[Lt. Ketch]

It really depends on what you want out of your experience. Smaller maps play faster, don't have as much manuvering (simplifing things a bit in my opion) and can have a whole lot of bloodshed when artillary is brought to bare. Larger maps taken longer, provide more oppurtunities to try to flank the enemy, but also expose you to flanking manuvers, and are a lot more varied in terrian and avenues of approach.

I also feel that it depends on your confidance. In my own experience, I can handle a smaller map a lot easier than a larger one. I look at a 100 by 100 and think, "Crap, I've got to defend/attack all of this?!" I tend to go a bit overboard trying to get the right stuff and end up losing interest, getting too frustrated, or lost and stop playing. Smaller maps tend to set my mind at ease a bit because I don't have to worry about my AZ platoon being forgotten. I can connect a lot more with my units. As I said, this is my personal experiences and small maps can be just as hard, if not harder to play becuase every unit is critical when you only have 10 unit total.

My reccomendation is to play around with all different map sizes and forces. Even if all you do is choose a size and then buy your forces, you can deploy them and get a feel for how congested or loose the battle will be. Referring to my last post, I just enlarged my map by 10 hexes in my LC to accomidate some additional forces and to give myself some more options of manuvers. I'll problably continue to increase it for the next couple of battles until I find one that is, "too big" and then I'll go back and stay with a more comfortable size. Don't feel like you have to get locked into one size or one force make up. Switch it up and have fun.