Trimming the fat, for convention play

By player886919, in Tide of Iron

Its Delta here again. For our second day of gaming, we are looking at a scenerio for 6 players.

To stay in our 4 hour time slot, we need to design a great game and trim the fat to increase game play speed.

Once again I am tapping the immeasurable talent here on this forum for advice.

Feel free to drop any thoughts, I appreciate all comments.

1) I am not using some units, deleting some basic rules and only allowing some cards in play.
2) Squads, table and gameboard are pre set up to decrease start times.
3) Double blind scenario. (see my previous posts)

The scenario so far.

St Mere Eglise, 0240, D Day

1) Germans have 15 min to place troops. This gives time for the US player to choose 2 or 4 random objectives.
2) Random (like arty drifts) placement of Airborne infantry.
3) First turn starts US has initiative.
4) 3 players per side, 1 per division and one commander.
5) Division commanders have 4 squads and 3 actions per turn (no strat cards) alternating with one German player, and one US player.
6) Last turn per side is the third player (CiC). He plays strat cards to support troops (limited decks such as arty and air support).
7) The command phase is done by the CiC, the status phase is done by all.
My ideas to trim the fat and play time.

1) No squd transfers.
2) No vehicles
3) No engineers
4) Limited basic strat cards
5) No concealed squads
6) Visibility is normal range (night time)
More to comeā€¦
1) Ideas: What increases game play time? Op fire? Limited vis should cut that down. I may also let players move, then if op fire is initiated, move the targets units to half of their normal movement, then op fire takes place.
Thanks.

http://www.intelligent-staffing.com

3 actions to 4 units will not allow for much reaction. Might be better with 2 actions to 4 units.

1.) What realy takes time is people talking to each other trying to find out what to do. Intorducing a watch similar to what they use in chess would definitively speed things up :)

2.) The second thing which takes time is looking into the rule book for details about the rules. If somebody (the judge) knows the rules in and out thats good. And when I play, especially with newbees, I find it more important to have the game running smoothly than get every detail of the rules correct.

3.) And, actually, I think that one (or two) action per division and switch side is a simple rule. Remember that you can think while the enemy does their action.

4) Vehicles are not that problematic actually, but thats not important.