Questions about WiF over the Table

World in Flames is the computer version of Australian Design Group classic board game. World In Flames is a highly detailed game covering the both Europe and Pacific Theaters of Operations during World War II. If you want grand strategy this game is for you.

Moderator: Shannon V. OKeets

User avatar
Red Prince
Posts: 3686
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 11:39 am
Location: Bangor, Maine, USA

Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Red Prince »

This is directed at those of you who have a lot of experience playing WiF FE (or earlier) over the table. I have never been involved in an ongoing game; I've been cutting my teeth here with MWiF. I know several others are using CWiF to get ready for both MWiF and over the table games. So . . .

I've always wondered what you do, particularly late in the game when there are lots of units on the map and in pools, at the end of a session. Do you leave the maps and counters where they are (and hope no cats invade the maps)? Or do you record every last detail about the maps and pools and counters on paper? If the latter, this must take a great deal of time at the beginning and the end of a game session, doesn't it?
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it!
-Lazarus Long, RAH
User avatar
HansHafen
Posts: 258
Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:50 am
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by HansHafen »

We just left our game hanging on the wall til next session! We taped all the counters and used putty to stack them in the hexes. Worked pretty well.
User avatar
micheljq
Posts: 791
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2008 3:03 pm
Location: Quebec
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by micheljq »

We have purchased lots of counter magnets. The maps are magnetized and the counters hold. So, we can have the maps in a closet after a gaming night. Excuse my english.
Michel Desjardins,
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious" - Oscar Wilde
"History is a set of lies agreed upon" - Napoleon Bonaparte after the battle of Waterloo, june 18th, 1815
User avatar
Red Prince
Posts: 3686
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 11:39 am
Location: Bangor, Maine, USA

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Red Prince »

ORIGINAL: micheljq

We have purchased lots of counter magnets. The maps are magnetized and the counters hold. So, we can have the maps in a closet after a gaming night. Excuse my english.
As far as I can tell your English is just fine. [:)]
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it!
-Lazarus Long, RAH
gridley
Posts: 126
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 7:57 pm
Location: Caledon

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by gridley »

When I used to have a game room, now Mother-in Laws room[:(], we just left everything out...

Now we play at a buddies and at the end of the night just put our dice down on the pacific/africa map then stack the European on top. Our maps are mounted on blister board with a sheet of see through plastic on top.

The production, task force, and America map we put on another table.

At the end of the night, when we move the European map, it is pretty much tradition for whoever looks like to be losing, to pretend to drop it...still hasn't happened...yet.[;)]

Just as an aside, the game we are playing right now is in the middle of M/J '44 and looks like it is going to come right down the the wire in J/A'45. I can't remember the last game we've had to play right to the end.
User avatar
Froonp
Posts: 7998
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 8:23 pm
Location: Marseilles, France
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Froonp »

ORIGINAL: Red Prince

This is directed at those of you who have a lot of experience playing WiF FE (or earlier) over the table. I have never been involved in an ongoing game; I've been cutting my teeth here with MWiF. I know several others are using CWiF to get ready for both MWiF and over the table games. So . . .

I've always wondered what you do, particularly late in the game when there are lots of units on the map and in pools, at the end of a session. Do you leave the maps and counters where they are (and hope no cats invade the maps)? Or do you record every last detail about the maps and pools and counters on paper? If the latter, this must take a great deal of time at the beginning and the end of a game session, doesn't it?
For us, the game used to hang on for 9 months on its table, in my garage.
No way to note the position of counters, there are hundreds of them.
We just took pictures at the end of the session in case some damage occured, but the garage used to be locked out to keep kids & pets at bay.
User avatar
lomyrin
Posts: 3741
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:17 pm
Location: San Diego

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by lomyrin »

We use masonite underlays and plexiglass tops over the individual maps and they are placed carefully in a specially bult storage cabinet in between sessions. Fortunately we play at one player's home that has the space required for all this. Two 6 foot folding tables set at 90 degree angles let us place all the maps and the spiral.

Of course a computer game avoids all this space usage and the actual play is much easier as well. The one thing missing from the computer game is the worldwide overview possible when using the cardboard game.

Lars
User avatar
paulderynck
Posts: 8356
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:27 pm
Location: Canada

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by paulderynck »

The game is in a dedicated area of the basement and remains set-up there session-to-session. No kids or pets at home.
Paul
User avatar
warspite1
Posts: 41896
Joined: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:06 pm
Location: England

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by warspite1 »

When we used to play fifteen(!) years ago - pre-children and when work was less stressful - I was able to dedicate a room in the house just to World In Flames and many a Saturday was given over - in its entirety [X(] - to this great game. This free room meant the game could remain out indefinitely, which was great for planning your next moves between wargaming sessions. Not that that helped much as I was complete rubbish at WIF [8|].

Never mind, I won the odd game here and there, and regardless, they were happy days indeed [:)].

Those days are well and truly over (Mrs Warspite and the little Warspitettes seem unwilling to have a whole room given over to "daddy's war stuff"......

Aren't women strange? [;)]
Now Maitland, now's your time!

