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Ok, a couple questions from someone who is very new to war games. I have played 4 games of AT-43 (with a 2-2 record) and absolutely love it. I have a fair amount of UNA, the RB army box and will have a total of 3 Cog army boxes + a few of the separate Cog unit boxes. I am planning on applying for Sentinel status and am trying to get more interest in the game at my FLGS. I have a few questions about war gaming in general and AT-43 in particular, some of which have arisen after reading some of the threads here. Please understand I am in no way trying to provoke people—these are honest questions from a guy who is new to the hobby.
1) What is meant by the term “balanced” as it is applied to a given mission or skirmish? It obviously isn't symmetry of terrain, since there are a number of official missions which lack that quality. The platoon patterns available allow for horribly uneven matches and, therefore, miss any definition of balance that I am aware of.
2) Is there a problem with tournaments or leagues having a sheet which gives a rundown of terrain types they are using and the way in which those pieces will be handled?
3) How many players are recommended for running a full campaign? Right now we have 1-2 people for most of the armies. Is that enough to keep battles interesting or do we need to drum up some more people to keep things from getting repetitive?
4) How do you usually run tournaments? Single or double elimination? Is there a minimum point value where the game breaks down?
5) How do you encourage people to take objectives instead of defaulting to a battle of attrition?

Any other advice for running tournaments or leagues and getting more people involved would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for your time and the info.

Mith wrote:Ok, a couple questions from someone who is very new to war games. I have played 4 games of AT-43 (with a 2-2 record) and absolutely love it. I have a fair amount of UNA, the RB army box and will have a total of 3 Cog army boxes + a few of the separate Cog unit boxes. I am planning on applying for Sentinel status and am trying to get more interest in the game at my FLGS. I have a few questions about war gaming in general and AT-43 in particular, some of which have arisen after reading some of the threads here. Please understand I am in no way trying to provoke people—these are honest questions from a guy who is new to the hobby.
1) What is meant by the term “balanced” as it is applied to a given mission or skirmish? It obviously isn't symmetry of terrain, since there are a number of official missions which lack that quality. The platoon patterns available allow for horribly uneven matches and, therefore, miss any definition of balance that I am aware of.
2) Is there a problem with tournaments or leagues having a sheet which gives a rundown of terrain types they are using and the way in which those pieces will be handled?
3) How many players are recommended for running a full campaign? Right now we have 1-2 people for most of the armies. Is that enough to keep battles interesting or do we need to drum up some more people to keep things from getting repetitive?
4) How do you usually run tournaments? Single or double elimination? Is there a minimum point value where the game breaks down?
5) How do you encourage people to take objectives instead of defaulting to a battle of attrition?

Any other advice for running tournaments or leagues and getting more people involved would also be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much for your time and the info.

1) What is meant by the term “balanced” as it is applied to a given mission or skirmish? It obviously isn't symmetry of terrain, since there are a number of official missions which lack that quality. The platoon patterns available allow for horribly uneven matches and, therefore, miss any definition of balance that I am aware of.

this is just MY opinion, Balanced can be interpreted differently by everybody, when I look for balance is that all armies in any system should have the same probability or posibility to win the game independant of "luck", but clearly dependant on the ability of the player (army selection and "tactics". In particualr missions, as you described, the terrain could be unbalanced as one side may have more cover BUT it can be balance by a specific disadvantage such as less units in the reserves and more in reinforcements or allways starting second or slight more difficult objectives to name but a few posibilities

2) Is there a problem with tournaments or leagues having a sheet which gives a rundown of terrain types they are using and the way in which those pieces will be handled?
If i understood correctly, the answer would be NO, there is no problem as long as everybody playing knows exactly what a particualr terrain and/or feature will be handled.

3) How many players are recommended for running a full campaign? Right now we have 1-2 people for most of the armies. Is that enough to keep battles interesting or do we need to drum up some more people to keep things from getting repetitive?
Well, Campaigns such as Frostbite have a number of 4 people maximum with particular rules for missions, weather and so on, so you are limited somehow, but NOTHING stops you to create campaigns on your own such as Planetary Empires of Games Workshop, you may fail to get it right the first time but you will learn. Also, all the players shoud know the rules and/or specificities.

4) How do you usually run tournaments? Single or double elimination? Is there a minimum point value where the game breaks down?
I dont run tournaments, but elimination is never "good" as half the people would be kicked out after first game I suggest to have everybody against each other in an allways different scenario/mission, and count VP for the winner

5) How do you encourage people to take objectives instead of defaulting to a battle of attrition?
Attrition is very common in WH40k in At-43 you need to play objectives, otherwise some armies would be in oerwhelming disadvantage (Red Blok for example) in AT-43 you can modify as you see fit for example:

Attacker vs Defender --> Attacker will have 1500 points for Reserves and 500 in reinforcements but the terrain will offer less covers the defender will be 1000in reserves and 1000 in reinforcements but will have more cover. There would be primary objectives that makes you win Victory points and secondary which will allow you to get more units in the game

Both attackers --> Either 1 or X objectives with any Reserves/reinforcements ratio, the one with more Victory points after X turns or the first with x Victory points win..

Thanks for the response. Sorry about my delay in getting back to you. I have been pretty much living at my game store this week.

