Tactical Command
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On Super Sizing Epic Games
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=21046		 Page 1 of 3
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:26 pm ]
Post subject:  On Super Sizing Epic Games
Beginning new Topic about considerations for games larger than 5,000 points. Please add insights and suggestions on considerations for extra large play board sizes and army sizes of 5k, 10k, 20k and up!
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Ginger wrote:
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!
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
GlynG wrote:
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.
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
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.
Author:  Spectrar Ghost [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Allied forces are frankly dangerous. Your Eldar/Ork allies are a good example. Eldar have a very fast, elite Shooty/Firefighty feel to them. Orks can them be used as a moderate speed Close Combat oriented Horde with weight of fire if not accuracy. They complement each other's weaknesses.

As for the quastion about Spacecraft, I believe the justification for one per turn was proximity. The best shots will usually be straight down, and there's only so much volume of space that can be occupied for those shots. So in order to avoid collisions (and having to write rules for Ship to Ship combat) the limitation was imposed.

A game the size of yours could potentially support unrestricted numbers of Spacecraft in an army, and perhaps even multiple in one turn. You could allow one starship per table quarter, with all attacks and planetfalls restricted to that area, for instance. Then the normal rules would apply, with each quarter counting as a 'table' for the purposes of the spacecraft rules.
Author:  Ginger [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 6:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Lsrwolf wrote:
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.
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 :)

Quote:
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?
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? :) )

Quote:
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.
So use Phoenix bombers to make up the deficit here :)

Quote:
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.
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. Though, SG does have a valid point about the interaction between allies. Ultimately you would have to 'suck it and see' because there has not been enough done at this level to give you hard and fast guidance. (and this applies to all my answers both above and in the other thread
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
1) We have/could play BFG 8-) Perhaps we could stage the exact ships we bought and the survivors be what is eligible to fire during the Epic battle.
2) All my Phoenix bombers and Night Spinners were deployed. Its just not quite the same...
3) I was thinking within Race mixing rather than between race. Templars + Dark Angels vs Iyanden + Ulthwe for example.
Author:  Mephiston [ Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
The quick and dirty option would be to force the use of a Regimental HQ to allow X companies and Y support. SC reroll per Regiment but only within that regiment and maybe once per game?

Guard are probably the easiest to scale up as they kind of follow a current military TO&E.
Author:  nealhunt [ Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
My first suggestion, since this is so far outside the GT-level lists, is to just say "screw it" and dump the force orgs altogether. Just count up points and put them on the board. See if it works. So what if the Chaos Marines have 3 companies of Decimators? It's a game for fun. If it ends up wonky... you still had fun.

Then, after you have more in-game experience, you can worry about making the forces more balanced and/or creating realistic higher tier force orgs like IG regiments or SM chapters.

============

That aside, if you want to try it out of the gate...

Relative unit value is going to shift. As noted in the Rough Riders thread, this won't necessarily be dramatic, but it does happen and the cumulative effect can be unbalancing. Speed and range become more important as the playing field gets larger. Some kinds of deepstrikes become less effective while others become more effective, e.g. "Slow and Steady" spacecraft become much more attractive in a 6-turn game. As long as both players are taking a balanced variety of formations it should come out close, but some themed armies, like an infantry-heavy IG force, are going to be at a disadvantage that would not appear in smaller games. This will require a lot of trial and error to figure out how much the different factors shift relative value.

0-1 limits should all be reconsidered, obviously.

For some, like Supreme Commanders, the idea others suggested to allow additional numbers based on points - a series of smaller armies - makes sense. IG would have some sort of regimental org. Marine chapters are only ~12K points when deployed in full force, so allowing multiple Chapter Commanders makes sense in larger games (presumably the SC reroll only being applicable to the appropriate forces). Orks can do the same thing by warband, e.g. this is a basic horde with a warboss, that's a Kult of Speed with its own Warboss and so on. Ditto for Chaos warbands. Eldar could justify multiple "armies" from a single craftworld as a way to build them larger. At a battle this size, it makes sense for any craftworld to mobilize en masse, so a single craftworld could have "Biel Tan" army list representing bringing big Aspect hosts to a pitched battle, next to the "Alaitoc" forces representing the craftworld calling in all the allied support it can muster. So, just make them 0-1 per X points.

Other "rarity" restrictions could go either way - scaled up per points or 0-1 overall. Or, for that matter, you could tier off the rarity so some are per X points and others are per Y points. Another option would be per IG regiment, or per SM chapter or whatever other arbitrary division you like once you get to setting up higher tier force orgs. As examples...

