Rising Tides and Turning Tables

Shortly after moving to our house in 1987, I set up my wargames table. It was supported by 2 Ping pong tables, and on top of that sat multiple frames made of 2x4's, and topped with 3/4" plywood, painted blue for naval battles and as the base layer for GeoHex. The total table was 20 feet long by 6 feet wide. Ove the years it became evident that I never used more than 12 feet of the length, and that the 6 foot width was becoming more challenging to reach across as well. Finally, a few years back, one of the tables tubular legs bent and had to be repaired with duct tape! Thus, almost a year ago, I purchased four 2.5 by 6 foot tables to replace the aging structure. Those tables sat folded up in the garage, as in order to install them in the basement, first the immense pile of clutter on the far end had to be sorted and moved, and then the very heavy components had to be removed from the basement to make room for the new; a two man job at minimum. Thus nothing happened... until 2 weeks ago. That Saturday morning we awoke to find a good inch of water in the basement following some heavy rains. Now, we haven't had anywhere near that much water (usually 1/8" at most in a portion of the basement with really heavy rain) since we installed a sump pump following a real flood of about 3 inches of water. 

Well, it turned out the old pump had burned out. That lead to about 6 hours of pumping water out of the basement while a new sump pump was installed. We had already started clearing out unused items form the basement the week before, and thus I took advantage of the opportunity to have Louis,  the guy who was helping us, assist me with hauling the old table out and bringing the new tables down. 

 

The result - a new, smaller but much lighter, more mobile, and flatter tabletop!

Doing all that took the better part of the weekend; consuming the time I had mentally assigned to getting everything finalized for the 3rd and biggest of the three games that I ran at HAVOC outside of Boston, MA, this past weekend. I planned to leave bright and early Saturday AM (6:30), so that I could arrive at the convention hotel before 9 AM. My schedule then included playing in my freind Mark's "Concord Bridge North"  1775 AWI game at 9AM, setting up running, and taking down my Battle of White Plains October 1776 game at 2:30, taking it down,  and setting up for my Punic Wars Battle of Geronium game for 7:30 PM, and then running 2 Napoleonic scenarios from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames using Square Eagles at 10:00 AM on Sunday. Needless to say, I was happy to have the nerw tables installed and the old ones removed, but that placed a real crimp on the planning and packing needed for less than a week following. 

Here's the terrain set up for White Plains laid out on the new table

That's the Bronx River. which flows into the Hudson river, which is just a little ways off the left of the picture. The marshy ground supposedly accounts for the Indian name of the area, translated as :"White Plains", because of the frequent mists arising therefrom. 

The buildings represent the village of White Plains. Like new England, the ground in New York is full of rocks left by the Glaciers during previous ice ages, and thus stone walls are everywhere; they had to have place to put all the damned rocks encountered when trying to farm the land. These walls are cast resin I had acquired perhaps 10 years ago and started but never really finished; those were finished in the 5 days after the flooding. 

With this battle taking place in October, I wanted a bunch of trees with fall foliage; These are from a 14 tree pre-made Woodlands Scenics Fall Forrest I received a week or so before the show. They still had to be based, the trunks dry brushed, the bases flocked, and I then added a second contrasting flock color to all of them suing loose flock and sprayed scenic adhesive. 

OK, let's add the troops! The key position of Chatterton Hill is in the foreground

View from the White Plains side; the British (and Hessians) are to the left, and the Patriots to the Right. 

This battle is why all of the AWI troops have been leaping off the painting table (and the planned Battle of Brandywine, 1777, for Historicon in July). 

Patriots behind a line of stone walls. They tried to dig entrenchments, but the rocky ground made it very difficult to do with any speed. 

The Hessian command is in the foreground; they played a key role in the historical battle. 

Chatterton Hill, with a few Patriot Reinforcements off in the distance. 

A pretty typical New England stone wall, probably 150+year old, on the back of our property and dividing our yard from our neighbor's. Nothing fancy, a pile of rocks, about knee high. Most of our neighbors' properties have a similar old wall on it somewhere!

Scratch built bridges

Over a year ago, I decided that I needed more bridges, chiefly for our multi-table Snappy Nappy games. I set about designing a template to mass produce some

I used artist's matt board for the sides, and foam board for the supports.

The were then assembled with glue...

and straight pins. 

The raw product.

top view

view of the underside. 

I then sprayed them all a tan color. 

I got a bunch of thin, inexpensive craft sticks (coffee stirrers) ordered online. 

I then applied "wood" to the bridges, mostly using the coffee stirrer but also some other wood products, so that not all were exactly the same. 

Sharp eyes might note that there are 9 bridges in the rough but only 8 above; I misplaced one and of course found it again as soon as I finished the project. I will try to make that one into a stone bridge. 

The bridges were then painted a variety of shades of brown, 

and then got a heavy black wash. 

Finally, they dry brushed with a neutral light grey. 

 

Sphinx hijinks!

I finished this sextuplet of Sphinxes that I obtained from Acheson Creations earlier this year. 

