Friday Night Musings on a Game on a Grid

I've been inspired, by my re-readings of The Portable Wargame books and by following along with Ross Mac's rules developments, as well as my recent foray into board wargames, to look again at playing grid-based games with miniatures.

One thing I have struggled with continuously is the aesthetics.

I don't mean the squares themselves - I rather like them. However, one base in too large a grid space looks lonely but in too small a gird space and there isn't room for terrain and figures, or worse, for tanks or guns. I gridded a cloth years ago with a 6" space and it worked well enough for the tanks (at the time CTS) but  it always seemed weird to me that a second or third base couldn't enter the square.

However, it occurred to me only last night that if I borrow from hex-and-counter games and allow "stacking", the large grid space might possibly work well as a hybrid board/miniatures game (I realize I'm reinventing the wheel - Command & Colors players do this kind of thing all of the time, and Worthington did this already for their own game, Hold the Line!).

So, using my preferred scale of 1 base = 1 squad and fielding up to a company per side, I decided that because a platoon in the attack (with 2 squads up, 1 back) was somewhere around 100 meters give or take, and I use 3" bases, a  6" grid space represents approximately 100 meters on a side. I can deploy 3 bases in a 2 up, 1 back if I want to represent the entire platoon, but I'm not sure the depth is right on that (can't say I'll lose any sleep over it either). A single squad covering that width, let alone depth, in the defense is a bit of a stretch but these are all compromises that I'm OK with.

The next question from my perspective is how many figures per base. It's weird, to me at least, that certain combinations of figure counts on bases or in a grid space convey different impressions to my brain about what the unit represents, when in all cases, these are just abstractions. Finding the right look then is important. But what looks right in this case? I threw down my gridded cloth and some bases and fiddled about to see what worked for me.

For the most of my recent gaming past, I've used 3-figure bases. But with two bases side-by-side in the same grid space, I felt this conveyed a larger unit than a platoon:

3 platoons - 2 up 1 back - with support attack a single platoon (also with support). But is that what it looks like?

To my eyes, and horse for courses, two 3-figure bases in the same square looks like a company. Note to self: If I want to play battalion grid games, this is the way.

A few years ago when I first experimented with based figures for WWII gaming, I settled on 2-figure bases as a practical matter (less figures to paint). I'm sure I changed because of something I read about the number of figures per base in other games. As it turns out, 2-figure bases works pretty well for this particular idea (I think I might still prefer 3-figure bases without a grid):

Better. 2-figure bases coveys the idea of squads and platoons.

The only issue is if I look at a heavy weapon crew - it's not immediately obvious by figure count that it's a heavy weapon and not a squad of infantry. The individual figures (ignore the lone crew member with the anti-tank gun) are an idea borrowed from Company Command - they are attachments to a given squad that can be detached to move away from their parent squad. I'm thinking they can move 1 to 2 spaces away maybe?

I'm not sure if, like some board wargames, I want to consider all bases in a square for attack and defense or choose which base is attacking and which is the target. And does position, front to back in the grid space matter? I'm thinking it could - front half vs/ back half maybe? Not for ranged attacks, but for close assault.

This is an idea I'm just playing with right now. Regardless, the next thing I need to do is paint those steel bases and the wooden ones for the Soviets!