"What our battlefields should look like" Topic

This link shows a real 3D map of the Normandy Landings and the detail that is required to play even a little bit of a real battle. we will never get their but it just shows how poor some games are en reconciling the real world and the tabletop representation.

Ours I am afraid do not look this good and only cover a minuscule area compared to this one.

link

fascinating map of Utah- shame there was no scale mentioned.

I can't get the video to play, but based on the initial screenshot I think you are over egging the pudding somewhat.

Not a particularly impressive model in my opinion

I agree. This wouldn't be the example I would use to knock gamers. Reality can be over-rated, especially when it comes to playing games with toy soldiers.

Neat. I wonder if that is a 3-D version rendered from the Bigot Maps.

Jarrovian,
its not a work of art, its not supposed to be. It an illustration of how much detail is required of a map to fight effectively. When I see bare boards and players claming to be fighting real battles I feel that they are missiing the point of playeing with models not 40K type models (except for they are far cheaper ;-) ).

Game layouts also need to be practical. By this I mean scenery should be clearly defined. If the scenery was very close to reality it would need many categories to be covered in terms of movement, spotting and action. this might make scenery consideration slow the game so much that any perspectve of rapidity or decison would be lost in the 20 minutes per turn considerations of scenery. Generallity whold do fine. My comments are mainly aimed at PBI type games with men in groups and the overall game featuring two or three platoons a side.

Most platoon commanders deal in "get over to the flank and cover our advance". Rather than detailed analysis of scenery for the NCO whom might not be able to make his own decisions about the grass height etc.

"We were moving along the lane(3 different types). A dead hose in the road caused us to slow down and check for boobytraps or distraction ambush. We then cut through the hedgerow(4 types). In the field beyond there were some crops(3 types). The ground itself had a slope to it (4 types). The sun was almost directly in our sight (3 graduations). The breeze carried sounds from our left, difficult to determine the distance due to the thick (2 types not including bocage)) hedge.

That was a bit too graphic. My point is that most scenery needs to be practical, achievable on a budget and give an overall impression. Everything above does not apply to small skirmish games though!

martin

Lots of detail is more appropriate for very tactical games. At a more grand tactical level you only need to identify key features, and types of going.

In my military map reading manual, budding battalion staff officers are encouraged to trace out:

Watersheds (ie crestlines)
Watercourses
Areas of bad going
Significant roads
Wooded areas providing cover from air observation

Err, and that is it. The rest is just "terrain".

Martin,
That is an excelent definition and well above the quality of most of the rules I see and has some detail better than us but we do player a bit higher up the scale.

Martin,
in mayy bits of Europe all hedges are bad going to something so knowing wher gates ate and if it practical to get of the road somewhwr is crutial. Hence the meed for quite a lot of detail on maps even if in only the area where the actual combat is anticipated. Certainly in or games it is still the latter that counts.

I've seen many convention games with tables showing this kind of detail. The only trouble is nothing happens on them, they are just static displays.

From 40 years of gaming experience, I prefer to have a pretty and playable game rather than a beautiful diorama.

Like all things, its a question of balance. Playability vs realistic terrain complexity.
Imagination helps with the fine details, I find.

Dark Knights,
Perhaps conventions are diffrent in the UK. If we have to play at a convention we consider it a bit of a failure. We are there to chat, answer questions and give folk a turn or two with a few bits if they are interested. That does not make for a real game. That need the terrain and no interuptions, not a convention situation.

Maybe with more scale relief the Allies would have been better prepared to encounter the bocage country too.

"Perhaps conventions are diffrent in the UK. If we have to play at a convention we consider it a bit of a failure. We are there to chat, answer questions and give folk a turn or two with a few bits if they are interested. That does not make for a real game. That need the terrain and no interuptions, not a convention situation."

I think thats the trouble with a lot of uk demo games,because they are not played…
What you get are not actually games- because they are not played- and are mediocre dioramas at best- the only point they really serve is some sort of onanistic gratification of the folk who put them on.
Just play the damm game properly – and have a couple of people detailed to answer questions and deal with the punters

At American conventions the whole point of going is to play games. In my opinion there is nothing more boring than watching someone else play, or demo.
And when I ran games at conventions, I had a five hour time slot to set up my game, explain the rules, run the game, and pack it up so the next GM could run his game.
Often the players helped. Often they did not.
This does tend to minimize the detail.

