Bloody Big Battles! with lighter-coloured hills

It was pointed out in the Bloody Big Battles! Groups.io group that the hills in my last post ought to appear lighter than the lower ground, and certainly not darker. So I've set about correcting this with a new approach. The green felt patches are a clever solution if placed on top of a gaming mat, but not worth the effort if placed underneath. I will keep them as an option if not using a plastic tablecloth.

First step in the new approach is to lay down some foamcore. I'm just using odd offcuts in the photo above but I intend to cut more regular shapes. The foamcore is 5mm thick. A single layer (5mm) is hardly noticeable. Three layers (15mm) is unnecessarily high. Two layers (10mm) seems about right.

The foamcore is laid inside - not to the edge - of the hill's footprint. It doesn't have to be exact and the shapes can be rectangular. The closer it follows the hill the better, but the important thing is to leave a gap between the edge of the foamcore and the contour on the map. 

 

Next step is to soften the edges of the foamcore by laying some white felt. These are 1ft/30cm squares. They don't have to match the hills. They just have to cover them. (This photo is from an earlier experiment with larger pieces of foamcore.)

 

The finished hill with the top (tablecloth) layer back in place. 18mm WoFun standees are able to sit on it without falling over or sliding off, hence the decision to make them 10mm high. The hill is subtle and continuously sloped. The game edge is defined by the traced contour lines. If using multiple-level hills, I could add more layers of foamcore, but height is still demarcated by the drawn contours. 

Terrain for Bloody Big Battles!

Vimeiro from Matt Bradley's draft scenario in the Groups.io B3 group.
Armies are 18mm WoFun Peninsular War Napoleonics.

It's about ten years since I last played Chris Pringle's Bloody Big Battles! which is a shame. So returning to it is a voyage of rediscovery. Happily I was able to recruit a crack team of players to get to grips with the navigation. The rules are not long or complicated but my comrades collectively described them as "very nuanced". BBB/B3 is excellent fun as a multiplayer game, and I am grateful that having provided and set the game up, Ian, Kim, Simon and Bob took the lead.

My main part was providing the scenery and that's what I'm going to write about first. Recreating the topography in the scenario maps is foundational to B3. When playing the game the first time round, I used Hexon II to recreate the complex and 'continuous' terrain. This rendered the maps accurately and was quite magnificent once you got used to the aesthetic of hexification. 

But the battles using Hexon were played at home with unlimited set-up time, and it is totally unrealistic for me to transport and construct terrain of that sort for a club night game. After some initial attempts to revisit my original options a scan of the B3 group on Groups.io brought me to a video by Konstantinos Travlos.

Konstantinos (author of Bloody Big Balkan Battles!) simply puts down variously-sized felt shapes to build up the hilly areas. This approach also allows great accuracy. Combined with a gridded mat, I thought it would be very straightforward to recreate any scenario map, and everything is reusable. But in the heat of the moment it actually took the best part of an hour to set up, and that is just too long to keep players waiting. The felt hills worked well enough but the felt roads and rivers were too flimsy and easy to displace.

My next plan is to draw each map onto a disposable tablecloth so most of the work can be prepared in advance and the battlefield can simply be unrolled on the night. This doesn't require or preclude the addition of 3D elements - BUAs and woods on top and a token indication of elevations underneath. Feature edges like contour lines will be drawn and precisely demarcated so there won't be any ambiguity. Roads and waterways will be indicated with masking tape. These are all solutions I've seen other users apply.

As an interim measure, if I don't get time to prepare a cloth, I will simply use a paper printout of the map. I discovered that my veteran version of CorelDraw is nonetheless capable of printing an image to tiles, so it's possible to blow the maps up to 4' x 6' and then print them as a set of A3 pages which can be taped together. I know from previous experience that paper is unappealing and has its problems, but it's a quick and easy solution.

Eisenhower: markers and terrain

 

 

Picking up paper markers without long finger-nails is extremely awkward so I printed the designs from the SHAEF document onto self-adhesive labels and stuck them to MDF bases. The objective markers are flipable between Allied and Axis and the unit status markers between Worn and Exhausted.

 

 

For Prepared positions I created some 3D markers using 10mm resin sandbag emplacements from ScaleFiend. I need to get more of these. I'll be using them as markers for 10mm, 6mm and 3mm armies, though they are obviously only in scale with the largest of these.

 

Finally, I made some 4" square Bocage markers using strips of pan scourer. This one is a prototype and a bit messy. It's not quite finished but basically there. I don't intend to paint them. As with the low-relief BUAs and woods I made for Blucher, they're symbolic rather than realistic and the units will be sitting on top rather than 'within' the features. They will look best with 3mm models but will do as markers for 6mm and 10mm. As based, 3mm, 6mm and 10mm models will all fit within 4" squares which gives a nicely compact table, but 6" squares definitely look better aesthetically. Keeping these markers to 4" means I can use them with both sizes of grid.

