Size isn't everything (apparently)

It’s not going to be easy to play-test this scenario given the size of table I’ve been planning on. Everything I’ve read about putting on a convention game says make sure you play test and make sure it’s possible to complete the game in the time available – if in doubt, make the game too brief rather than risk running out of time.

So I’ve done a bit of mathematical modelling. No, really! Dividing up the distance from the US baseline to Tuzkhur (say 20 feet on a 24 feet long table) by the 10 inch per card road move of a fast tracked vehicle in Arc of Fire, we end up with a duration of twenty four turns to get there and back. We can probably double this to allow for the Americans’ need to fight their way through. So we’d need to play twenty four game turns a day, both days, to meet the main NATO objective.

Now Martin Rapier has a rule of thumb that an evening’s game at the club should last no more than 10 turns. Apparently this works whatever rules you’re playing. How much can I get away with adding for an all day convention game?

Shall we take a punt and say 15 turns per day? That should allow time for chatting, drinking and eating, and wandering around the event. In that case we’re looking at 12.5 feet from the US baseline to the town.

Now that really doesn’t seem very far at all, especially if the Americans were able to put the pedal to the metal and whiz through without stopping (which may just be an option in an M1 Abrams.

On the whole, then, I’m tempted to go with a battlefield based on three “standard” tables (for a total length of 18 feet) rather than the four I originally envisaged. Look out for a later posting that muses on why I seem to feel the need to use feet and inches in wargaming when I use metric everywhere else.