume that it represents a 3' deep strip directly behind your deployment zone. So if playing across your table, the battlefield would be 18'x6', and each player would have a 18'x3' "strategic rear".

For corner deployment, the battlefield would be 12'x6' with the "strategic rear" strip behind the corner deployment zones (though it could possibly be extended as a neutral strategic strip around the remainder of the table).

Players may deploy troops in their usual 'deployment zone' on the battlefield, or anywhere in their "strategic rear", though they may advance into the 'neutral' strategic areas in an attempt to flank march.

(Indeed, I guess you could adopt the same approach on the 'normal' tables, though this is going to increase the likelyhood of combat in these 'strategic' portions of the table which may net be such a good ides - but suck it and see)

Partly to cut down activations to make the game run faster, and partly because it's just cool to have massive formations and that's something you can do at that scale.

Imagine a formation of 20 leman russ facing off against 16 aspect warriors while a pair of warlord stroll by...

Yummy, 4x Exarchs... I'm liking that one.

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~Laserwolf

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

Now we're talking!


(noobs please note: this image depicts correct epic scale)

Lsrwolf, I'm in awe of your huge board!

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Uti possidetis, ita possideatis.
May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!
An online epic force creator: Armyforge

Lsrwolf and I currently have a count of 76 terrain pieces on the playing surface. The recommended amount is 108 pieces, so shy a little bit. We can easily make that up. We both have more terrain, and ruined buildings that can be added.

After more discussion we like the idea of a div/corps level HQ that allows additional 5,000pt armies to be taken. That would be the in-game benefit of that HQ. The downside, as we were talking is that its destruction would count as a goal. This HQ would allow other army types to be taken. In my case, I have been fielding plain Steel Legion. This HQ would allow me to field an army formation of Elysians or Death Korps of Krieg, etc. It would give me the flexibility of adding in some airmobile/teleport with the Elysians but with the liability of a HQ unit that I need to protect. The same for him. It would allow him to field army formations from other craft worlds, but with an HQ that he must also protect.

We have a big oiece of packing material that looks like a large urban center. We have played it as being a hive city. Impassable to vehicles, infantry only allowed as its a heavily built up and constricted environment. 4+ cover save. And for flavor and fun, so that we will have to fight over it, we were discussing making it a goal as well.

But as lsrwolf has been discussing, some of the things we have been talking about here were observations. Our games have actually been quite competitive and none have been a complete blowout. At the size of the playing area, the Eldar would handily win on Turn 3. Going to Turn 5 gave the IG an advantage as the weight of numbers and artillery fire starts to seriously weigh in. Turn 4 thus far appears to be the sweet spot to start evaluating victory conditions. Our last game (just finished) the Eldar won on Turn 4, but it was a squeaker.

Just thinking about the 'strategic area'.

1) pedantically, the land scale should increase between sections of the strategic area (since you're going into the next ring of the dart board). So rather then a continuous strip of 'SA' you'd have squares of it, with kilometers of boring and empty terrain in between. This could be represented by thin black strips between sections of it. Each strip takes a full action to cross.

2) Aircraft - worth having 'forward air bases' in the SA? I can't see how to tweak the rules for a benefit in using them (increase allies % maybe?) but they'd be a fun target.