800 or 1000

[CutEmUp]

Besides, the force you just listed is two infantry divisions and a cavalry division easy. This isnt battalion level gaming. The force you just listed would be 12-18 infantry battalions, maybe 12-18 guns and two cavalry regiments, which is a pretty good representation of a French Corps, you can fit another infantry division in easy, or bulk out what you already have.

[Blathergut]

1. I've said nothing personal about you beyond pointing out we like two different types of games.
2. It's not a matter of 'getting what I want' but enjoying the game. I like a full table. If you like otherwise, great. There was never a comment made that belittled your style of play or game enjoyment. I play ancients the same way; two or three lines of troops massed on a table.
3. I don't think, if we played, you'd say I was non-aggressive. Just the opposite.
4. Yes, have read. But this, after all, is a game to be enjoyed, which means you may do things otherwise.
5. Or you could take the time and paint them. That's as much of the hobby as gaming them on the table.
6. Why again would you make the comment about me personally knowing or not knowing something, when you have no idea about me at all? I simply said I like a different style of play. Enjoy the game as you will, that is the beauty of the rules, that they can be played differently and still enjoyed.
7. Again, the comments criticising. I would think those guys are still enjoying what they are doing and look forward to the time together.
8. The force was two mixed divisions.

I wish you well with how you play. This was never meant to be an attack on you personally or your preferred method of play. I was simply offering my viewpoint and preference, but never meant to suggest (and if so, apologies) it was better than yours or any other.

[CutEmUp]

It nothing personal at all. It's about getting this game on it's feet so that it enjoys popularity. I'll bet 25-1 I'm a better painter than anybody on this board (at least 15mm), and yes, it takes time, which most people don't have. If you want to play with your buddies, 1000 is fine, but if you want a tournament (a real tournament with more than 5 people) 3 or four times a year it is not fine.
A 650 point Napoleonic is an immense project if you're gonna do it right and 1000 points will take anybody with a life at least two or three years just to get on the table. People look at it and say "hell with that."
I want the hobby to be one that anybody can just pick up and enjoy. You and I will probably never meet and we are irrelevant to each other, but the hobby is bigger than both of us and you guys talking about lets have these huge armies at tournaments are being selfish to the detriment of the hobby.

I'm not about to let you sink this thing four months in.

[CutEmUp]

Case in point.
I do commissions. I get five dollars for an infantry figure and ten dollars for a cavalry model after the cost of figures. On average I can knock out 20 infantry or 10 cavalry a day. 
$100 a day is about on par for your average Joe. Time = money.
If we look at a French Guard Corps of 1815 and just take the minima, then you are looking at:

80 Infantry figures - $400
8 Foot Artillery figures - $40
2 Foot Guns - $20
25 Cavalry Figures - $250
8 Horse Artillery Figures - $40
2 Horse Guns - $20
3 Generals - $30
4 Aides - $40

Now let's average out the cost of the figures themselves at $1 per infantry or cavalry (AB would average out to that) and you get: $132 

$132 + $400 + $40 + $20 + $250 + $40 + $20 + $30 + $40 = $972 

$972 Dollars and 9 or 10 eight hour days (that's 72-80 hours) of painting and that only comes out to 650 points if you take the most expensive units as your minimum. If you wanted a competitive force with balance you're looking at about $1100 to $1200 dollars of time and money to get a 650 point army on the table. 

You are asking people to invest double that (unless, of course it's a complete crap looking army, which won't inspire new devotees) and it's just unrealistic to expect any numbers at a tournament.
And the bottom line, when it comes to tourney play, is that you want lots of people & lots of games. A tourney should be geared towards participation, not towards whether or not you are able to have that extra unit of cuirassiers that would give your army perfect balance.

[AndyClaxton]

As an old fat guy here is my opinion on army size:

1. I agree with CutEmUp that 800 points gives you some difficult decisions to make about your army structure which I quite like.
2. I agree with others that 650 points wouldn't be my preferred format as all armies from a list would be very similar.
3. I think that 1,000 points for a doubles competition is about right although I haven't played such a format as yet.

