Going Grand

 For years, my gaming space has been somewhat constrained. As a result, I have created my own, highly portable gaming system.

I have a small battle board of 8 by 10 inches. Upon this field, maneuver armies made up of 6 units with 1 stand per unit. The board, unit, terrain, markers, and dice all fit into an 8.5 by 11 inch box.

An example of one of my portable battles

Given that I frequently gamed on a table that was 16 by 22 inches, this set up fit very well.

But now my gaming space has grown. I now have some space for a 2 by 4 foot table. I plan to use half of it as a dedicated painting area. But that still gives my a 24 inch square space.

This leaves me pondering increasing the size of my games.

One option is to return to a set-up I used in my early gaming days. 

Here I am using Risk figures (approximately 10mm) on a 12 by 18 inch board gridded into 2 inch squares. One benefit of this is that it would look much better in pictures. The larger figures seem to photograph better. Or they would if I had properly painted figures. And that is the sticking point; I don't really fancy painting up a couple of armies of larger figures. Also, I don't think my "cheat," using the same figures for battles ranging from ancients to modern would work in 10mm.

Another option is to use my 3mm troops with a 2 inch gridded board. I've done this before.

Here, I am using 2 stands per unit. I could increase it to 4 stands per unit to really fit up the spaces. I think this would look nice, giving a very grand tactical look to the game.

Speaking of grand tactical, I just picked up the new Osprey rules set, Absolute Emperor. It is a set of grand tactical Napoleonic era wargame rules.

I find his organization interesting. The basic unit in the game is a division, usually made up of 4 stands. For command purposes, divisions are grouped into Corps. This high scale approach means that Waterloo can be done with approximately 20 divisions per side.

This is still a bit big for me, as it would require about 80 stands. But what about 1 stand per division? I could probably manage that. I could still organize into corps and still use the One Hour Wargame scenarios (with each of Thomas's units = a Corps).

Thinking about this now has me leaning toward a increasing the size of the battle board, but still keeping a 1 inch grid. This would still allow me to play smaller games with just six 1-stand units, with the option to expand to larger battles.

Anyway, all of this is in the pondering stage. We'll see if I ever manage to get it off the ground.

Addendum

Looking at my 2 inch square gridded battle board, I remembered that it was 12 by 18 inches. I think that this size will be perfect so I plan to pick up three of these bifold foam boards along with green, tan, and blue felt sheets (for grass, desert, and sea).