Where Eagles Dare

[MengJiao]

   Another training scenario in the Grand Tactical Series:

    KG Chill and the 59th Infantry deploy to attack in the fog, Sept 21 1944, 7 am, near Veghel:

[GJK]

How is it playing on the "calthrop" hexes?  That seems to be a fairly new trend yet I'm glad (I think) that none of my newer games used those but instead stuck with a traditional hex grid. 

[bayonetbrant]

Meng - how's the playing time on one of the 'grand tactical' games?  Can you knock one out in a weekend?  Or is it a longer commitment? 
What's the physical footprint needed to play?  Card table? Dining room table?  Pool table?

[MengJiao]

How is it playing on the "calthrop" hexes?  That seems to be a fairly new trend yet I'm glad (I think) that none of my newer games used those but instead stuck with a traditional hex grid.

I have found the maps to be -- well -- probably the very best game maps I've ever seen.  They really seem to be a major advance in terms of simplicity of use with the dots and the impassible marking (basically to clarify which side of a river a unit is on).  Both the Bir Hakeim map and the four maps for WED are quite brilliantly done though in different ways.

The towers and steeples for observation are another fun aspect

[MengJiao]

Meng - how's the playing time on one of the 'grand tactical' games?  Can you knock one out in a weekend?  Or is it a longer commitment? 
What's the physical footprint needed to play?  Card table? Dining room table?  Pool table?

Playing time doesn't seem so bad.  I think once I know the the rules well enough not to have to read the manual every 5 minutes moving
through a 2 hour turn with say 2-4 divisions won't take more than say 45 minutes.  Of course that implies that a small scenario on one map will take an afternoon.  That means a full scale Bir Hakeim would take a card table and maybe a whole day.  A full-scale WED would take an extended pool table and more than one weekend.  The whole Market-garden (WED plus The Devil's Cauldron) is way into the monster game realm.  I'd have to do some work on extending the game loft.  Not likely any time soon.

So for the moment, I'm playing freely-invented training scenarios and ultimately maybe the full Bir Hakeim and the smaller scenario on the Son map for WED.  By then the 4-map semi-monster Grand Tactical British and Canadian drive from the beaches toward Caen should be out (early 2013?).  That strikes me as having more potential for one and two map scenarios.