Something like Wraithgates would depend on the background of the fight. In the GT, it can be assumed to be a representative battle in a critical area, so the presence of a wraithgate makes sense. Do you want to scale that up to some sort of "high webway activity" area for this massive battle and allow scaled-up numbers, or do you want to keep it to a "realistic" rarity level and keep them restricted?

Similar to Wraithgates, should IG Deathstrikes be increased proportionally, or kept limited because they are supposed to be a very rare strategic resource? It's really up to you.

Than, some few 0-1 restrictions would need to be rewritten in a different way because they would need some sort of rule change to scale up in a reasonable fashion.

The background for the Avatar is that there is only one. Scaling that up so you could potentially have 3 or 4 Avatars running about might be "balanced" but it doesn't make sense in the game world. The Avatar disappears in the GT scenario to go to another part of the battlefield. In a larger battle like this, that strategy might be changed. You might allow a single Avatar to stay on board multiple turns, or if you like the idea of bouncing around the battle you might make it "resummonable" by other Farseers in later turns (like Chaos Greater Daemons), but no more than 1/turn. Or you might just let it deploy on-board like any other WE.

With an extended game length (5 or 6 turns), more spacecraft are reasonable. The "one per turn" limit still makes sense to me based on logistics, so you might do a hybrid approach - 0-1 per X points, but the deployment restriction remains in effect.

And so on...
Author:  nealhunt [ Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Oh, another thing to consider if you want a GT-style victory arrangement is adjusting objectives and goals.

Minigeddon drops one T&H objective from each side to take into account smaller field and forces. With this many points, it may be good to add objective markers so there's a reason to maintain a coherent battle line instead of 3-4 big clumps of massed troops.

I would think that BTS might require some adjustment as well. At this point level it will probably be a lot easier to focus and crush a single formation (at least for certain kinds of forces). You might require more than one formation, or some other combination of cumulative damage.

Lastly, I think Blitz might need some adjustment. You might want to consider 2 Blitz markers that have to be in a certain radius of each other (say, 15-30cm) to represent that this battlefield is much deeper and broader and a lot more backfield penetration is required to get the job done. A pair of objectives in close proximity would still have that "punch through" feel and a focused battle area, but would (usually) require more forces to secure. With the depth of the deployment zone, you might even allow a Blitz to deploy forward some, off the board edge, representing a command center or logistically critical forward supply depot.

===

Oh, and I kind of liked Ginger's idea of a "strategic" backfield area of some kind. Not sure how I'd set that up, but I like it in concept. It fits well with the exponential ground scale built into the rules.
Author:  Lsrwolf [ Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
We were considering requiring the Blitz objective(s) to be deployed outside your deployment zone.
BTS fms seem to be very large (the IG one was 1100 pts I think) and given the table size, it was still a challenge to bring sufficient quantities of all these forces to bear to crush it. In fact I think I only shot at it once in 4 turns and he was not hiding it.

On the strategic backfield board area, can engagements still occur there?

Allowing the Avatar to stay greatly increases the likelihood of his destruction and the subsequent distribution of blast markers.
Author:  Markconz [ Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:54 am ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Hmm most of my points I would suggest have already been covered. In the past we have treated the 0-1 type options as applying per 5000 points, and this seems to be a good idea. Also trying to keep the objectives within the normal bounds of a tourni game (and distance of deployment zones from each other also) helps. There will often be multiple BTS targets (like 850 point titans), and this becomes one of the easiest objectives to gain in such a battle, but if you don't want to adjust this victory condition that just becomes part of overall considerations.
Author:  SgtBalicki [ Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Lsrwolf and I have discussed the necessity to change the Blitzkrieg objective. This is because of the extreme distance involved in placing it in the corner. Even the Eldar would have difficulty reaching the Blitzkrieg if one goes with corners deployment. The Imperial Guard can forget the Blitzkrieg under those circumstances. So, since we have extended the deployment zone out to 45cm we have talked about the Blitzkrieg objective(s) being placed on the forward edge of that deployment zone.

As far as the BTS goal goes, I never have more than one unit being the most expensive. I will purposely avoid that so as not to give lsrwolf the luxury of mulltiple choices in that regard. For our next game, I am going to choose a Leman Russ company with extra Russ platoon, a Demolisher platoon, and a Hydra singlet as upgrades for a total of 1100pts. Nothing else will be equal to or above that in points. Hopefully, that will be a fairly tough BTS to eliminate yet have the long range firepower to allow it to contribute to the battle without putting it directly into the front lines.
Author:  nealhunt [ Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: On Super Sizing Epic Games
Good point on the BTS. Without the activation-count pressure in smaller games, a big BTS for durability is not a big hindrance.

Still, I think I'd kill that Russ formation just on general principal... 'cuz I hates me sum Russes. ;)
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