IABSM

[Orcs]

6 PLAYERS!  How big are these games - how do they all get a turn. "MY card didn't come up AGAIN!"

I will second that, played a four player game one night at club and my squad moved once.

[sunjester]

I will second that, played a four player game one night at club and my squad moved once.

That was not an IABSM game!

[pierre the shy]

6 PLAYERS!  How big are these games - how do they all get a turn. "MY card didn't come up AGAIN!"

We haved successfully played large ITLSU games with 5 players and yes sometimes a players units card (usually mine  )  does not get activated.

FWIW Have'nt tried IABSM as we use a very good home brew set of ww2 rules but we find WW1 with TFLs ITLSU gives a very good game every time.

[Cold Steel]

Sorry for the absence. Real life got in the way.

Using poker chips in a clothe bag instead of cards actually speeds up the game. No time wasted shuffling and you get a true random mix. The units are written on stickers affixed to the chips. At the beginning of the game, I gave the chips to the respective players and made them responsible for giving them to me when the unit is activated. I deliberately forced the players to respond quickly when their chip came up. Too slow and I pulled another chip. That kept them focused on the game and planning their next moves.  Only one player complained about a unit not moving. At the end of the game, we found he still had the poker chips for it.

[paulr]

I like the idea of giving the players thieir unit cards and making them responsible

We have had at least one ITLSU game where forgetting to add a unit card has had a significant impact on a game

I'm about to print off a whole lot of unit cards so I'm also going to have a think about the poker chip and bag idea
I wonder if cards in a bigger bag would work

[fred.]

There is definitely a difference in perception between drawing from a bag/cup (whether its dice, beads or chips) or dealing from a deck of cards. I don't know why as both are effectively the same. I think part of it is the feeling that cards haven't been well shuffled, while stuff in a bag is always well mixed.

Perhaps with a small deck of cards the feeling of less shuffling is more apparent.

The benefit of cards is that its easier to have more variants - which have the relevant info directly on them. If you want lots of options with drawing from a bag you endup having to label the tokens in some way.

[paulr]

Hence my thought about cards in a bag, I'm not sure if that will give me the best or worst of both

In our ILTSU games if we have two turns in a row where the Tea break card turns up early ending the turn without out many units activating we change "dealer"

I might have to get Pierre the Shy to have a word with Mrs Shy about making us a suitable bag

[Cold Steel]

You can learn to sew easy enough, but my preferred method of getting a new bag is to buy one that comes with a free bottle of adult beverage inside.

[paulr]

I can sew but Mrs Shy is a keen sewer who has already sewn some base cloths for us

[pierre the shy]

I can sew but Mrs Shy is a keen sewer who has already sewn some base cloths for us

Poker chips are interesting idea....Mrs Shy has expressed willingness to sew up suitable baize bag.

[paulr]

I was thing of putting our normal sized cards in a slightly larger bag

We can discuss at our game on Saturday