Re: Stargrunt Questions revisited

Hi Scott,

>
>I have another question that kinda goes with the fireteam discussion
from 
>last week. How big of a force do a lot of you guys field in a typical 
>Stagrunt battle?
>
>My game with my nephew was pretty small as my collection of 25mm troops
is 
>rather limited. But here is a quick overview of what we fielded:

<snip force description>

I have the figures to support company-size games of Stargrunt, but we
only
ever consider doing that once or twice a year.	You need a lot of table
space, and quite a bit of time...

It's fun though :)

Our "normal" games are usually in the range of a platoon on each side,
plus
something "interesting" to add a bit of spice to the game.  The
"interesting" might come from specific scenario conditions, extra force
in
the form of combat walkers or other light vehicles, specialist troops
like
mortars or engineers, or something like that.

If we're doing a meeting-engagement, I try to balance out the scenario
and
forces, not necessarily purely with numbers of figures but with a
combination of numbers, types (ie PA or non-PA), vehicles, special
equipment, mines, leadership level and quality level.  This way we can
field a big force against a much smaller, but better quality and more
potent, force and still have a good game.

Sometimes we set up completely unbalanced force scenarios (2 or 3
platoons
versus 1 platoon, for example) but have very different mission
parameters.
The classic for this is the "attack vs. a prepared defender" type
scenario.
 We'll set up the attacker to be arriving in a "hasty assault", so they
haven't had time to prep the place with massive arty or whatever, but
the
defender has been in place long enough to put out a few mines and get
some
decent positions.  Then we see how long the defenders can hold out, etc.

I like the idea of being able to do flexible-size games like this,
rather
than playing the same 2 or 3 forces against each other all the time.  As
such, I've bought a couple of platoons (during the Christmas sales at
GZG)
of the "generic mercenary" SG figs.  I'm going to paint them up in
relatively generic colours, and then I will use them to add to any of my
other "national" forces (of which I have a number of single platoons
painted).  That way, I can do a 2 or 3 platoon force without having to
actually paint 3 platoons of one nationality, and since I have a bunch
of
painted one-platoon national forces, the next time, the 3 platoon force
can
be someone different.  But again, games of that size don't happen as
often
as the one or one+reinforcements platoon per side type games.  They just
take too long to play to do it often, much as I like the sight of lots
of
figs on the table....

As to force composition, I tend toward 6 to 8 model squads, rather than
the
little ones.  You were doing that because you wanted to spread the figs
around, and that makes sense, but I personally find the game more
satisfying if the squads are a bit bigger.  Tom Barclay is a big fan of
the
"break down squads into fire teams, and play them as separate units"
school
of Stargrunt.  I just assume that the actions of fire teams are built
into
the way squad actions work in Stargrunt, so leave them all together in 8
model squads.  Tom's version, with lots of little fire teams in a
platoon,
might be a bit more "realistic", but I find that you end up with too
many
units, and the game takes too long to play.  Tom adds Platoon Sergeants
and
Officers as independent figures, and has a set of house rules for using
them with extra command activations (if your're interested, you can find
them in the house rules section of www.stargrunt.ca).  If I want to have
more units, I'd rather add a second platoon of 8 model squads.	Slightly
different playing styles, but either way works well, as long as you have
a
decent scenario. 



***************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian@stargrunt.ca
http://www.stargrunt.ca