Its just not adding up...

For sometime now I have been working on developing Neil Thomas's rules covered in his book "Napoleonic Wargaming" into a larger scale system to play out some of our more grander conflicts.

To his credit I have failed every time, the rules seem simple, fast and balanced.  Sure a few things madden me but I can live with them (until I can and venture off into another fruitless attempt to improve them).  You see he explains his thinking and rule formation in detail through out his book, his book is 160 pages and his rules are covered off in 8 pages (plus some Orders of Battle and Campaign flavour).

Well Neil I think I have you now!

Its the British you see.

Neil has covered off regarding the shooting with British troops that they hit on 3+ rather than the 4+ all other infantry hit on.  This we have played and enjoyed for some time now.  But what has bothered me (despite having a British army) is that they only have two strips of figures to everyone else having 3, naturally this is due to the 2 rank not 3 rank.  But when I place 4 stands of infantry in a line fronting their French counterparts should I not have a 1/3 additional frontage.

Also running the number (sleepy yet?) you end up with this;

4 stands, hitting on 3, will hit 67% or 2.67 each shot (British)
4 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 2 each shot (3 rank Infantry)

This gives me a 1.33 ratio or one hit in every 3 stand over the 3 ranks not the 1 hit in every 2 that it should be.

It is actually more accurate to add two stand to the British, this gives them more frontage and makes the fire figures more accurate.  The stands now all hit on 4+ as the British didn't shoot better, just had more guns, which is covered by the additional stands.

6 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 3 each shot
4 stands, hitting on 4, will hit 50% or 2 each shot

This brings my fire ratio to 1.5 and provides a more accurate frontage.

BUT

It does mean that I have 2 extra stands for each unit giving it 8 extra hits.  My thinking is that this is simply fixed.  With the addition of stands to my unit I must water down the hits a stand can take, this will mean that a unit takes a total of 16 hits normally and so the British must spread that out of the 6 stand, this doesnt work out.  so

All 3 rank stands have 3 hits.  All 2 rank stands have 2 hits.  This gives a 6 stand unit 12 hits and a 4 stand unit (3 ranks) 12 hits.  Evening out the hits again.

Adding to this a desire to change morale a little.  Rather than have morale rolled for each stand lost to fire, I have decided to try it with all units having a morale of 4+ keeping it simple so all rolls are made with 4+ (besides Artillery and I have yet to work out what I want to change there if anything).  But morale grade of a unit just determines teh number of stands you can lose before you need start rolling for morale, so Elite can lose 2 stands, Regular lose 1, Conscripts must roll morale at the first stand lost.

Anyway will chew these over in some play testing and see what I come back with.

My Basing Idea....

For some time now I have been chewing over the idea of how best to base my troops for transporting.  After my 20th trip in the car to our games club and the unloading ritual of reorganising my tray of troops I decided that enough is enough.

Previously I would base my 6mm and 28mm with Picture frame backing card and use an adhesive flex magnet fixed to the bottom.  This works well to keep the majority in place but one sudden break in the car or a sharp turn and the fringe troops would start to move about the tray.

The magnet was just not cutting it.

So I contacted a local Aussie MDF shape laser cutter, ordered myself 100 bases cut 20mm squares with a 3mm diameter hole in the centre.

Once I had these I would place a 2mm high x 2.5mm diameter Rare Earth Magnet in the hole and scrap some liquid nails in over the top of the base to hold it in place.

This had a few advantages, firstly magnetism was dramatically improved.  My bases have now become more precise in measure with each base being identical in size and finally the MDF is more durable than the card which would warp during the flocking process if too much moisture was present.

Some finished units on the left and centre (unflocked), the right is the old card base.

Pre-School helped me Wargame

Last night while hunched over my campaign map pondering how on earth I was going to get the detail accurately placed onto the foam board for me to start work on, I decided to crowd source some ideas so asked the wife.

All Rivers fully traced, I have marked bridges with a intersecting line so I can see when a river ends and when it is crossed by a bridge.

She got old school on me and grabbed some wax paper used in baking, a lead pencil and a picture book of a cat for our sons colouring-in book.  While I was explaining to her that Belgium does have a number of cats but the effect I was going for was a little higher up, maybe a pigeon or a Soviet Satellite would be better, she traced this.

Then flipped the paper over and drew with the lead pencil firmly over the traced lines.  Flipped it back over so the lead pencil markings were now face down on the foam board, grabbed the end of the pencil (rounded) and rubbed along the lines of the cat.

