Hexon hills

WARNING: I'm leaving this post up for now, but experience has shown this is actually a very bad idea. Although the hooked pads do improve adhesion on Hexon, they also exert a vice-like grip on felt roads and templates. Simply adding another paper label to the underside of the blocks provides quite enough friction to keep the them in place on 2-tile high Hexon slopes. 29 January 2016

I've used my ceramic blocks with flat Hexon tiles before, but not with Hexon hills. I was just setting up a game when I discovered that the blocks slide down Hexon slopes like an ice-cube on a hot tin roof.

I subsequently bought some self-adhesive hooked pads designed for gripping textile surfaces. Partly for reasons of economy and otherwise to minimise damage to the Hexon, I cut these into quarters and applied them to the backs of the blocks. A small amount is quite enough to get a grip on any Hexon incline.

My steel-based figures have more traction, but any future Hexon slope purchases will be of the 1-tile-high variety rather than 2-tile-high type in order to minimise the ski-slope effect.

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.

Sequence Markers

Letter tiles as sequence markers

I picked up a second-hand word game in a charity shop for £2.99 in order to get the letter tiles. They are for use in wargames where units move in a random sequence. The tiles have a hollow back so they can be pulled blind out of the bag and placed face down until revealed.

Given the number of letters in the English alphabet, that gives me enough markers for 26 separate commands or units. If that isn't enough I could apply self-adhesive numbers instead.

I think letters (or numbers) are more intuitive than using playing cards - no questions about suit order or whether aces are high or low.

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.

Counters, blocks or 2mm?

Painting all the armies I'd like to have for all the rules I'd like to play is too demanding on time and space, if not pocket, and I find myself thinking more and more about counters, wooden blocks or Irregular Miniatures' 2mm strips.

I began with making some counters for Maurice (pictured above). Counters are very cheap and straightforward. I adapted some top-downs from the Junior General website and printed the designs onto labels which were then cut with a scalpel and applied to smart laser-cut MDF bases from Pendraken.