Duke of Wellington to 1st Guards Brigade - Waterloo 18 June 1815
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

I have two 5' by 2.5' butcher block tables with very sturdy stainless steel legs (2 centered posts, each of which branches out to 2 widely separated feet). On top of the maps I have 4 sheets of polished 1/4" glass (2.5' square) which hold the maps down to the table so they do not move. The units (and drinks) go on top of the glass. This prevents spilled drinks from changing the terrain on the map. The dice have a lovely bounce when dropped on the glass. Articulated lights can be clamped to the table, providing good lighting wherever it is needed.

If the game has to be "put away" the 4 glass sheets are stacked on top of each other - using dice as separators. The maps can then be folded up and put back in the box, so the only space needed is 2.5' square, since the tables can also be disassembled easily. Reassembly requires making sure the maps are returned to precisely the same place, so the eastern front doesn't drift a couple of hexes one way or the other. A game takes months to play and accumulates dust over time (and snack food crumbs). So it's good that glass is easier to clean that cardboard. Although when doing that, the pieces have to be moved just a few stacks at a time so they can be returned to their correct hex.

Alas, since I moved to Hawaii 15 years ago, the tables and glass have been sitting in a closet.[:(]
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
User avatar
Red Prince
Posts: 3686
Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2011 11:39 am
Location: Bangor, Maine, USA

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Red Prince »

This is great stuff! Very creative . . .
(Rob, just wait until the youngsters hit college . . . maybe then?)
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it!
-Lazarus Long, RAH
User avatar
Centuur
Posts: 9013
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:03 pm
Location: Hoorn (NED).

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Centuur »

For us there was the attic (before marriages, children etc.) and we also used plexiglass. To cover the game between sessions, we had some wooden blocks (childrentoys) and plates accross it. One problem however with the attic: in summer, it was very, very hot there...
Peter
Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22135
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:51 pm
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Shannon V. OKeets »

ORIGINAL: Centuur

For us there was the attic (before marriages, children etc.) and we also used plexiglass. To cover the game between sessions, we had some wooden blocks (childrentoys) and plates accross it. One problem however with the attic: in summer, it was very, very hot there...
Plexiglass has the advantage of being lighter, cheaper, and less fragile, but it scratches rather easily. I speak from experience since we used plexiglass before we switched to glass.
Steve

Perfection is an elusive goal.
bo
Posts: 4175
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:52 pm

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by bo »

Red I am also having a terrible time with my CWIF unit counters getting lost and falling on the floor or the cat pawing them, ooops, now I know they were destroyed by my opposition [me] [:D] Come on Steve get going so these dedicated WIF players can sell their useless old WIF board game on E-bay or if there really old, on Antique road show at auction[;)] I am really amazed how you gentlemen played this game only because of the huge number of counters and a lot of complicated rules but then, that is what separated this game from all the other board games.

Bo
User avatar
paulderynck
Posts: 8356
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:27 pm
Location: Canada

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by paulderynck »

There have been bigger games with even more counters. The Europa series comes to mind. But WiF was always the best monster game.
Paul
AstroBlues
Posts: 405
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2007 5:24 am

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by AstroBlues »

In my gaming group, one of the members has a huge heated basement that we can leave the game set up in. We set up the Americas map and also the African map.
User avatar
Zenra
Posts: 180
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2002 7:02 pm
Location: Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Zenra »

We have a very large, finished third floor where our group used to play. I built four 3 foot by 4 foot tables with the paper maps covered in plexiglass. Between sessions these were stacked off to the side of the room. Accidents did happen, but pictures taken at the end of each session helped iron out any disputes during reconstruction. To me, management of this issue will be one of the great benefits of MWIF, and MWIF will help render the great game of WiF more accessible to more players.
Mitchell
User avatar
Joseignacio
Posts: 2798
Joined: Fri May 08, 2009 11:25 am
Location: Madrid, Spain

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by Joseignacio »

We use to play only with the European map, sometimes the Asia map instead but very few times all of them.
 
We play in several places and we always cover the maps with plastic: one of them was the basement of a Chalet just outside Madrid, where nobody entered except the guy whose family lived there (no pets, no kids, ...), another place was a dedicated room at a friend's which proved to be uncomfortable and too small, another place is the flat of another of us, who live like 40 miles out of town, he has a system of wooden sheets that the maps are set on, and they fit one on another and finally under one of beds.
 
Sometimes we have played at my own home, and the European map and the rest of the stuff was tightly set on a 2 x 2 yards' table and stayed there for the necessary months. now I have cats so this is impossible.
User avatar
marcejap
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2009 8:54 pm
Contact:

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by marcejap »

We play in a game club (most of the game are with miniatures, especially middle age), with the maps on 5 tables. At the end of the session (one per week) the tables are on a pile (with small block od wood beetween every table) and then over a big cupboard; all the cupboard in the club are full of games or war book (even italian or english).

This is a couple of pictures from our game: lebensraum scenario, classic WiF (no expansions):

Image


Image

Image

This was Jul/Aug 1942.
Un uomo sulla Luna non sarà mai interessante quanto una donna sotto il Sole.
User avatar
oldman45
Posts: 2325
Joined: Sun May 01, 2005 4:15 am
Location: Jacksonville Fl

RE: Questions about WiF over the Table

Post by oldman45 »

Boy this brings back memories [:)]
Post Reply

Return to “World in Flames”