WH The Great War Modifications?

[schoenkoenig]

Hello all...

Being a penniless law student, and the only person in my local gaming group willing to have taken the plunge into WWI gaming, I've come across some problematic areas.  I've got two painted armies of 1914 British and German, of  about 36 figures each, with a machine gun for the Germans.  The figures are Great War Miniatures; they're the mutt's nuts, and the bee's knees.

Anyhoos, not really having the money to expand the armies up to 90 figures each, as the rule system seems designed for, I've been thinking of tweaks I could make to the rules that would bring the game down to a platoon skirmish scale.  So far I've thought about doubling the distance models can be from each other, adding in a 6+ invulnerable save, and trying to do something with company command, which I can't figure out yet.  Would anyone else have any ideas for how to skirmish-ize the game easily?

Also, does anyone know any inexpensive makers of 25-28mm European buildings suitable for France/Belgium?

Cheers!

[meninobesta]

why don't you give each soldier 2 wounds... and use platoons with half the miniatures? some of the weapon teams will need some tweaking but you should resolve that with ease!

you could also try the T&T which plays very nice with about 30 miniatures per side

[DrunkenSamurai]

The rules were written with a 1 to 1 figure ratio originally.  I don't think they changed the rules at all when they went to the 3 to 1 ratio.

You should be able to play it just as it is...

[Svennn]

You should be able to play it just as it is...

Most definately. If you think about a game with 2/3rd casualties to each side what would you have?

[schoenkoenig]

Oh the issue of ratio isn't a problem.

But the army lists and point structure is geared towards armies of ~90 figures.  I'm just wondering if anyone had any ideas for slight modifications to make games of ~30 figures more interesting and tactical.

Although, we really do like the game, it's a very solid, fun system.  But, assaulting a machine gun is hard when you don't have 50 men to assault with...

[Cory]

When we were first putting together our WWI armies one of the members of our group kept denoucing the futility of gaming trench attacks, so his force consisted of a single gung ho officer and forty bases with nothing but a grave cross on each one.


 

[Arlequín]

You could hold fire for the next supplement which I believe has some trench raiding rules, which may be more what you want.

Alternatively, go to the GW Site and download the Necromunda rules (free) and use the Great War weapon stats. It will give you a more 'tactical' game and will cope with 36 or so figures a side, while still leaving you more or less 'in-system' should your next student loan instalment allow you to buy some more figures. 

Read the Necromunda rules and you will get the idea, I'm sure... i.e. they don't have maximum ranges as such, but you can use the GWGW weapon ranges as 'Point Blank' etc and keep the weapon strengths as is.

[pbeccas]

Play the rules as they are but ignore the "Units of less than 5 models" rule on page 54.

You can have a good game with about 25 models per side.