There should be no more terrain detail then what the player's command level would know. If the player is running a battalion, the terrain should represent the battalion level of knowledge. He won't know where the gates are, so you don't put them on the table.

That escalated quickly!
Gaming is a combination of the tactical and esthetic… Personally the more visually pleasing the table the more I am immersed in the game..
The tactical is affected by the terrain, the rules of the game model what the designer thinks needs to be modelled… The player will respond to what they can see and what the rules tell them is important… It has been my experience that the more ACtual detail the player has the more they respond to it and in many ways the less one has to have games mechanics to reflect it…
Having seen tables like this and similar at convention games, while it gives a good representation of planning it doesn't do anything to address the 2000 foot general who can see all that detail…. what does that mean to the Company or Battalion CO who can only see a 100 yards?

Of course these days with improving electronic games. we can get closer to being on the ground and seeing from there, in games like ARMA III. but in most larger scaled games we still become the 2000 foot general, and all the graphical power of the computer in effect becomes no different than a wargames table.

I always liked games where the players used periscope to view the table… or outdoor games. I want to do a game where I set up a table and the players view from webcam places where they are, I could also have players spread all over the world!

Of course the level the player is at will affect the terrain they need to know about. but then what the commander thinks they know and what is actually there is something else….

"and have a couple of people detailed to answer questions and deal with the punters." This is an English slang word (Punter is a player position in American football, not used generally), so when I heard it the other day I looked it up. Funniest definition was "A prostitute's customer." In this context the closest American term would be "Tire Kicker."

More commonly any customers or visitors to an event or attraction

Ah. "Tire Kickers" implies they're going to ask a lot of questions but not buy anything, so I guess they don't have quite the same nuance.

We also have the use of Punt as a kick, a toe punt is a kick of a ball, where the intention is force over control, as one uses the point of the toe to kick. So taking a punt is a hopeful but doubtful attempt at something… Punting is also the action of moving a boat with a pole, and also refers to the shallow draft flat bottom boat that is moved by that means, a punt… These are the ones that are associated with University cities of Oxford and Cambridge… off topic now… unless we are going to model the rivers and activity on the table top! ;)

Try taking a standard 1:50,000map ( or equivalent ).
Bearing in mind the grid is 1 km.
Blow up a piece equivalent to your wargame table as used with your favourite rules.
Now delete/white-out/rub-out any feature that have no meaning for your wargame rules.
If I do this for an area of the Kuban steppe 1942 there may be 0, 1 or 2 features per km square. For an area of rural Denmark, maybe up to 4.
If your wargame table has this many features then it is representative.
The 'bits in between' you can colour or decorate but with limited time, money or will, why bother?

Well there is a precise historical precedent for how troops dealt with a significant terrain issue that caused them operational problems.

1943 – US troops garrisoned in the SW UK are training for invasion of Europe in Devon, probably as geographically akin to the Bocage hedgerow country of Normandy as you will find. Training concentrates, quite rightly, on actually getting onto and off the beach, and securing the immediate (suburban) hinterland, so the hedges and the challenges they present are ignored…

June July 1944 – US troops make progress off the beaches and reach the 'Petit Suisse' bocage/hedgerow country. The defending Germans make best use of the restrictions to visibility, mobility, and C2 caused by the these 'fortified' hedgerows…

July Augus 1944 – US troops organise Bde and Div level schools on how to bust the bocage. Diagrams from those schools are on record – the 101 varieties of Bocage Hedgerow field are simply draw as 'a hedge', in simple squares and rectangles, for the purposes of illustrating breakthrough drills. Fortified with this additional training, US troops make the hedgerow country their own…

The moral of this tale – the military will reduce the unlimited and wonderful variety of terrain on God's green earth to the bare essentials required to fight through. In British Army range and target parlance, all the trees in creation are reduced to 2 types – 'Bushy Top tree' or 'Scraggy Top tree'!

Our wargames should do the same!

Ah. "Tire Kickers" implies they're going to ask a lot of questions but not buy anything, so I guess they don't have quite the same nuance.

No tire kickers wouldn't fit for UK Wargames show punters as although they ask a lot of question they also buy loads. No sex with prostitutes though, at least not at the shows I've been to and anyway I suspect that a sizeable minority of attendees would not know what to do with a naked woman if one jumped out of an oversized cake on their birthday!

