Large Battlefields and Long Range Fighting

[Argyle King]

Lately, I've been finding myself running more and more games (and encounters) which do not take place in a dungeon (or other similarly small areas.) One problem with this is that the group I game with likes to use minis; however, my table only has so much space. As such, it's difficult to represent things when a sniper is firing a bullet at a target which is several hundred meters away; a wizard is casting a spell across a vast battlefield, or two supers are launching energy beams at each other from long range.

If everyone is fighting at long range, the solution has been easy -make each square (or hex or whatever I happen to be using) equal a larger distance. Unfortunately, things get a little more complicated when there are multiple ranges involved. In the aforementioned sniper scenario, the rest of the squad might be assault an objective while their sniper asset picks off targets from an overwatch position.

In a recent fantasy encounter, the pc party and the enemy were able to see each other from several hundred yards away (they were crossing an open field toward each other.) For the more melee oriented characters, this was not an issue since they still needed to close with the enemy to engage them. For clerics, wizards, and the like, things were a little more complicated since they could fling spells. How I handled it was to make things somewhat abstract ("It will take this X turns until you're in close range combat; what do you do during those turns?")

That seemed to worked well enough to satisfy the group at the time, but it mostly worked because neither side tried any sort of fancy strategy or tactical movement -the two groups had a lot of hatred of each other, so they both just moved straight toward the other. I want to prepare myself for future encounters in which players may want to be a little more precise in how they move and act before closing with the enemy.

What are some ways you have used to manage large battlefields and long distances during an encounter?

 

[Lwaxy]

Maps of the larger area where the positions of the PCs and enemies are represented with pins plus if needed small scale squares to put the minis on for close range fighting. Maps can be pinned to the wall to free up space.

 

[D'karr]

You can use 3 ranges on your battle mat.

Anything within 5 inches of the players is at close range (miniatures scale)

Between 6-10 inches is at medium range (2 inches per inch)

11+ it's all at long range (10 inches per inch)

 

[SkidAce]

This suggestion may not be as useful, but its what we have done.

Things off the map are placed on the edge of the map with a note card of how far away they are.

We don't change map scale at all. If somebody "flys" over to the guy on the edge, we just keep track of distance until they get near each other and then go to normal scale.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I've done a bunch of different things.

Low-fi: Massive Magnetic Dragon's Lair
I created a quarter-scale version of the map, put it on a magnetically active surface(sheet of steel from a local surplus yard, but you could use a magnetic dry erase board), and used quarter-inch-squares of [ame="http://www.amazon.com/MagnaCard-Standard-Business-Card-BMC25/dp/B002SS1ZUQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330611763&sr=8-2"]business card magnet[/ame] for minis
(stick the magnet to colored paper or index card (one color for PCs, one for NPCs) then cut it into quarter inch squares and write a letter or symbol on each (initial for PC name, if you're lucky and don't have too many that have the same first letter). The dragon itself was a full 1" square, and that gave me enough room for a picture instead of a letter.

If you're willing to spend a little more on this solution, take a look at what Dark Platypus Studio has -- they're they folks that make the very cool action stands and a magnetically active Battlemap - the Magna-Mat.

Normally, I stick the stands to minis with a bit of sticky-tac, but when you're using this quarter-size technique to represent a larger battle setting, you could use the flags themselves as the actual minis.




High-Tech: Computer +Projector
The first time around, we used photoshop and moved dots around a town map. That was quickly replaced with tools like Maptools (rptools.net) that you can use to manage a map. You can project the map on the wall or get fancy and project it down onto the tabletop.

In our group, we normally just project the map and then use minis on the table, but when you have battles that take place on this sort of scale, you can replace the minis with tokens in Maptools. The software makes it easy to zoom in and out, move around the battlefield to see what's going on with a particular character, etc.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I might use regular graph paper or similar to simulate long range. Use small chits, coins or similar to mark each side and use that until the two sides are close enough to put down on your table top.

I'm lucky because I have an 8' x 4' table and a Chessex Mondo Mat, so I can handle 95% of the battles just on the table (96 inches = 480 feet) - but, in one climactic encounter, I did put a second small table next to the big table, and then put down a small battlemat on that table. If you have the space and the money, even a temporary fold out table can help for an individual encounter.

 

[S'mon]

What are some ways you have used to manage large battlefields and long distances during an encounter?

It can definitely be a problem for sf, modern, and mass battle encounters.

It's not a big problem with medieval/fantasy if the system's single-target missile ranges are at all accurate, and spells are scaled similarly. Some iterations of D&D get it right, eg B/X and 4e, with maximum ranges around 200' (40 squares in 4e). Others get it wrong, some because they conflate mass bow fire with point to point targeting (1e AD&D, 600'+), others are just totally gonzo and silly (3e, 1100'+). In the latter cases you should reduce ranges - in 1e AD&D you just treat all " markers as 10', never as 10 yards. 3e needs something more radical, I suggest an absolute maximum range for all point to point attacks at around 250', which is about the furthest you can fire in 4e (longbow of distance) and about the furthest that master archers IRL can consistently hit a man-sized, non-moving target.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have used multiple ranges on a map simply by drawing a line to show where the map went from moving one hex/square per move to using the characters speed.


With two parties appproching each other, two line demark the 'normal combat' space from the 'ranged combat.

Another option is to use 'zoom in' battlemaps for charcters that get within melee range while still tracking their location on the bigger map.

Also, use cover... very few skirmishes happen at range. The average contact range in vietnam was 7 meters.


Sent from my SPH-M900 using Tapatalk

 

[Loonook]

Change up the square sizes at 60'-100' (reasonable range for double move and motions to matter) and then the next range is made up of 30' squares. This allows for average move actions to count for 1 square per round (2 @ double move) and allow you to have a good baseline. If a specific square becomes "active" im that range then you have an easy measure tool... A footxfoot measure at 1" squares is easy to manage.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[pneumatik]

If movement is mainly one-dimensional, like two groups closing with each other, you can just track distance from a point on the map with a d20 or d100 next to each mini. If it's really 2-D movement, with people moving 50+ squares horizontally and vertically you could probably track location in each direction, but chances are the encounter isn't really that complex or doesn't need a 1"=5' map.