Huge field battle suggestion

[Witness3]

So, the time has come when my players will send their armies on their ships and they will sail to free Ilien from a three-month siege of pirate forces. I expect them to carry a good army, about 10 to 14 units.
How should I handle it, in your opinion?

• I thought of using a larger table than the traditional 3x5 chessboard, maybe 10x10 or even 20x20, so there is more movement-
• Should I join all player forces into an alliance and use only 1 reserve field?
• Another idea I had is to break up the battle on several fronts, and then manage more battles as if they were two "situations" of the same clash.
• Yes, I know there are a lot of better warfare systems than BR, but we spend a lot of time studying the 3.5e system so we'd like to play it a little before giving up

Any suggestion? Thanks in advance.

[Lord_Johnny]

I've always thought the 3 by 5 was too small. I've adjusted to a 10x10 battlefield, which opens up not just movement (significant for cavalry units) but also lets things like siege engines have the ability to actually be used in combat, which happened realistically.

I also like that a 10x10 battlefield lets me put in things like POI's (Points of Interest) such as fortified points for provinces that have castles and such. Just my 2 cents though.

[Witness3]

Yesterday we played the battle. There were several units in play:

• 2 Grabentod raiders
• 1 khinasi archer
• 1 Rzhlev artillerist
• 1 Rzhlev irregulars, leaded by a true mage
• 1 unit of mieres corsairs
• 1 unit of albiele island pirates
• 1 unit of brecht cavalry, leaded by the boss

for the bad guys

• 4 units of infantry
• 3 units of knights
• 4 units of archers
• 1 elite infantry unit
• 2 units of pikemen

for the Diemed/Aerenwe allied front.
Together we decided to try a 10x10 board, one side of the table was their camp, the other the pirates' camp, a third side had 5 central squares to represent the walls of Ilien with tokens. I decided to double the movement score of all the units but not the ranges, so the archers still had to be next to the enemies in order to hit.
I have to say that you're right, a bigger table has brought much more movement-related strategy and made a lot of difference. More outbreaks of battle have been created and we could play in terms of units' position much more than what was allowed with the 5x3 board. The only downside was starting from the bottom - it takes at least 2-3 rounds before fighting.
Upcoming battles with many units will surely be carried out on the larger board. Thanks again for the tip!

[Witness3]

I was sure I replied weeks ago, but the post seems to have been lost!

Two weeks ago we did the field battle, a partnership of about 10 pirate units with a real wizard among their ranks, against two joint armies, Diemed and Aerenwe (about 12 elements) . We used a 12x12 squares table. One side was the enemy camp, the other the players' camp. Part of the third side represented the gates of Ilien, from which units emerged when the alliance seemed to have the upper hand.
We used a hybrid between 3rd ed. and AD&D 2nd ed. rules, with double movement score and unchanged rules of engagement for ranged weapons (1 square for archers, 2 for artillerists).
I must say it was a great battle! The first couple of rounds were lost in movement only, to reach the enemy, but then several areas of interest were created.
The wizard destroyed several units until the cavalry crushed the irregulars who guarded him and then the spellcaster escaped. on the other side of the battle the Brecht cavalry and the Anuirean cavalry clashed, They held the ground until pikemen and infantry was able to repel and then destroy the brecht cavalry. Ilien was saved, but at a high price, they lost up to 4 units.
Since we use the cards to take into account the shots but we put the miniatures on the board (small 1cm miniatures usually used in dioramas), to make the best use of the board we created small colored tokens indicating the scrum, more than the large squares of the same color where we moved the miniatures when there were too many to fit on the box.
I can confirm that a slightly larger battlemat changes how space is used for the better, and battles become much more interesting, especially when there are many elements in play. Thanks for the advice!

[AndrewTall]

My fault witness, all post from users with less than 10 posts is automatically moderated until cleared by a moderator. I log on fairly often to see if auto-moderated posts need clearance, etc, for some reason your posts didn't come as new and I didn't see them.

Really sorry.

At least you are now up to 11 and free to post at will.

[Lord_Johnny]

Yesterday we played the battle. There were several units in play:
. The only downside was starting from the bottom - it takes at least 2-3 rounds before fighting.
Upcoming battles with many units will surely be carried out on the larger board. Thanks again for the tip!

In smaller battles, yeah, the bigger map does seem to bog down a bit, but don't forget that this also opens up strategic movement options. Things like a flotilla of infantry that are trying to get into combat with say arbillist armed ships, where strategic movement early on can mean pincering those enemy ships where they can't use the greater battlefield size to more effect. Or, vice versa, where your trying to keep those pesky troop transports at range so that they can't swarm you.