Ultra-low relief scenery for Blucher

As planned I developed some light, very low relief scenery for use with the Blucher unit cards which sit on top of the terrain pieces. The aesthetic idea was that the table should resemble an aerial view and be as convincing as possible at first glance, at least from a distance.

As my wargame club is in walking distance, I usually load my stuff into a shopping trolley. I always have that option, but my idea for this project was to keep things as light as possible so the game could be carried in a bag. Given that the armies are just cards, burdening myself with heavy and bulky 3D scenery seemed disproportionate, and, indeed, rather odd in comparison to the flatness of the units.

Anyway, here is the scenery I made or utilised in the order of table placement:

HILLS

As the hills are placed under the game mat, there are no aesthetic requirements and they can be very rough and ready. I’d accumulated a lot of foamboard offcuts, so I sandwiched these between hill templates cut from new card and trimmed with a scalpel.

The templates were sized and shaped to maximise storage in Really Useful Boxes, and the templates and offcuts were stuck with a Pritt stick, a huge bonus as Mrs Phalanx is particularly averse to glue fumes.

I've nearly exhausted my supply of offcuts so if I need more hills or other shapes and sizes I'll revert to my initial plan which was to make hills from card and plastic milk bottle tops.

Alternatively, I can also use any of my existing hills, most of which are reasonably light. Once under the game mat, they will all look the same!

GAME MAT

This is an old felt cloth and not my best game mat, but it's light and soft, and shapes itself over hills put underneath. Think of the creases as natural folds in the ground!

ROADS, RIVERS, MARSH, PLOUGHED FIELDS

These had already been made or bought for previous games. A small metal bridge is my one concession to conventional wargame scenery.

FOREST

These are made by applying a diverse mixture of Woodland Scenics Underbrush Clump-Foliage to leatherette templates using Hob-E-Tac glue. They bend to fit hill contours. They have been fixed with a spray of Scenic Cement. As suggested in the rules they are mostly 3-base widths long which is also a nice fit for storage in RUBs.

ROCKY GROUND

I didn't want anything heavy, tall or messy. I eventually hit on the idea of using broken up cork floor tiles.

BUILT UP AREAS

The village or town areas are 100mm (4") squares so they can be conveniently occupied by a single unit card with a little space to spare to remind players that attackers are entering rough ground. The buildings are from old Monopoly games picked up in charity shops. Some are finished as city areas, the rest as villages. Making the BUAs was fun.

FORTIFICATIONS

Flat lolly sticks with matchsticks. I added Tetrion Filler to one side to create revetments.

The terrain pieces are stylised but convincing enough. More pictures of the scenery will be featured in game use in my next post.
 

Lightweight terrain

There are two big issues for those of us who have to lug our own stuff: weight and bulk.

The obvious answer to both these issues is to go to the smallest possible scales, but sometimes the appeal of a game lies specifically in using larger figures, i.e. 25/28mm, and then scenery can become a significant challenge.

There are a few ways to get round this, e.g. don't try to do Stalingrad in 28mm, but this post is concerned specifically in paying tribute to a couple of manufacturers whose products are particularly lightweight.

First up are the hollow resin hills from Tiger Terrain which are both very light and very strong. The company originally did a range of these - green, arid and unfinished. They still have some advertised on their website but I think they're being phased out. This is a pity. I'm not aware of anyone else making anything like these.

The other company I'd like to praise is TableScape. As I understand it, their products are also made from resin but they add a foaming agent so that their products emerge from the process as a strong, dense foam which is both light and robust.

I understand this process is unsuited to small items, so their terrain is restricted to 28mm products. I have a lot of their Renaissance buildings and have recently started to accumulate their Islamic-style pieces. The buildings come ready-painted and are extremely high quality.

Modular rolling terrain

A few of my sand-coated cork tiles

I began to to make some modular rolling terrain from cork bathroom tiles. The design approach was totally unoriginal but I can't find the source now. If someone identifies it I'll publish a link.

The 30cm/1 ft tiles are essentially divided into a nine-sector grid. The contours can be naturalistically wavey as long as they meet square on at the grid points. The concept should be apparent from the pictures.

The unpainted sand coating has caught the light
from this angle.

Cork tiles are thin so the contours are in low relief but that's more convenient for storage and transport. I subsequently invested in quite a lot of Hexon.  The cork tiles and Hexon are both rather too heavy and bulky to transport outside the house without a car. The Hexon is more than adequate for use at home so I didn't pursue this project any further. For club games I use standalone hills. I'm featuring it just out of interest but I've now passed it on to a friend.

