In the Trenches: Playing a Team Game

[Mr Grumpy]

Nice article, I assume you have no issues with me copying this to the articles area for future reference?

You raise some very good points, I always have a team game on the go as they are so enjoyable to participate in, it can take some time and a number of games playing different opponents to find a bunch of guys who you can rely on to stay the course to a point you either finish the game or it becomes obvious that the result is certain and so you stop by mutual consent, I now only play team games within this group and while is a little sad that you don't get to play new people, for me the reliability of the group is the most important consideration when you are committing so much time and effort.

It also helps if the players are all of a similar ability and it can be a tad tricky if one of your team is still not 100% comfortable with the game functions, however if this player is happy to follow the advice of his teammates and is happy for the captain to reposition some of his units if necessary, then you can accommodate a newer player who you hope will learn and grow in confidence as the game progresses. 

We always play in the same order to avoid confusion and if someone goes on holiday/vacation then the others cover their moves to keep the game moving, we also have a team captain who is the last person to play the file and he checks that everyone has moved and the turn can be ended and returned to our opponents, we don't do anything clever with the file name, not that we think any other system is wrong it is just that we rarely see any confusion with files being mixed up, that IMO is why sticking rigidly to the same playing order is so important.

Having watched our opponents replay I then have to wait for the first part of the turn to be played and passed to me, before I play anything I select "Used movement points" feature to double check that you are looking at the correct file with the first players units having expended movement points, this is REALLY important to prevent you playing your portion of the turn using the wrong file and having to reply it when (hopefully) the team captain spots your mistake! 

The seams between players units can be a cause for concern as if two players move in different directions it can cause gaps to appear that your opponents can exploit, so a constant dialogue will be needed so everyone knows what their teammates intentions are in these areas.

I could go on but time is short, I do recommend trying a team game if you can find a reliable group of players, but be wary of committing to a big scenario with players you have no experience of playing with, it might work but almost certainly players will drop out before the game is concluded.