Slitherine

The points range in challenges issued started at 400 and seems to have expanded increasingly up to include higher totals up to 800 (which may be the influence of campaigns). What do you think is the ideal target points size for a one-off game?

Do you think the ideal size is different for a campaign?

Mike

(I've been mostly at 400, which gives a battle but can involve some serious trade-offs in army selection.)

Not enough experiance w SOA to say but i really like the 600-650 point battle w ROR

The caps on high quality cavalry I think, over values them in the smaller battles 400 range battles, which does not feel historical to me, because people will still max out on them and have enough to flesh out the rest of the army.... cavalry's impact seems more balanced in the larger sized battles.

More sweeping manuevers, you feel like you have an actual center, left wing, right wing, "more epic"

Also, it is often more worth getting an ally in the larger battles as well, instead of spending the dough for the allied leader and only by getting a few allied units...

Finally , only in the larger battles can you get 3 elephants on the field!

I like 600 for SoA and 600-800 for RoR.

I agree with all of GrayMouser's comments.

I find small points (ie less than 500pts) games often involve a lot of rather strange 'dancing' about the battlefield (though less now turning is more restricted) and don't have the right sort of 'feel' for that reason.

And most lists allow a good selection of troops at 600pts, and also force people away from having an army that has a proprotionally greater number of the better troops (where such variation exists, obviously).

For some reason, I prefer 400, but 500 is okay, too. 600 is a tad too large, and anything above that you run the risk of maxing out your army list.

I mostly play at 500 and like it.
Not too big nor too small.

arsan wrote:I mostly play at 500 and like it.
Not too big nor too small.

500 is just right

500 is a nice size, the bigger games tend to drag a lot. The RoR games are especially bigger and take way longer

Prefer larger battles myself 600-1000 but have enjoyed the smaller ones too.

I like 500 points is RoR, but 650+ in SOA becasue SOA the troops are so expensive.

I was playing around with a free company list and had 31 break points I think at 500.


Of course it depends on the army. The Anglo-Irish list at 650 points might be 80 break points.

400-500.

650 point battles drag on a bit.

Some of the weaker armies (e.g. Medieval Welsh) deteriorate markedly above 400 points.

I've only played RoR so far, but I also find 500 points to be about right. 600+ points, especially with simpler armies, like the Illyrians, just seem to give you more of the same thing and tend to drag a bit.

I'm in the under 500 crowd.