Hotz mat for Rommel

Hotz felt mat straight out of the bag. The creases will settle.

I recently received delivery of a Hotz ArtWorks 'Enhanced European Fields' game mat for Rommel. It arrived in the UK from the USA only eight days after ordering - the usual great service and great quality.

It measures 72" x 46" and has 4" hexes arranged 18 x 12. It will serve as a less heavy, less bulky alternative to Hexon for club games. I could have gone for squares but consistency will make it easier to get used to the game and I will be able to use Hexon hills and my planned hex BUAs and hex woods etc.

The 4" hexes are principally for my forthcoming 3mm armies, but my 10mm armies on 30mm wide bases will also fit.

Bloody Big Battles! - scenery options

Terrain for the Bloody Big Battles! Langensalza scenario

using Hexon. This was my first attempt. There is room
for improvement.

Terrain is a big issue in Bloody Big Battles! Each battle/scenario requires the recreation on a 6'x 4' (or occasionally 8' x 4') table of a contour map with one or sometimes two levels of elevation above the table surface.

Various options are discussed on the author's blog, but my immediate thought was to consider a modular approach that would both look good and be reusable for different battles.

My ideas eventually coalesced into three options:

(1) Tiles
(2) Shapes
(3) Hexon

Simple table extension

I play mostly at my local club but also like to play at home when time permits. My dining-room table is actually an old kitchen table and measures only about 53" x 34", but I can temporarily turn it into a standard 6' x 4' wargaming table within a few minutes.

Before conversion: a scene of domestic tranquillity.

The raw materials: three 15mm 4' x 2' MDF panels, two batons,
twelve bolts and wing-nuts, and twenty-four 25mm washers.

Crossfiregrad facelift Part 3: finishing touches to the scenery

It's been about three years since I first posted about what I have come to call my 'Crossfiregrad' project - a Stalingradesque cityscape for playing Crossfire. It's been through several reincarnations. This post illustrates the final touches and the final look of the cityscape.

The starting point for the finishing phase. Cat litter has been added around buildings. I didn't add a fully realistic amount of rubble, partly because this rubble is merely decorative and needs to be differentiated from rubble that features as Crossfire areas, and partly because creating too much of a 3D effect would add to my storage and transport problems.

Crossfiregrad facelift Part 2: Game trial

Part of the reason for developing a permanent layout for my 'Crossfiregrad' game has been with a view to making it a possible participation game for wargame shows.

View from the German assault gun late in the game.

28mm Victorian Terrace in Foamboard for Irish War of Independence

Auxies come knocking at the door

Most of the scenery I made for my Irish War of Independence game is explicitly rural but I constructed this Victorian terrace which could represent the edge of a small town. I Googled for real-life pictures of Ireland, though the building is equally typical of Irish or English urban development of the period and could be used in other contexts. The footprint has been 'bath-tubbed' to some extent but the building is still vertically in scale with the figures.

Construction proceeded in exactly the same way as my foamboard 'Crossfiregrad' (Stanlingrad) buildings, albeit in a larger scale. Designing the pieces so they fit together is the key. The roof and top storey are detachable.

WW1 fortifications in 10mm

These fortifications were made to represent (1) 'trench and wire', and (2) 'concrete and wire' fortifications as defined in the first edition of the Peter Pig Square Bashing rules. They're somewhat redundant now but I'm posting this item for its modelling interest. Both fortification types are symbolic representations rather than accurate scale models, but they are inspired by real-life photos and diagrams.

Crossfiregrad facelift Part 1

Invariably providing both armies and the scenery, I tend to think in terms of 'games' rather than armies, and 'Crossfiregrad' is the new title I've given my Crossfire mini-Stalingrad game. As previously mentioned, I've been wanting for a long time now to improve the look of this game by adding pavements and rubble-strewn streets, but was torn between (1) adding pavements to the buildings, (2) adding separate pavements or (3) modelling pavements and roads as part of a modular tile system.

Making cork terrain boards

I prefer to make buildings from foamboard as I find it cuts more cleanly, but I have used cork 'bathroom tiles' to make terrain boards.They are cheap, light, compact, conveniently sized (12" x 12" - approx 30 cms x 30 cms) and don't need to be cut. I've had no significant problems with warping but they are relatively brittle and need to be handled with care.

It's important to note that the tiles I have are coated/smooth on one side and uncoated/rough on the other. I always paint the coated side. This coating is probably key in preventing warping.

Country tiles

The tile is coated with undiluted PVA (Elmers) wood glue.