A bit more Swarm Wars

Just a quick 'sort of'  terrain and troop placement....

Many years ago terrain in wargames was set up and 'fixed' by whoever organised the game. In Ancients at the Nationals this consisted of 5 terrain layouts. You had to chose 1,3 or 5 - if you chose 1 and your opponent chose 3, you played 2, etc. The board itself was split into 6 sections. For an internal Liverpool league in around 1976 I used this 6 section board to allow for more variation in terrain using dice. This was further modified by me as an option for the Ancients games in the 1978 North-West Regional Finals for the National Wargames Championships, then others modified it for use as the terrain system in the 1981 Nationals themselves.

So naturally I'm looking back to this system for future use in Swarm Wars.

Terrain, currently it's fixed by me for each game.At some time I'll use the system if I ever decide to do a 2 player version, for now I'm quite happy.

However, as already seen, I do use for Swarm placement - initially for saucer/rocket landing sites:

Determine chance of a saucer/rocket landing and dice for each one. 3 or more, for example, would give a 50% chance of each one landing - decide for yourself or simply say they all got down safely!

Divide table or whichever part you want to use as a landing area into 6. A 3x2 grid is the best option. Allocate a number 1-6 for each square, dice for each saucer/rocket. The number on the dice determines which square that saucer/rocket lands in. If you like, each square could itself be subdivided and diced for again to further restrict choice in the landing zone.

This where it could be fun if you want to use them - personal choice:

Land in a 'build-up area' - dice to see if saucer/rocket crashed/topples over...
2 saucers/rockets land on same subdivision - dice to see if they crash into each other...
In both cases saving throw for each swarm machine would be an idea.

Frankly, at the moment I simply put them next to any obstacles or each other, but it does allow for a bit more interest.