Wolfen is pretty much bang on . We have run tournaments in a round robin fashion. Random opponent for first round and then opponents for next round are figured out according to highest standings in VPs. Basing the tourney on VPs allows players that, although they may have possibly lost everything, kept their eyes on the objectives as they are worth more then units (avg of 1 VP/infantry unit, 2/vehicle whereas objectives are usually 3-4/turn in our games).
Winner is then decided after however many rounds you want to do based off of total VPs accumulated not whetehr they won all their games or not.
It is quite possible for a player to technically lose every game but still win because of capturing the objectives.

Mith wrote:1) What is meant by the term “balanced” as it is applied to a given mission or skirmish? It obviously isn't symmetry of terrain, since there are a number of official missions which lack that quality. The platoon patterns available allow for horribly uneven matches and, therefore, miss any definition of balance that I am aware of.

My understanding is that a "balanced" wargame is one in which any army can beat any other army all things considered equal. I.E., two players of equal skill in a scenario where either army is perfectly adequate to the task of fulfilling the mission parameters.

A "balanced" wargame would be one where you can put together your army lists without too much attention to the composition of your forces short of some basic common sense when it comes to the game (for example, in Flames of War one generally needs combined arms. Fail to do so and you might be gimping yourself).

This is an ideal that no game really hits...Flames of War comes close because every Intelligence Handbook includes all the armies for a given theater and time period such that they are all created together, at the same time, so ostensibly have a measure of comparison throughout the whole design process; and many of the intelligence handbooks around specific campaigns are variants of the "basic" lists and so some measure of balance carries over; but there are still better units and worse units, and the entirety of a list needs some synergy to work well.

So, to a point, "balance" is often enforced by the players who learn what lists to take, and what lists not to take.

Mith wrote:2) Is there a problem with tournaments or leagues having a sheet which gives a rundown of terrain types they are using and the way in which those pieces will be handled?

Most 40K tournaments I have been to do this. Often it is table-specific, i.e. each table has a little sheet with it telling you what's what - what terrain grants what cover save, what is Difficult or Impassable, etc.

If you're talking about AT-43, then it gets a little...different. Basically you're making it up as you go along, or you are sticking to only what's covered by the ruleset. If the latter, your tables are more boring but the rules cover everything. If the former, then you may need to discuss terrain rules with your local player base as people may not agree to what the "default" is - for example, Area Terrain. Probably the stickiest thing about free-form AT-43. Some people like abstracted Area Terrain rules a la 4th Ed 40K and Flames of War, some people like strict WYSIWYG like 5th Edition 40K - and then there are discussions of whether they effect movement and how.

There are, unfortunately, no rules for any of that, though many of us have ad hoc house rule systems we use.

Mith wrote:3) How many players are recommended for running a full campaign? Right now we have 1-2 people for most of the armies. Is that enough to keep battles interesting or do we need to drum up some more people to keep things from getting repetitive?

Loaded question. It depends. We have one Flames of War player in my club with like four different armies, German, American, and Soviet. Three people, him included, can make FoW gaming very fun for a very long time due to all the variety.

When you say "1-2 for most of the armies," do you mean one or two people per army, for most of the armies?

In the end, this is really up to you and your gaming crew. What you consider interesting others might not; what you consider repetitive others might not.

Mith wrote:4) How do you usually run tournaments? Single or double elimination? Is there a minimum point value where the game breaks down?

You'll get answers to this from others...I've only heard of one AT-43 tourney around Boston since the game was released and that was the only one because the people at the store who held it stopped playing the game when Rackham stopped supporting the game for a long while.

I don't think there are right or wrong answers, but 3000 AP is the standard "minimum army size" where the existing armies tended to balance out. I'm not sure how or if the Cogs change that formula.

For a tourney, however, you don't want armies to get too big or games take forever. 1750 seems to be a Flames of War standard, and 1850 is the 40K singles standard, for most tourneys of either system. Armies just a little larger than the usual, minimum starting point of 1500.

Mith wrote:5) How do you encourage people to take objectives instead of defaulting to a battle of attrition?

Well, if you own the gaming tile set and Operation Frostbite and Operation Damocles and a pair of Op Damocles posters such that you can support playing any or all of the scenarios you can just choose scenarios where VP is generated only by seizing objectives.

The problem IMHO is that AT-43 is very much a "power gamer" environment. Perhaps more so than 40K, where killing your opponent is already the norm. Many 40K players just play to slaughter their enemy and either table them or do so much damage that they render the enemy army impotent in terms of fulfilling victory conditions.

In AT-43, units die even faster than in 40k, and don't let anyone talk to you about "Just use tactics." If you are just starting out in wargaming you will hear that a lot from many people - wargamers often like to assume that the only reason someone finds themselves in a bad position game-wise is because they played stupidly. You will usually hear this from fans of the game in question - but generally-speaking AT-43 is DESIGNED to be quick and brutal. In many ways it's designed around some of the perceived "weaknesses" of Warhammer 40,000 while also leaning heavily on the good aspects of the game...but length of game time is something some people don't like about 40K. 2 1/2 hours for a 1,500 or 1,850 point game depending on the armies and mission involved.

Most AT-43 games can be played in an hour if you have two veteran players. Low model counts relative to other games is part of it - the brutality of the game is the other part of it, again IMHO.

Tables with objectives and a lot of cover can make slaughtering each other much, much more difficult, but some people will tell you that that's not very AT-43 like, that you're changing the way the game is "meant to be played."

In the end, once you start designing your own missions and using your own terrain, you can threaten to start playing what I call "adaptive AT-43" which some AT-43 players think can change the nature of the game in a negative fashion. You have to really know the rules and try to come up with adaptations that seem to be in the "spirit" of the ruleset.