Representing units

[stoffelbier]

Hello,

I was wondering, how did you represent the troops in this scenario (American War of Independence Kriegsspiel, 1777), or any other scenarios described on the Kriegsspiel website?

F.e. Sullivan has the 1st Maryland Infantry Brigade 800 men -> are that 2 half-batallion blocks?
What about the Light Dragoons (80 troopers) -> 1 cavalry block? (which actually represents 150 riders?)

I don't understand how the unit front sizes match your map scale ?

Regards!

[James Sterrett]

There are two ways to solve this:

1) Research the proper frontage and make units that fit that frontage on your map scale.

2) (This is what I do! ) Find out the approximate frontage, and between that, the units you have, the maps you have, and the battle you want to portray.... declare a given troop block to be a given size of unit. For example, if I'm running a fight on the full-scale Metz map section, one infantry block is a battalion. If I'm running it on the Metz index map (which mets me fight a big battle on a wide area, yet use a manageable map), the sme troop block is declared to be a brigade.

Rationales and Excuses Department:

In my opinion, the point of Kriegsspiel is to create, for the players, a situation in which they have very limited information, and very limited time in which to make decisions, and to require them to express those decisions in a manner understandable to another person (other players or the umpires). Speed of play is more important than precise simulation because rapid execution of the bounds creates the limited time for players to ponder.

Therefore, when setting up and running a game, I tend to ruthlessly simplify the system. When I'm *not* running a game, I will read and pay close attention to all of Reisswitz's (et al.'s) detailed sets of modifiers for various situations, to try to ensure my simplifications are preserving the essence of the time period. But, if it takes more than a few seconds to look something up while running a game, I default straight to the MSU method: Make Stuff Up -- trying to make use of my best understanding of the rules while doing so, but opting for speed of play uber alles.