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Tournament/Campaign Idea

Gunner

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Upfront, any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

I thinking about trying to put together a new type of tournament or quasi-campaign.
I’m not really sure what to call it.
I’m not even sure it’s feasible.
This a rough idea of kind of how I see it coming together.

The Goal
To break down a Large or Huge map and break it up in to a grid or quadrants.
Play a connected series of battles equating to a single huge scenario.

As an example using the map below.

The “Attack” is from the south.
The map can be broken up in to 3 wings or columns.
Given the 3 columns – left, center, right, there would be 3 players for each side. Could be more or less.
Total time is undetermined, say 2 hours or more.

Here’s where I could use your thoughts and discussion.

Everything I say here is flexible.

Initially I could break up the map in to a grid or blocks of 100 meters each. Each block given a number
Let’s say the first turn is 30 minutes long

The Attacking commander allocates his units to each wing.
He then decides how far or what grids he can attack to in that amount of time.

The Defending overall commander assigns his wing commanders certain grid locations to defend and distributes his units to each wing commander.
Wing commanders ten distribute units certain grid or block of locations.

I would then take the information from the attacker and defender and create maps and a scenario.

After 30 minutes combat stops and a front line is drawn on the master map.
And then another 30 minute advance etc. etc.

Before going in to further details of units how combat could be resolved do you think this a viable idea?

A huge map

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Looking from the Attackers point of view:

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Looking from the Defenders point of view:


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Fantastic campaign idea Gunner! I would like to participate in this campaign!
 
The maps looks like it is in Holland/Netherlands. That would mean it is for CMBN.

I thought about this when I loaded up another map.
It kind of has to be a bit of flat terrain.
If it were hilly say, there would be to many opportunities for the defense to target things well beyond a tiny map.
So if it's a flat map more or less the fighting would be closer.

And if this does happen you are on the top of the list. (y)
 
I would like to throw into the discussion an idea regarding casualties:
My suggestion would be that no casualties can be replaced and that the starting forces are fixed (no new purchasing and choosing before the battle. That could work, because all battles are set upped using the scenario editor. For example: the 1 Squad of 1st Platoon A Company has had lost 50% of his members, this Squad would be set to 50% in the next battle.
I think that would be an interesting and realistic idea.
(sorry for the bad Englisch - Hopefully the idea is nevertheless understandable?)
 
............My suggestion would be that no casualties can be replaced and that the starting forces are fixed (no new purchasing and choosing before the battle. That could work, because all battles are set upped using the scenario editor. For example: the 1 Squad of 1st Platoon A Company has had lost 50% of his members, this Squad would be set to 50% in the next battle.
I think that would be an interesting and realistic idea.
(sorry for the bad Englisch - Hopefully the idea is nevertheless understandable?)

Actually I thought of exactly that.
At the start both sides, the commanders, or maybe the tournament leader, would choose whole base unit.
In this example let’s say the attacker is American, The base unit would be a full infantry battalion minus the AT gun platoon (since this is an attack) for 3500 pts. That would give the American commander 2000 points to add support to the battalion such as armor/artillery etc.
The overall commander would delegate units to each column leader.

After each battle losses would be calculated and each side would have that much less to fight with.
It would be easy for the attacker but how does the defenders unit work?
If the defender has units left on the map do they get to “retreat” and add to the defense of the next battle?

(And your English is excellent by the way (y) )
 
Fantastic! This is exact the kind of campaign I am looking for.

After each battle losses would be calculated and each side would have that much less to fight with.
It would be easy for the attacker but how does the defenders unit work?
If the defender has units left on the map do they get to “retreat” and add to the defense of the next battle?

It would depend how the battle result would be:

If the defender surrenders or has suffered a total defeat, there could be a rule that for example that 50% of his units would be able to reach the next defense line (the next grid or quadrants), but 100% of his broken, shaken or panicked units would effectively surrender and taken out of the game.

In case of an minor or tactical victory much more percentage of the defender units would be able to retreat towards the next (most safe) board field.

