I've been reading the posts about the unbalanced armies and ways to provide more balance on the table top. This balance revolves around terrain. This makes the most sense as on cannot go back and readjust the points system. And as Kevin Boylan said, "a good terrain pick is often absolutely essential to ensuring a competitive game." A number of suggestions have been presented such as assigning points in order to acquire the right to pick more terrain features. But as Jeff Ball pointed out, "having to chase down a "playability" matrix w/25 or 70 armies is not a real possility either" this can become very complicated and divorced from reality. However, I think Robert Eldridge has suggested an extremely fruitful first step, an Advanced Tournament Guide. I agree with him that such a guide should include how to set up tournaments. I use the plural because the book should contain examples of several different kinds of tournaments. Also tournaments for a small number of participants and for a large number of participants. The book should contain how to run a tournament, how to decide the winners, prizes etc. Also contained in the Advanced Tournament Guide would be 30-40 maps. These maps would be the means of creating more balance between armies. The way that would work is that these maps would be broken down into a collection of maps for a small number of geographic areas [forest like, plains like, deserts like, mountain like, etc]. Each army would be assigned to the geographic area which best suits their country or land of origin. Then each army would be assigned to be an attacker or defender [good old Clausewitzian terms]. Criteria could be established as to whether the army is an attacker or a defender. [i.e, army would be listed as defensive armies, attack armies, attack/defensive armies etc.] The defender would then role a die to see which 1 of 3 or 4 maps they would fight on. Now these maps should be geographically large enough so that the defender could create four or five different defensive positions from off the map. In other words, the map would be composed of enough terrain squares that 4 or 5 different wargaming tables would be created out of all the different terrain squares. The attacker would have at least one right of refusal. Meaning, that the attacker could make the defender chose another site other than the one he initially chose. The table top would then be set up approximately to conform to the map terrain squires finally chosen by the defender and the battle would be fought. To recap, the two gamers would determine [or have it determined] who the attacker and who the defender were. The defender would then role a die to see which map [of the geographical type of its homeland] would be used. This map would then be used by the defender to chose which terrain squares would be fought over. The attacker would then have first-right of refusal. The final terrain squares would be the guide for the terrain setup for the table top. That would be the bare-bones method of setup. Other considerations could also be factored in such as flank moves. One player could simply inform the tournament judge that he plans a flank movement through an adjacent square [if possible] and the judge could role on which turn they would come in, keep it on his game sheet and inform the player when his troops come on at the time they come on. One could also use off-board set ups by informing the judge which square these troops are located in. One could also add such wrinkles as, if the attacker decided not to use his right of refusal he would be allowed to add X number of troops to his force. These maps could also be used to set up a mini-campaign which, if wanted, could also be the base of a tournament. Those not interested in tournaments could use them for mini-campaigns. Finally, it would add at least one element of generalship not currently available: an eye for terrain. This would add to the challenge faced by the C-in-C while retaining the tactical aspect of the game. Now this is just a bare idea which needs to be fleshed out but I think it could be a simple and direct way to help equalize armies through terrain and bring an aspect of involvement and excitement not there now. Back to Saga #74 Table of Contents Back to Saga List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Terry Gore This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com