Battlefield Bangkok

From 500 in Three hours, to 1000 in an hour

When we first started playing Warmachine and Hordes, we looked in the book where there is a list of battle sizes and the time it should / could take to play them , and we laughed out loud. We were playing 500 point caster kill matches which needed two to three hours to play. We even had a couple of 4 way matches that lasted around six hours. So the idea that one could finish a match in.. 30 minutes was , ha laughable.

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But how times have changed. Briefly we got faster, and then as we got more units and deeper into the game we got slower and slower, analysis paralysis was creeping in, and if you were on the loosing side of a three hour match, it started to get dull, and lets face it, if you’re loosing, you want to loose fast, and get on to the next match.

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And so we started to implement time limits on turns, playing around with 15 minutes a turn and gradually turning the screw as we saw that shorter turns forced not only a change of how one played but also in what an army consisted of and how units were used.

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From there the next step was scenarios, and that seems to be the sweet spot, no more 6 round ballets as the warcasters all stay way back and avoid getting hit.  Nope scenarios introduced the “charge in now or be too late” fun to our games. It no longer is an issue of keeping a warcaster alive, but more important to get him/her to the right location, hit with the feat or kill the enemy caster…and then die a glorious death as your army sweeps to victory anyway.

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Mosh Pit scenarios at 1000 Points have rarely made it past round 3. playing 12-14 minute turns with “one” two minute mayday allowance this has meant matches are over in 90 minutes. At 500 we’re at 6 minute turns. This has really freed up our matches immensely, meaning more matches, more things to try and more of a “charge and be damned” attitude as the next match is just minutes away!