If it is a draw, everyone holds position.

There could also be rule that allows for example a Company which had have heavy casualties to reduce and combine their platoons. For example: after taking heavy losses the Company disbands his 3rd Platoon and redirect these soldiers into the 1st and 2nd Platoon. I would suggest these redirected soldiers can only switch in inside the same type of squad or team. For example the MG Team of the 3rd Platoon gets disbanded and these soldiers can only switch into an another MG Team of 1st or 2nd Platoon and not transform into a sniper or mortar team. If there is no place, or not enough correct place the soldiers always can switch into a (Rifle) Squad.

There should also be rules about how to proceed with immobilized or damaged vehicles and tanks, a chance in percentage that they can continue (simulate repair) in the next battle.
The chance would be much higher if the battle had been won, because it is much easier to repair an immobilized vehicle after winning the battle and not losing and retreating. That would mean in the case of a total or major defeat that all immobilized vehicles of the loser are lost. For each case their can be an rule (winning and losing)
Also cool feature rule would be the rule that the winner of the battle has a small chance to use the losers immobilized enemy vehicles.
There are website (random generators) which could be used to produce a fair and quick decision if for example a 15% chance has happened or not.

These are my first thoughts about this.
 
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Right now I'm thinking of actual casualties and not percentage.
Example: if in a battle someone starts with 100 men and 5 tanks and loses 25 men and 3 tanks he can carry over to the next battle 75 men and 2 tanks.
It's easy to track for the attacker but the defender is a bit more involved.

And as far as level of Victory goes, there will be battles that have no Victory Locations that will give points so there may be no Minor-Tactical-Total victories just occupation of territory in a certain time frame.
This would be the case especially early on when there would be battles for position so the VL's

Perhaps Exits could be used for Defenders to retreat and survive and attackers to move through to the next battle. Hmmm. :unsure:
 
Perhaps Exits could be used for Defenders to retreat and survive and attackers to move through to the next battle. Hmmm. :unsure:

That is a very good idea and would solve the question about how many defending units would survive if the are losing this battle. Also it would be an interesting gameplay and improvement.
Also a good thing would be that the losing defender has still an important task to do (rescuing his units), after he realized that this battle is lost.
 
For quick calculations on casualties, there 450 men in the average battalion and 150 men in a company.
What size huge map are you thinking of @Gunner ?

The above one to start with.
It's a CMBN Holland map called Oosterbeek.
I believe it was in a Map pack not part of the original game.
I could send it to you if you do not already have it and are interested.

That's less men than I thought it would be.
Keeping track of casualties shouldn't be that difficult.
 
That is a very good idea and would solve the question about how many defending units would survive if the are losing this battle. Also it would be an interesting gameplay and improvement.
Also a good thing would be that the losing defender has still an important task to do (rescuing his units), after he realized that this battle is lost.

It would also make it more difficult to retreat heavier weapons such as AT gun.
 
Believe me that's what I'm trying to do and keep an interesting play-ability

Now to the thought of Time and/or Distance.
This is the difficult part.

If we were to use the map above, it is 1500m x 2000m
I could cut that in to 6 maps the equivalent of a tiny/small Quick Battle or about 500m x 650m each.
Then each battle would be X amount of minutes long. How long would X be? All equal? Shorter in the beginning when maneuver is important and longer at the end when VL's are important?

Or

Divide the map up in to smaller squares, I don't know, say 100m or even 50m.
Imagine the goal is to finish the game in 2 hours.
We play in four 30 minute blocks.
The attacker chooses the distance in squares he plans to cover in those 30 minutes and I can generate a map from the information.

Note: One of the big advantages of selecting this type of tournament/campaign is creating the maps is a piece of cake. You can slice off any piece of any size using the editor.
 
If it's 2 hours long each turn is 30 minutes?

I'm not sure how the larger map would work.
Or how to avoid just having three different scenarios,a left, center, right.
How would a flank column turn in to the center for support or vice-versa?
Let me think on it
 
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