What would be considered essential blowup boxes

Our custom prints for the KC club were 11% larger in both dimensions, it didn’t sound like much but key crowded areas like UK south are somehow much less crowded than before.    SZ 109 a favored naval marshaling area, which seems tiny and cramped on the regular map, looks like a crossroads on ours.

Breakout squares in the previous editions were notorious for causing confusion (yeah, I wouldn’t have sea lioned if I saw all that stuff sitting there!)

An alternate idea – which would get around the possibility that some of the blow-up boxes might not get used in a given game, and the possibility that blow-up space would be needed for a territory that has no blow-up box – is to have a set of generic blank blow-up boxes that are simply identified by a number or a letter.  When one of these  gets used, a numbered or lettered counter (say, a Scrabble tile for a letter-based system) would be placed on the map board to indicate that the corresponding blow-up box is in use.  You could also have a blended system, combining some pre-determined blow-up boxes and some generic blank ones.  Some blank sea zone blow-up boxes could also be allocated for crowded naval situations.

I’m not so sure that I would want to litter a special map like the one you’re building with blowup boxes. Perhaps in this case using some sort of task force makers would be a better idea. If you’re constructing a 3-D map anyway, why not make up some wicked task force markers complete with terrain for each nation? Having already used markers I can tell you exactly how many you need. and whether they are for land or sea. Start this video at 19:20 and watch it for about a minute and you’ll see what I’m using for land markers on the board (dudes with flags). The sea makers I’m using Battleships with flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWCCiFYgzA

This is where I got the flags, it’s a free download;
http://www.historicalboardgaming.com/Map-Accessories_c_172.html

I agree with CWO Marc that it would be better to have 3-5 generic ones rather than territory-specific ones.  Since every game is different, you never really can anticipate which ones you’ll need and which ones you won’t (except for London because that’s always a pain).

Generic blowup boxes remind me of the marshaling cards that came with Revised. They worked well enough from a purely technical perspective, but I dislike troops being physically away from where they really are. Blowup boxes and marshaling cards make it more difficult to visualize the strength of the forces and especially, their potential actions. So I suppose we would either need an even bigger map, or alternatively, distort it even more to make some areas bigger.

@Herr:

I dislike troops being physically away from where they really are. Blowup boxes and marshaling cards make it more difficult to visualize the strength of the forces and especially, their potential actions.

One way to split the difference – getting more space while still visualizing on-the-spot what forces are located in a specific territory – would be to forget about blow-up boxes and, instead, to use accessories such as these clear plastic “Fleet Movement Stands” from Litko:

http://www.litko.net/products.php?product=Fleet-Movement-Stands#.WTc0M0-GOmw

If a territory is getting crowded, you’d place one of these stands on the territory…in effect, roughly doubling the amount of available space.  The game sculpts would either all go on top of the stand, or they’d be arranged on two levels: some on the map and some on the stand.  Aircraft would be the logical thing to put on the stand, but mechanically the infantry units would have to go there too because their height would be too great to go under the stand.

@Young:

Need help identifying universally accepted options

Given that we’re talking about A&A players, my guess is that this aspiration is perhaps a trifle optimistic.    Reminds me of the old joke: ask six economists what they think about a given subject and they’ll give you twelve different opinions.

11% dimensional increase doesn’t sound like much, but it is all that was needed.    50% also doesn’t sound like much in words, though it would make a gigantic board that wouldn’t fit on any table.  That’s our next problem;  we lay a big plywood board over the table to accommodate the map and give it rigid corners but its not bigger than the blown up vinyl map anymore.

We used to put support units and extra pieces in the blowup boxes (such as leaving factories, AAA, damage chits etc) but this still can lead to some confusion as discounting the presence of even a few pieces can be devastating in our game.  At least for table top play, there is something psychological about seeing the pile and being able to estimate whether its “enough” or “just not enough” to win/lose.

At least the designers of the original map didn’t make everything to scale.  You’d NEVER be able to fit anything in London if that was the case… 

Blowup boxes sound like great idea. Maybe use them like coasters. Keeping the blow-up boxes on a loose piece of wood or cardboard, and only put them onto the board when needed could negate needless clutter.

My group and I usually just use a national marker on top of a specific colored chip to mark on the map where a large army/navy is located. This keeps the main board cluster free, usually putting the large stack somewhere in unused areas of the map for reference.

Couldn’t you just make the British Isles and the sea zones around it bigger at the cost of squashing the sea zones north west of it? i.e. squash sz 116, 117, 118, 122 and 123.

I just always used the taskforce cards from revised edition. The main japanese and US fleets usually spends their game on top of them

Salutations,

I know I am a total newbie on this forum as well as being a newbie member per say of the A&A community but I will nevertheless give my opinion, take it or leave it… it is to everyone’s prerogative…

I have read the thread, and I can honestly say that some of the comments and suggestions were very interesting to say the least.