I can also state that in 15mm I have some really nicely painted armies for Brits, French, Austrian and Russian and in 25mm I have both Brits and French, again, both of which are nicely painted. I wouldn't put unpainted or unbased figures on a table but people do in competitons of all periods that I've seen over the years so at the end of the day it's about personal preferences outside of the competition circuit, there is no right or wrong choice, it depends on the figures you have to hand, the size of your wargames table, the time available and many other things.

[hazelbark]

It nothing personal at all.
.

As some one not part of the back and forth. Yea you were pretty personal. And your comments are a bunch of shots against a guy, I personally don't know. Maybe you know him in the real world. But you rolled in and unloaded a broadside against a guy who is not showing a 1/10th of the negativity of the hobby that you did in you post on this thread.

There are legitimate POVs on troop density on the table. We don't have to be hostile.
You can want a smaller amount to ease entry into the game. You can want more because it represents something else. Viva l'difference and let's not try to attack one antoher.

[CutEmUp]

2. I agree with others that 650 points wouldn't be my preferred format as all armies from a list would be very similar

The more points you have, the more similar armies will become, especially once everyone figures out the cheesiest units.

[CutEmUp]

a guy who is not showing a 1/10th of the negativity of the hobby that you did in you post on this thread

Misinterpreted, my negativity is directed at human nature.

[AndyClaxton]

"CutEmUP" wrote: The more points you have, the more similar armies will become, especially once everyone figures out the cheesiest units.

That assumes we all want to use the "cheesiest" units or can be bothered to work out what they are!? I've used some pretty crap competition armies in the past because it's what I want to play with not because it's the best. There are very few people that I play against in the UK competition scene that either want or expect to win every game that they play, they turn up because they enjoy playing different people and enjoy a full weekends wargaming, they don't need to win every game to achieve that.

As I've already said before each to their own, I don't mind what anybody does and I accept what competition organisers choose to do when it comes to points, table size etc.

[CutEmUp]

That ain't America. Here's what you'll get.

Since the only way to achieve victory is maneuver and the density of the table has negated that, you'll instead get maneuver in in the form of functional dislocation, meaning an attempt to strip you of your combined arms capabilities and leave your army and sitting there at the mercy of something it cannot counter. Naturally, that something would be artillery.

People will put as much heavy stuff as they can on the table and protect it with big tough infantry units. Not only will others be forced to do the same, but they will no longer bring a variety of different armies to tournaments. So you will basically see nothing but French and Russian armies at tournaments.

A battle would consist of an artillery duel, (determined by luck of the dice) the loser of wich would now be obliged to attack into a well laid, cohesive defense or stand there and get blown into smitherines. Either way, the loser gets slaughtered and that's that. It's the natural course of things and it is boring.

Something like this almost ruined flames of war early war. There were tournaments where all but the bravest ran a British armored regiment because they grew tired of getting slaughtered by it. Thankfully, battlefront pulled out its teeth after long hard debate, but FOW survived because it was well established.

FOG has a burgeoning competitor right now in "Napoleon at War" and if things get silly, well that will win out and beat this rule set into obscurity. Personally, I like the scale and feel of FOG better, but scale and feel are not good enough for most people; they want easy, they want pretty and they want NOW. People don't have the patience to sit around painting for a year before they get enough ready to start an army.

[donm]

CutEmUp wrote

That ain't America. Here's what you'll get.

Perhaps it's time to consider a move?

I only have a Prussian army, so I'll just have to muddle along with that.

Don

[panda2]

but scale and feel are not good enough for most people; they want easy, they want pretty and they want NOW. People don't have the patience to sit around painting for a year before they get enough ready to start an army.

I'm sorry, but what gives you the right to talk on behalf of "most people" and to judge whether their preferences are worthy or "good for the hobby"? You've taken what was a perfectly reasonable point made in your first post about the importance of maneuver in Napoleonic warfare (and one that I agree with incidently) and smothered it under a pages of insults against anyone who seems to dissagree and condemnations of trends in the hobby as a whole. This isn't a good way of influencing people or changing their views and is much more likely to encorage them to stop listening and gain you a reputation as a troll.

