crazy thinking...

[winterbadger]

So, I woke up, went back to sleep, woke up, got up and fed the cats. I may go back to sleep again, but since I was up I decided to get out the War in Europe maps and compare them to my table.

The table in question is an extra-sturdy folding table, the sort used in trade fairs, recruiting fairs, etc. On it go either one or two 4' x 6' MDF (medium-density fibreboard--heavy as sh*t but less prone to warping than regular beaverboard). Usually at full extent those go side by side to form a 6' x 8' table, on top of which goes a grey-green cloth, then terrain pieces and miniature armies.

So the first obvious thing was that one board (4' x 6') was going to be insufficient. But I'd pretty much known that. It was in the late 1970s, and only once, but I have seen the WiEur maps spread out before, so I knew the single board wasn't going to work.

So I started spreading out maps. And I ascertained fairly quickly that, sorry, I was a bit too ambitious. To do the full WiEur spread, you need an area just under 88" x 78", or 7'4" x 6'6". I'd have the width, but I can't manage to fit the full north-to-south spread. So doing the whole thing is out.

But we can certainly play War in the East, or any of its scenarios, the WiEur Battle for Germany scenario, or any of the War in the West scenarios (and all of them but the North Africa scenario will fit on just one board, making it much easier to move around and reach counters.

That said, I have plenty of other "monster" games that could use the same treatment (i.e., actually being played instead of sitting in their box on my shelf), and I'd be happy to contemplate other options. These include such large projects as Highway to the Reich, Atlantic Wall, Edelweiss, World in Flames, most of the Europa/Glory series, Terrible Swift Sword and its successor Three Days of Gettysburg, Wellington's Victory, Napoleon at Waterloo, The Successors, Empires in Arms (and, of course, a number of other multiplayer games that can be played in a normal amount of space).

If there are a couple of folks who would be interested in trying to get together often enough to make playing one of these (or another game) worthwhile, let me know.

Comments

[kmusser]

While I like monster games, I'm not as into the one's that are pure wargames - of those you list I'd be interested in Empires in Arms - which I played once and would love a chance to play again.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

For something like War in Europe you really need one of those systems where you put the map up on a large piece of sheetmetal and put your counters in the little magnetic brackets. I think Chris von Fahnestock at Outland Games carries these. If not, I know he knows where to get them, because when I saw him at Bayou Wars a couple of years ago he was talking about setting one up for himself so he could play a massive WW2 Pacific naval game he'd gotten hold of.

[winterbadger]

Nope, I really *don't* need one of those. No offense, but I've used systems like that and they are expensive, cumbersomem and not good for the game its pieces, or the tempers of the people playing it.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Okay. I've never actually used one of those systems, just seen them advertised and heard people talk about them. It seems like it would be a good thing - apparently it's one of those things that works better in theory than in practice.

[vikingcat.livejournal.com]

We used to play months-long WiF campaigns with the boards on a vertical sheet of plywood and every counter held on with tiny balls of some remarkable compound for affixing posters to walls (whose name I've forgotten). I recall initially being skeptical that this could be both effective and not cumbersome, but it turned out to be completely successful.

[winterbadger]

I really would rather do this on a tabletop, not a wall. Wall increase exponentially the difficulty and the number of things that can go wrong.