Here are some facts:

A) the map being built is 165% the size of the OOB map… If you are not entirely sure of what it means, but you do own a scanner or a printer with a scanner, scan any of the debated zone at 165% (or if your device doesn’t give you the option, scan at 100% and enlarge it to 165% in your favorite imaging software)  Once that done, print that section on regular, cheap paper (gray scale of whatever is the cheapest for you)  with that print out, start laying out your crazy stacks of whatever you feel like…  You will probably come to realize that the map is freaking massive compared to an OOB map…  Will it solve EVERY crowding issues… likely not… thus the blowup boxes…

B) I really like the idea of YG to create some blowup boxes for certain key zones… why? Well, because it is HIS map to begin with, so, I think it would kinda make sense he likes it… But at the same time, I am not 100% convinced that there is a requirement for 10 specific blowup zones… (specially considering my point A) and this is where the idea/suggestion of CWO Marc is actually very valuable…  Indeed creating some “generic” boxes that has some combination of land and sea zone without necessarily being recognizable landscape could work great in combination with some “featured” blowup zones…  those “generic” zones, would be attached to a number or a letter (or even an emojii, I don’t give a crap)  and I think there could be a way to use the concept of the chips colors to those zones… What I mean by that is:  Let’s say I have crap load of stuff in london, but instead of being on the main map, I put all my stuff in the blowup… Well, on the battle map, I would put a “flag marker” refering to the blowup zone… and that flag will be colored accordingly to the threat level of what I stashed there…  White/Gray, Green, Red… (I think those are the color YG is using… don’t lawyer me on this)

On this project, indeed we are opened to ideas and suggestions…although at one point (soon) things will be set in stone… Once the final plan is drafted, there will be little to no wiggle room… Otherwise I ll still be flocking the damn thing in 2021… and I am not sure this is a commitment I would volunteer for.  Obviously, this is a project that receives a lot of attention right now… and it is almost certain that we will not be able to please 100% of the community… But at the end, AFTER the tournament, I would be comfortable to sit with YG and have a live stream Q&A where we explain why we took certain decisions etc… And I can guarantee you that YG as well as myself can own any mistake we make and openly admit it…

Anyway, this is my 2 cents on the subject… by all mean feel free to agree or disagree, I am always opened for a discussion or debate.

@DiveCrewCanada:

and it is almost certain that we will not be able to please 100% of the community…

Set your mind at ease: there’s no need to be concerned about not being able to please 100% of the A&A community because there’s nothing suprising about such a situation.  The A&A community is large, diverse and opinionated, and I can’t recall anything about any A&A-related subject – other than perhaps the fact that A&A exists – which pleases everyone in the community.  Such differences of opinion are very much business-as-usual in this forum.  So you can relax about this point.

@CWO:

@DiveCrewCanada:

and it is almost certain that we will not be able to please 100% of the community…

Set your mind at ease: there’s no need to be concerned about not being able to please 100% of the A&A community because there’s nothing suprising about such a situation.  The A&A community is large, diverse and opinionated, and I can’t recall anything about any A&A-related subject – other than perhaps the fact that A&A exists – which pleases everyone in the community.  Such differences of opinion are very much business-as-usual in this forum.  So you can relax about this point.

Right - if we could all agree what map, rules, and start date to use we might actually become dangerous…:)

@CWO:

@DiveCrewCanada:

and it is almost certain that we will not be able to please 100% of the community…

Set your mind at ease: there’s no need to be concerned about not being able to please 100% of the A&A community because there’s nothing suprising about such a situation.  The A&A community is large, diverse and opinionated, and I can’t recall anything about any A&A-related subject – other than perhaps the fact that A&A exists – which pleases everyone in the community.  Such differences of opinion are very much business-as-usual in this forum.  So you can relax about this point.

Thank you sir, indeed we understand it is impossible to please everyone   That’s just the nature of the beast. But at the same time, if we can share our thought process (that might be right or wrong) with the community, I think it would make the project very successful as there is a sharing of thoughts and ideas

@Der:

@CWO:

@DiveCrewCanada:

and it is almost certain that we will not be able to please 100% of the community…

Set your mind at ease: there’s no need to be concerned about not being able to please 100% of the A&A community because there’s nothing suprising about such a situation.  The A&A community is large, diverse and opinionated, and I can’t recall anything about any A&A-related subject – other than perhaps the fact that A&A exists – which pleases everyone in the community.  Such differences of opinion are very much business-as-usual in this forum.  So you can relax about this point.

Right - if we could all agree what map, rules, and start date to use we might actually become dangerous…:)

that would indeed be scary   But at the same time, it would be nice to see unity from people from all walk of life and background… I guess in a way, I am an idealist person who naively believes that somehow one day people can get to a consensus when the subject at end doesn’t have to be a disaster to motivate the consensus…

WWII is such a broad and deep subject that it’s probably impossible to get the whole experience on one table top anyway - different versions help us experience different aspects of it…

@Der:

WWII is such a broad and deep subject that it’s probably impossible to get the whole experience on one table top anyway - different versions help us experience different aspects of it…

In this instance, we are not attempting to bring a WWII experience… that would be presumptuous,  the only goal is to provide an eye candy to the players and to the community watching the videos   On such a small scale, I honestly wouldn’t even know how to make it feels like a WWII era (or any eras as a matter of fact). But I think it is quite an exciting project and it comes with some challenges that are going to be “fun” to deal with

If your new map is 165% larger than the OOB map then there should be no need for blowup boxes. Mine is 112% larger and I rarely use my blowup boxes anymore since I made the change from regular size. Really the only reason I use a few is the ease of moving large numbers of pieces with just one marker. At 165 though Captain OCD wouldn’t even have to use any chips to stack up his armies