Overlays to get more use from seldom-used boards?

Would you purchase a scenario pack that included overlays instead of boards?

  • Hell yeah.

    Votes: 14 82.4%
  • Meh

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Hell no.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .

Gordon

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There are a number of boards already in the system which due to their nature don't get a lot of use (e.g., the airfield boards). Would it make sense for a publisher to issue a scenario pack with a couple of sheets of overlays specifically to enhance use of some of these boards or to make an otherwise often used board "fresh" with new tactical challenges?
 

BattleSchool

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Some players will purchase most, if not all, ASL products that MMP produces. (Incidentally, Rivers to the Reich partly addresses your concerns about old, stale boards like boards 6 and 14. RttR includes overlays from GI Anvil of Victory that were used to remove the massive chateau and diminutive air strip from play.)

Perhaps it would have been better to ask players which type of product they prefer: scenario packs with new overlays, or ones with new boards.
 

Paul M. Weir

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There has been mutterings about an Overlay Pack from many years back. Since MMP has gone the "biggest that will fit in a box" route, presumably for economic efficiency reasons. Maybe a combined AP with Overlay Pack.
 

aiabx

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I like overlays, as long as there are no more than 2 per scenario.
 

lluis61

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I tend to avoid overlay scenarios, but for one and only reason: I need to sytematize ALL overlays (and the MMP overlay bundle would be a well received addition to that), copy ALL of them, cut them and store them and classify in a binder. At this moment all this is very time consuming for me, and I have enough "plain" scenarios to choose. But there are overlay scenarios that are very tempting. What I don't favor is the excessive overlayed scenario. All of you have seen scenarios with four or five overlays in them… Annoying.
 

Eagle4ty

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There are a number of boards already in the system which due to their nature don't get a lot of use (e.g., the airfield boards). Would it make sense for a publisher to issue a scenario pack with a couple of sheets of overlays specifically to enhance use of some of these boards or to make an otherwise often used board "fresh" with new tactical challenges?
I have often wondered why airfields/strips weren't made as overlays as they came in a plethora of configurations from a single strip or two to a complex array of runways and revetments. Tinkering with some homemade scenarios I've had to use RR overlays to represent some airstrips and airfields (works well enough, but there's always that aesthetics thing in the back of your mind). Additionally, the airfield boards we currently have represent VERY small airfields as designed (they do give you a feel of fighting for them, albeit at a much reduced scale - the design for effect thing). Just say'n.
 

Gordon

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I was thinking of a mega-overlay to convert the valley formed by the 4 FW boards into a river to model the Rhone river battles.
 

Eagle4ty

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Several years ago I developed board-specific River overlays for bds 1-6, 9-15. They were centred on the fold of the boards, so they wouldn't be compatible with the new N-S river standard.

View attachment 10543
WHAT! You couldn't get rid of that @#$! circular walled hex in the middle of the Bd10 village! Yeah right, I'm supposed to like that!;)
 

62nd Army

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Several years ago I developed board-specific River overlays for bds 1-6, 9-15. They were centred on the fold of the boards, so they wouldn't be compatible with the new N-S river standard.

View attachment 10543

A new "series" of river boards with this horizontal lay out would be so nice! Have to some scenarios to go with them :)
 

xenovin

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A few years ago there was a contest here on GS to create new overlays to spruce up boards 10 and 17. MMP printed the winners as new boards 10z and 17z. Some players lost their friggin minds that they had to buy these “new” boards prompting someone at MMP saying they will never do that again.

I have all my overlays cut out and in a binder so now I like playing scenarios with overlays. As a designer they are nice as you can get a bit closer to what you are modeling and as a player it’s great breaking up the terrain on older boards where you might already know the LOS without looking.
 

jrv

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I have all my overlays cut out and in a binder so now I like playing scenarios with overlays.
Is overlay storage the reason why some players don't like overlays? I use baseball/trading card sleeves/page protectors for my small overlays, CD sleeves (two to a page) for my medium ones, and full page page protectors for my large overlays. They all go in a binder with other stuff. It takes two minutes to get out the overlays for a scenario and two minutes to put them back. I use soft tape to stick them down. I have never understood why some players are so unwilling to use overlays. If it's just overlay storage (you hate digging through a pile of unsorted overlays), then, yes definitely, put them in pages in a binder.

JR
 

footsteps

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WHAT! You couldn't get rid of that @#$! circular walled hex in the middle of the Bd10 village! Yeah right, I'm supposed to like that!;)
If I tackle this again, there would be two overlays per board - one centred on row I and one centred on row Y. That would do something to that hex.
 

zgrose

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Is overlay storage the reason why some players don't like overlays?
Speaking only for myself, it's not the storage, its the physical fiddliness of the overlay on top of the board. This can be mitigated with plexi or glass on top but this just adds to the accessories used to get an extra stone building into H6. I do prefer overlays to terrain SSR overload (All X is Y, all Q is P, etc).

Some fairly common (I believe) overlays are also hard to get a hold of.
 

xenovin

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I’ve heard many times the lack of specific overlays from OOP modules was the issue. Fiddliness is usually No 2 but removable tape makes this a breeze.
 

Eagle4ty

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Speaking only for myself, it's not the storage, its the physical fiddliness of the overlay on top of the board. This can be mitigated with plexi or glass on top but this just adds to the accessories used to get an extra stone building into H6. I do prefer overlays to terrain SSR overload (All X is Y, all Q is P, etc).

Some fairly common (I believe) overlays are also hard to get a hold of.
Like you I much prefer overlays to worded terrain modifications. As a matter of point I was really intrigued as to why when they redid ASL15 TRAPPED (one of several) they didn't use another board and/or overlays to better represent the terrain desired. I realize there was a desire to remain true to the original scenario, but if it were truly well designed, plugging a more pleasing board or an overlay(s) into the mix as long as it met the design philosophy of the scenario shouldn't have had all that much effect.
 
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