Andy D

[shadowdragon]

a guy who is not showing a 1/10th of the negativity of the hobby that you did in you post on this thread

Misinterpreted, my negativity is directed at human nature.

Perhaps it's time to consider how you express yourself. I have no bone in this fight, but you have come across as.....er, less than positively. I've nothing against your nor your prodigious painting skills nor you views about what works or not for tournaments, but I did not like the way that you sometimes expressed your views in this thread. And, that's too bad because you do have some points worth considering.

Not sure why Bathergut needs to be the target for your negativity about human nature.

[Blathergut]

It would be interesting to put together a list of army minimum points. The French 1809 came in at 500 I think. Interestingly, the Austrian 1809 Danube army comes in at 434 if I make it right. That's a fair bit more to work with. Maybe 600-650 point games could work differently, instead of following the minimums, lay out a certain base core of troop types and let players build from there. If everyone had 200 points to do with as they will, that might be interesting to try.

Let's leave the personal comments behind us and keep up the debate about the game.

I'd be interested in hearing/reading description of one of your 650 pt games, Cut. Table positioning, space left not covered, how you envisage units/divisions moving. A brief turn-by-turn sort of run down.

[CutEmUp]

Well excuse me, I'm just a bit passionate when I pick a side and argue it till I'm blue in the face. Is it ugly sometimes yes. Is it boring? No. Do people take notice? Yes.

I'll tone it down, but as far as trends in the hobby go, I'm spot on, I've seen it happen too many times.

Blather guy, tell you what....when I get home, I will bust out a game with my bro and give you a blow by blow.

[CutEmUp]

Blather guy, tell you what....when I get home, I will bust out a game with my bro and give you a blow by blow.[/quote]

Usually it involves baiting someone into a trap, pinning and flanking, or overwhelming isolated units/detachments that got over exposed. Combined arms is important, but it's more about marching hard and hitting fast when an opportunity presents itself. Terrain features gain more importance in decision making.

Rather than just "I have to assault that village with the Baker rifles and a KGL brigade in it. Now how am I gonna do it"
It's
"Do I just go around it with my main body and pin them down with something small or do I assault it with everything I have and either win quickly or possibly get sucked into a quagmire or trap.

650 gives much more a feeling of an independent command or advance guard hanging in the air, rather than acting as part of an enormous army engaged in an assault on a particular locale.

[CutEmUp]

PS after reading Robert Leonhard's art of maneuver, I just can't ascribe myself to frontal assaults against equal or superior force. As I corps commander I'd get the feel of "who the hell is running this army.......I don't know, but they oughtta hang 'em" give that book a quick gaze.

[panda2]

Given the divergence of views on this subject, I did start sketching out a system for variable points games a couple of days ago. The aim would be to allow people to compete against each other with unequal forces, but hopefully with each having a fair chance of success.

It would work over a 200 pt range. So, taking Hazelbark's view that 900 pts is the most you can reasonably maneuver on a 6'x4' table with 15mm figures, you might allow armies in the range of 700-900 pts. By analogy with the adjustments for "bonus units", it would work by reducing the ACV of the larger force and increasing the ACV of the smaller force, so that the larger force (in points terms) would need to destroy a larger proportion of the smaller force to achieve victory and converse the smaller force would need to destroy only a smaller proportion of the larger force. It might also be possible to include a small adjustment to the initiative score to make it more likely that the smaller force was defending. However, I'd see this as, perhaps, a secondary issue, since I know that some people think that being the defender is a significant dissadvantage, although thats not been my experience.

I've not taken it any further than a preliminary sketch: firstly, because there didn't seem to be any great urgency (many people are still getting used to the game and I expect tournaments aren't likely to deviate much from 800 pts for a while); and, secondly, because I wanted to take some time to go through the lists in ToN to see what potential, if any, there might be for peope to min-max ACV and or points to produce an almost unbeatable army. However, if people are interested, I might give some further thought to the issue over the weekend. Clearly, it would all need to be thoroughly playtested.

Andy D

[Blathergut]

Sounds interesting. Am sure Dead. and I could try it out but in 28mm on a 4 x 8 table.

[bahdahbum]

I am for it . Let's try different possibilities