ideal army size for a battlefield

[Castlebravo]

So I set up this battlefield, it is some sort of a beach facing a military base entrance with a smallish town in the middle.

However, I would like to have some advice from more experienced players in order to acheive maximum enjoyment, since I'm a no0b about actual brikwarsing (only two battles so far) :

• What would be the ideal army size for such a battlefield, in a 2 player game ? I want armies big enough to keep it interesting, but small enough to still have some tactical possibilities (since 2 big armies simply slam into each other and it's boring after three turns) ? I though 12~15 minifigs and 1~2 medium vehicles (let's say 5 inch long) on each side would do the trick, what do you think of it ?
• About the layout, I tried to create a path for armored vehicle across the map, but I fear that putting the buildings on the sides of this path turns them into pretty decoration with no tactical value whatsoever (like cover for infantry, or elevated sniper nests). Any feedback here ? Also is the no man's land in front of the base a good idea ? I believe that it might be an unfair advantage for the army that control the base entrance ('cause I already experienced such a game with a player turtling into an armored bunker with a no man's land in front of it and it turned out to be quite annoying). If you have a better layout idea, I'll be glad to take note.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions !

[RedRover]

It looks good to me! You could throw some larger rocks or something in the no-man's-land to give more cover. You could also do 3 forces. 2 attacking the bunker and 1 defending, but the two attacking the bunker could have a breakable alliance for the backstab. The army sizes you gave are good I think. If you want to spice games up, you could always have a secret faction that comes in mid-game or some type of event that can flip the dynamic. Those are just some ideas, but that battlefield looks great!

[motorhead fan]

Personally, I'd put a bit more than 12-15 minifigs, perhaps 30 per side, then you have enough to lose badly while trying to attack but still having a strong enough defense force.

A way of making the building useful is having an objective being: control the most buildings in X amount of turns.

[stubby]

When an enemy is in a fortified position, put something outside of the fortified position that they have to defend or get back. Maybe a kidnapped general or stolen plans. Might be a good use for those houses, if one of the houses is where their opponents are hiding but they don't know which (determined by random roll on house search).

If the enemy turtles, it's tricky to make a good game out of it. You can try to rush more forces across the no-man's-land than they have weapons to respond with. Alternately, bring bulldozers and create cover for your troops by bulldozing the houses forward into the no-man's-land.

[lordintype]

Alternately, bring bulldozers and create cover for your troops by bulldozing the houses forward into the no-man's-land.

With the inhabitants inside

[Zahru II]

I'd fudge for anti-turtling measures if they're playing it too safe. Like call for WISG roll to deploy "off-screen" artillery batteries, or a stacking debuff on the defenders (they get famished or weary for not seeing action after select turns).

[Castlebravo]

Thank you all for your advice ! Lots of things that I would not have thought about (I especially love the dozer idea but I probably don't have the pieces to build a proper one ).
So far, I'm leaning toward an objective-based game like Bluebright's ones, with missions implicating civilians near the houses, retrievable objects located inside the buildings and something about going across the map.
I guess it will prevent defensive play and ensure a fun game.
I'm also thinking of introducing weak spots on attacking armored vehicles, located on the sides and the back, so that destroying them requires flanking and thus makes turtling unsustainable.
Zahru's idea of using artillery is also quite nice, I'll probably include someway. Secret factions or debuff on the defender are however impractical I think, since it will be a two-players game (I can think of some ways to make it work but it would just slow the game down) and a debuff seems complicated to balance properly so it let some defense going on, but not full-scale turtling.

[Steel_Valkyrie]

Forces-wise, both of your factions seem to be about the right size and pretty much equal, so, if you slated them against each other, plus some smaller factions who are independent, that would be perfect.

[dilanski]

That battlefield does look awesome, however it seems to be set up such that the combatants will be fighting along the width of the board, meaning that you'll have a rather small hot zone of action. Most war games are set up so that the fighting takes place along the length of the board, like so:



There is a larger area over which forces can clash, compared to forces just running across the board to meet in the middle. You can also set up the board diagonally, (40K used to have deployment rules for that), giving you an even longer middle line where forces meet.

A trick to beating turtling is to stick a round limit in there, such that turtling is a losing strategy. It can also stop the endless turns that occur when a game comes down to its final few combatants.

[Castlebravo]

That battlefield does look awesome, however it seems to be set up such that the combatants will be fighting along the width of the board, meaning that you'll have a rather small hot zone of action. Most war games are set up so that the fighting takes place along the length of the board, like so:

You are perfectly right. I finally did the game a few hours ago on a modified version of the battlefield with roughly the same layout, and the frontline was indeed quite small (but extremely violent). I'll take that into account for the next game !

A trick to beating turtling is to stick a round limit in there, such that turtling is a losing strategy. It can also stop the endless turns that occur when a game comes down to its final few combatants.

We actually did that, in conjunction with an objective-based gameplay that involved controlling buildings (as suggested by motorhead fan) and rescuing civilians. It turned out to be great ! I'll probably publish a battle report about this one, after my oral exams. Here is a pic of the early game :

It was quite brikwarsy, as it involved a lawnmower murder, tank fornication and many weird things with motorcycles.

[CaptainZebra]

Looks like an ossum battle