BoB: Big Game – Важно полустанке Wash Up

So at the end of the day, and with some time for reflection, how did it all go ?

The Whites and French on Table 1, The Village didn’t do their job and hightailed it.
The Whites and Kuban Cossacks on Table 2, The Steppe, did their job but at a heavy price. The train was nigh on unstoppable.

Overall:

• The layout of the tables was good – just enough cover but not too much.
• You have to prevent players turning up, and with good intentions adding more stuff to steppe terrain – the Umpires have to be quite firm on this both for BoB and AVBCW.Adding too much terrain, or unexpected terrain can screw up the scenario(s).
• Attacking forces MUST have extra troops – a balanced table just doesn’t make it feasible for attackers to break through.
• Adding at least one extra unit per attacking Player starts swinging the balance the right way (see below).
• For long games, especially for BoB, standard forces should be of 4-6 units to ensure players have enough troops to play for a full day. We started at 11.30am, Table 1 finished at 4pm, and Table 2 at 4.30pm.
• I’d have liked to see both tables go til 5pm, as we are now getting very adept at tidying up and clearing the hall.
• Players need to read the f***ing game rules and scenarios beforehand !
• Umpires like me, need to get the extra units to hand much earlier. As it was I was up before 7am on Saturday busily painting stuff to hand out to players at 10-11am.
• All of that said, the scenarios worked out well, with it all being a close run thing on both tables.
• On Table 2, the players chose deployment zones in areas that I had had in mind with virtually no input from me.

The feedback from the Cats, was unequivocal – they stayed out overnight before coming in on Sunday and sleeping it off and demanding a lot of food and fusses. they really don’t like 8 strange humans in the house being loud, eating curry and drinking booze.

The feedback from the players has (so far) been unequivocal – they enjoyed it.

So playing unbalanced games with proper scenarios is possible, and it still leaves the players in a happy mood. So I have learnt from past Big Games and will do this again in the future. If you do so, then an Umpire / GM is definitely needed.

Even if I am going to get into trouble with the Cats for doing more games in the future !

To follow, I’ll post some of the stuff I was painting before the game, and also some of JP & my plans for the next AVBCW game.