Gaming Built up Areas

[BurtWolf]

Considering building a Stalingrad game board, but wondering if gaming it might be pretty one-dimensional. Might not be worth a lot of expense and effort to only game a couple of scenarios. Anybody bother gaming urban or somewhat built-up areas? What’s your feeling on it in terms of effort versus reward? Thanks!

[Mortis57]

We have done, occasionally, over the years. Most of the time, as you might expect, it's been limited to troops defending the BUAs (Built Up Area) edge. However, there have been a few times were attacking troops have entered the BUA and combat has taken place inside the urban environment.

Our BUAs (IIRC) are of two types the BUA itself and the environs (basically the outskirts / suburbs of a town). I guess these could be likened to dense and open woods respectively. Based on the type of BUA, both movement and vision are limited.

Our actual BUAs are on 6" / 150mm square tiles and are somewhat representational - in-so-much as other than any roads modelled on the tiles the buildings etc. are not a one for one depiction - as might be expected when using 6mm scale buildings with a 1:2000 ground scale.

One of the obvious 'problems' with detailed BUAs (or various other terrain types) is placing the infantry bases or vehicles within them. Balancing Tigers, Challengers etc. on rooftops looks odd and somewhat likely to slip off with the slightest encouragement.

I sometimes think that square of grey cloth with two or three loose buildings on it would be a better idea gameplay wise even if it's nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing. Going off subject briefly, I'm of the the same mind when it comes to the actual wargame table / game board. I.E. Whilst custom made boards with fixed terrain look fantastic I do wonder how many times I'd want to fight over the exact same terrain. Then again, I'm not suggesting that we throw a green cloth on to a table and place a few irregular shaped pieces of felt to mark out woods, hills etc. Modular systems such as the hexes Pete, and a number of others, use are a fairly good compromise.

Well, I've waffled on a bit and not really said much so I think I'll leave it here for now...

[foxbat]

I did, many years ago, a modern game with a big BUA. Minis are 6mm. Here is what the terrain looked like



Each model building was used as a single building, but this needs to forfeit recreating faithfully the actual terrain :



In the end, this works well.

[chrisswim]

Good, very good pictures of the board for this BUA.

[redleg]

That's a great looking battlefield, Foxbat!