TOOL TIME

With an opponent unfortunately having to postpone a gaming session and my painting mojo running low, I thought I'd make a quick post on some of the tools I make for my games. 

First off, an example of my fondness for peg-boards, are my 'What a Cowboy' (WaC) peg-boards as used in a recent game.

I like TooFatLardies rules, but have always found their record sheets liable to shed tokens; these are designed to be more portable and less prone to upset.  The body is two layers of foamboard lightly glued together with the design printed on adhesive sheets (A4 labels) and wrapped around the boards with a nice picture stuck on the back to hide the joins.  The holes are punched with an awl and the pegs taken from games of Mini-Mastermind purchased off eBay.  For anyone who plays WaC the use of these should, I hope, be obvious.  I still have yet to make name plates to be attached by two pegs in the 'Name:' section.

I also made some dice for WaC, to make it obvious what the Action Dice indicate; these are shown below with similar sets I'd already made for the 'What a Tanker' (WaT) rules.

Next, my umpire's map board for my 'Breaking of the Fellowship' game (see previous posts), complete with my random movement die: four sides are marked with arrows indicating 'straight ahead' and one each for 'turn left' and 'turn right'.

This was just made from two layers of fairly thick card glued together, although I would be tempted, if making this now, to use magnetic tiles as the cardboard ones are a fairly tight fit.  As you can see, the tiles, numbered 1-25 are randomised both as to placement and orientation.  The players in the game move around a grid with the numbers reading from left to right and all oriented in the same way, thus when they leave a square through a given side only the umpire can tell them which side of which square they enter.

Finally, and including some of most recent pieces made for the cancelled gaming session, are some bespoke movement, and ranging, sticks.

The grand-daddy of them all, at the top, complete with its bespoke die, is a roundshot bounce stick for Charles Grant's 'The War Game' rules.  The rest are made for the reduced scale I use in my much tweaked (butchered?) version of Brigadier Peter Young's 'Charge' rules.  For these I equate 1" to 2cm as the 'Charge' movement distances and artillery ranges are too generous for my sub-sized table (sub-sized that is compared to Charles Grant's 9'x7' table on which most of the games seem to have been played).

Half a Hex, Half a Hex, Half a Hexon-ward

Using hexes for movement has the advantage of removing any fiddly measurements to determine what moves our table-top units can, or cannot, perform on the table-top.  Converting wargames rules to use hexes does require a number of choices to be made and when it comes to unit facing I for one am firmly in the ‘face the vertex’ camp as shown in the diagram below.  Facing the vertex as opposed to the ‘flat’ works well for defining frontal arcs, flank and rear zones but means forward movement follows a zig-zag course with units staggering forward like drunkards.  

One of the rule-sets I have re-jigged to work on hexes is DBM using 15mm figures on 4cm wide bases, which gives two elements side by side in the 10cm-wide Hexon tiles that I use.  One day while wrestling with zig-zagging units my opponent, Martin, pointed out that as elements only occupy half a hex why not let them move straight ahead, elements in the right-hand side of the hex advancing into the left-hand side of the hex ahead (see diagram below).  The simple elegance of this solution was immediately apparent and why I had been unable to see it before escapes me – sometimes it can be hard to see beyond customary practice.

I think this system works well but clearly, it’s dependent on relative unit/element width and hex size.  However, 4cm is a fairly standard 15mm base width and Hexon is one of the more common systems (I have no connection with the company that makes it).  I doubt this has not been thought of before but I haven’t seen it being used elsewhere so thought I’d share it.

Old & New Games - Day 2 of 2

 On the second day, we were joined by George, and the four of us engaged in some 'Old-School' nostalgia with Spencer Smith armies fighting it out with a trimmed down version of Brigadier Peter Young's 'Charge!' rules.

The Battle of "Lobositz-ish"

The scenario was very loosely based on the battle of Lobositz with a better quality 'Prussian'[1] army (Martin and Steve) attacking a larger 'Austrian' army (George and me) defending a strong position (the town and a sunken road represented by a hedge).  The starting positions are shown below - not a great photo as my cabin's not big enough to get far enough away from the table and my camera is a bit past it.

Also, to stop the low sun coming through the windows and throwing sharp bands of light across the table the red blinds were drawn which accounts for the rosy glow in many of the photos, luckily not in the closer shots of the 'Prussians'...

...and Austrians.

The battle opened with the cavalry on both sides advancing to take control of the open part of the battlefield away from the town.  

The Prussians suffering from the attentions of the Austrian guns, courtesy of George's first dice roll of the game being a double-six!

The next turn saw a massive cavalry mêlée in which the Austrian dragoons and hussars came off second-best against the Prussian cuirassiers. 

At the other end of the field a mass of redcoats formed up and started off to assault the Austrians defending the sunken road (hedge)... 

...and the Croats started to harass the Prussian grenadiers.

Subsequent turns saw the Prussian cavalry turning on the infantry protecting my battery.

Elsewhere, both sides were beginning to rue their actions as the massed Prussian redcoats continued their advance leaving a trail of dead and dying in their wake...

...and the Croats found, to their cost, that harassing grenadiers can be a dangerous occupation.

The casualties among the redcoats proved unsustainable and with the Austrian cavalry staging a bit of comeback the Prussians used their last intact cavalry regiment to eliminate George's battery that had inflicted huge losses.

With time pressing and Martin and Steve feeling a further Prussian infantry assault against the Austrians defending the town would be futile they accepted defeat, shook hands and called it a day.

So, just time for a quick photo call for the commanders, starting with the winning Austrian C-in-C, George, ...

...his second in command, me, ...

the Prussian commander in chief, surveying the cost, Martin, and...

...his second in command, Steve.

The game was enjoyable, but the strength of the Austrian position was really too much for the smaller but better quality Prussian force; a useful lesson for future games.  I also got more ideas for further streamlining the 'Charge!' rules for my next gaming session - a Charles Grant Tabletop Teaser, 'Advance Guard' from the June '78 issue of 'Battle' magazine.

Notes:

1. Actually, a mongrel collection of British, Bavarian, Hanoverian, Hessian, etc. as my collection, for the War of the Austrian Succession, contains no Prussians.