I'm wondering if this was the map my youngest godson got to handle when he was an intern at the Library of Congress. I cursed him for his incredible luck, the rotten kid!

I'm all in favor of good looking terrain. But you simply CANNOT show every single wrinkle in the ground.

an 18" deep ditch 24" wide will give infantry solid cover and allow them to approach up the ditch. But that same ditch won't even slow down a tracked vehicle, and may not slow down a wheeled vehicle.

In British Army range and target parlance, all the trees in creation are reduced to 2 types – 'Bushy Top tree' or 'Scraggy Top tree'!

In my day it was "bushy topped tree" or "Christmas tree" ;)

Dunno about prostitutes, but I've always run demo games for the free drugs and groupies.

US troops organise Bde and Div level schools on how to bust the bocage. … 101 varieties of Bocage Hedgerow field are simply draw as 'a hedge', in simple squares and rectangles …

… In British Army range and target parlance, all the trees in creation are reduced to 2 types – 'Bushy Top tree' or 'Scraggy Top tree'!

Our wargames should do the same!

To each his own, I suppose.

I have an excellent game that follows the guidelines above. The entire battle area is represented by grid squares. Water obstacles are generic, simply "you can't go there" spaces. It is played with miniatures, but as with the terrain there is no need to get specific on the units, either. Just identify the rank of the commander to judge the size and strength of the unit. It even uses hidden unit rules.

You can buy it online if you like: link

I prefer a little more from my miniatures gaming.
So I prefer games with trees that look like trees. Sometimes palm trees, sometimes orchard fruit trees, sometimes deciduous trees of varying height, sometimes evergreen trees of varying height. And I prefer hedges where hedges might really be, and hills that are actually HIGHER than surrounding terrain. I like water obstacles that are sometimes deep, sometimes fordable, sometimes marshy bogs, and built-up areas with actual buildings and walls and streets. That's also why I use actual miniatures of specific models of tanks, painted to look like real tanks in miniature, and specific models of guns, and infantry units, etc.

But that's just me. Doesn't mean that Stratego, or Panzerblitz, or Chess, Go or Backgammon aren't good games. They are. I still enjoy Stratego, and I'm pretty good at it. But sometimes I want a little more stimulation to my imagination that I get from such overwhelming simplifications.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

@christot

I think thats the trouble with a lot of uk demo games,because they are not played…
What you get are not actually games- because they are not played- and are mediocre dioramas at best- the only point they really serve is some sort of onanistic gratification of the folk who put them on.
Just play the damm game properly – and have a couple of people detailed to answer questions and deal with the punters

Twenty year's worth of wargames convention tells me that's just not how it works, though. Most wargamers – at least the ones we see at the shows we go to (which, over the years, covers a fair few) just aren't interested in watching anyone play. (I know I don't, when I go as a punter.) I cannot recall ever seen anyone ever stop to watch a wargame (certainly not for more than five minutes); or really even any of the the specially designed participation games (which are really not wargames, frequently). Even when the game is running along with someone else fronting. People will stop to look at/ask about the models/terrain, and occasionally ask about rules (those are sometimes the ones most intested who you can get to join in for a bit), but no-one ever stops to just to watch. (And, unless you catch them and talk to them, they will look once and just walk on.)

Considering that most punters make one lap of the show to often cursoraily look at the games before doing their shopping and leaving (which is why most of them go to conventions), it makes talking to and engaging them far more important; most folk don't stick around long enough to see more than the game in one bound. Maybe that's not how in a perfect world it should work, but these days, that's the way it does work at the majority of conventions in the UK.

If we are at a good convention, we spend all day talking to people (and occasionally – and more rarely these days, for whatever reason – if people are interested, they come and play for a bit). A bad convention means no-one is interested in talking to us at all. (But even on a good convention, we usually get a couple of bounds in, even the time we debued the Shipyard's 3D printed starships at a convention that was not especially sci-fi orientated and my table was, for the first time ever, 2-3 deep.)

We must be doing something right, though since all the conventions we attend usually chase us to see if we're coming this year – and I think the principle reasons for that is we spend the time talking to the punters, unlike a fair number of games put on.