Its no Satellite but it will do nicely.

I grabbed some wax paper, enough to cover the A3 sheet I had to trace off, folding one end to form a perfect 90 degree fold, slipped the A3 page in and tapped.

This would enable me to trace the page with out concern of slight movements messing me about.

As I traced I found I still needed to hold the page flat but it was much easier with the page taped down.



I did this for both pages, focusing on the river systems first, I will paint the roads on free hand.


Now I can flip the page and retrace the rivers with Lead pencil and I will have copied the map onto my war game table perfectly to scale.

I am also going to test using my new Weller Hobby Tool to trace with a fine bit over the paper and see how much it impacts the foam beneath without destroying the wax paper.


Why flip the paper?
If you don't then you end up copying a mirror image of the map, try it and you will see why.

The Debate, to cover or not to cover.

For the next few weeks I chewed on how to move ahead with my boards.  I decided to contact the person whom I had drawn my inspiration for the boards built this way from in the first place.  Bruce Weigle

I have confirmed with Bruce that he is happy for me to post our correspondence here, which he is.

First, thank you for you PDF guide for making fantastic gaming boards, love your work.

I have just completed the terraforming of a battlefield Salamanca, learnt heaps doing it but would like to finish it off.

I have added felt to the foam layer and are working out now if to cloth cover or paint the felt, wanting to keep the cost down, but also wanting to do it properly.

My question is more on paint, when I cloth the board, what colours would you use for a Arid environment like Spain. 

I am thinking Burnt Umber is a little to brown when I should be going Grey/Redish.

Thanks in advance

I've never done a Spanish terrain board (the ones whose pictures you saw all represented much more temperate climes), but can at least offer a couple of suggestions.   Maybe more than a couple :-)

I wouldn't recommend trying to paint felt.  Most of the felt available in the US these days (and perhaps elsewhere) is polyester, which doesn't dye or accept paint very well.  And, the fuzzy surface of felt isn't exactly optimum for 6mm figures in my humble opinion, although it could go well with larger scales. 

I always cover my felt layer with a second layer of 100% cotton double knit fabric -- i.e., T-shirt fabric.  It takes dye very well and paints much more readily than felt. 

The cotton upper layer on all my boards (except for snowy landscapes) is initially dyed a very pale tan before it's glued down over the felt with spray adhesive.  The fields and woods portions are then airbrushed on over that, the cardinal rule being: Apply paint in very light layers.  You can always go back and darken up your board with subsequent applications of paint, but you can never lighten any fields which turn out too dark.  A light hand when airbrushing the colors with a subtle mottling texture will generally give the best results.

As for colors -- I use the cheap acrylic  "hobby" paints generally found in craft stores, but have never done an arid environment so can offer no specific color suggestions.  I'd suggest that you take a look at the  Salamanca area on Google Earth to get a good idea of what the actual terrain looks like, then print out a sampling of the field colors you plan on duplicating.  Use this color sheet when you visit the hobby store to pick your most compatible paint shades. 

Once you've got a few likely colors (including white, for lightening) pin up a surplus piece of your pale tan-dyed fabric and experiment on it with toned-down colors; don't paint your game board until you've worked out (and documented) which colors and color combinations best match the color Google Earth view of the actual terrain.   

Oh -- keep in mind too that you'll never perfectly match color photos you've seen of the battlefield, because terrain viewed from ground level isn't the same shade as what it looks like from overhead.  Even the Google Earth view isn't an exact match, for various reasons.  So your best-guess approximation of the colors of Salamanca will no doubt be good enough; it's the tone and contrast that should concern you most.  Take it slowly, spray lightly and build up the colors gradually, and you'll do fine  :-)

Bruce Weigle

Thank you for your time Bruce, your advice has influenced my decision greatly.  I will finish the boards off with cotton.

I have given thought to paints, selecting tan with terracotta mix, darkening as needed for highlights, as most of the stone work ranges from the tan earthy tone to red limestone.

Foliage is my next perpetration action, looking at woodland scenically clump foliage range and pva gluing that to areas of wood.  Given it doesn't have a lot of woodland and it will dry maintaining a reasonably flat texture figures could be placed on it well.  Testing this on fell left a telltale ring of glue stain on the felt around the forest clump.  Do you find the same on cotton or does it hide it well enough, pva that is.  (Paint can help correct I suspect.)

This has been a lot of fun and I thank you for the time you have spent saving me a world of experimentation.

So it looks like I have more work to get on with.....