We are all familiar with the Great Sphinx at Giza, but they were common symbols through the history of Ancient Egypt; notably the 1.5 mile long road connecting Luxor and Karnak, "The Avenuie of the Sphinxes, estimated to have had over 900 of the staues!

The Sphinxes will be appearing on the table at my Egypt vs Sea Peoples game at Historicon. I am often amazed how few people now days are familiar with the famous "Riddle of the Sphinx"... even if that is more Greek in origin!

 

Scuffles have Ridges

When I ran my "Waterloo in Two" games at Historicon last year, I had it mind to make custom ridges for the game; in the end, time ran out, and that just didn't happen. I'm going to do Waterloo at HAVOC on Saturday, April 5th with the "Square Eagles" rules, and this time out I did have to time to make them. I had almost enough foam board from previous project, but not quite enough of the 1.5 inch thickness, so I wound up having to buy a new sheet. They only had 1" and 2" sheets, so I went with a sheet of the 2" foam, which was way more than I needed. Boy, has this stuff gone up in price compared with years ago! Anyway, I designed the ridges, and cut out the shapes using two different hot knife tools. 

A heavy coat of "Sunny Valley Green" from Home Depot. 

Applied brown craft paint to the slopes using a moist sponge. 

Then lighter dabs of Delta CC "Jute" to the dark brown areas. 

The flat hilltops were then brushed with a heavy coat of scenic cement, and a heavy application of Scenic Express "Green Grass Blend" flock. 

After the excess was shaken off, there were some bald spots that got a second application of cement and flock. Note the Really Useful box with the surplus flock!!!

The 7 foot long  "French" (La Belle Alliance) ridge is up top, the 11 foot long "British" Ridge (Mont St. Jean) is in the middle and bottom, and on the bottom right are two spare pieces. I still need to spay again with Scenic cement for best adherence of the flock. 

Egyptian and Assyrian pieces from Acheson Creations

With the Portuguese army expansion already done, I have been working on some foamboard hills for my Waterloo game at HAVOC in a few weeks. I had original thought I would do that for my 3 Historicon Waterloo games last year, but ran out of time. There isn't much to show yet, but there will be in the next week or two. 

I am planning on running two different Chariot era games at Historicon this July, using the To the Strongest" rules by Simon Miller. While Acheson Creations sold off quite a bit of their extensive line of scenic items last year, there are still quite a few excellent pieces that remain, and they are still introducing some new items. Here are some I acquired this winter with a view towards those games. 

A set (? Set) of six smaller sphinxes; these are about 30 mm tall. 

These were found in several locations lining the approach to an important Temple. 

Assyrian Tree of Life; these panels are about 75 mm tall.

Nisroch, Assyrian god of Agriculture; about 65 mm tall.

Smaller Assyrian Winged Bull (I have two large ones already). 

Side view; about 35 mm tall. 

Celtic Steles.. perhaps suitable for the future Viking armies?  The stone pattern is from Scenic effects, purchased several years ago. I plan on using these to help build the walls of Nineveh. 

Project Waterloo - The Playtest

 We wound up having 5 of us for the game; unfortunately. Kevin had to bow out at the last minute due to work obligations. Either that, or it was his recent election to the Board of HMGS making him feel overwhelmed, LOL!  As I wrote to him, I voted for you even though I like you!"  :-) Anyway, on the Allied aside we had Kyle, Chris, and Thomas; it was the first visit to the Table for Kyle and Chris. Chris plays more board games, but had played miniatures with William Keyser years ago (a fellow Connecticut resident, and the author of the From Valmy to Waterloo rules. Kyle had never played historical miniatures before, but is starting a D&D Campaign which my older daughter (who likes games, unlike my wife and younger daughter, neither of which is much for games) is evidently going to be a participant!

Barry and I took the French; Barry once again drove all the way from his home in Maine and back for the game. Now that's a dedicated grognard! Our initial advance was finely synchronized, while our artillery bombarded Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.

I got bold with my three units of Light cavalry on the far left flank of our army; probably unwisely so!

I destroyed rthe Brunswicj Hussars, but the Horse Guards were another matter altogether. I put some hurt on this Brunswick line infantry as well, but that meant that on their turn they would shoot back, which is just about as effective as a frontal cavalry charge. 

Note the lack of French Light Cavalry now, and the brooding masses of British cavalry arriving. It is Turn 4, and Napoleon has released the Guard Cavalry... and not a moment to soon, then Chasseurs a Cheval of the Imperial Guard can be seen moving up in support. 

Chris' British cavalry charge; The Legere unit took double hits; 8 dice, needing 3+ to hit. Not a pretty sight (at least if you were playing French, that is!). 

Red Lancers countercharge to Life Guards. With so much British cavalry around, most of my linen units form Square. Squares cannot be attacked in melee, but cannot move or fire, so they really lose all offensive power. In retrospect, it may not have been worthwhile. 

On the French right, Barry has taken Pappelotte, and is making progress against the Allied Left. 

Not looking good for my command (Reille).  I thought the Allies were the ones who formed square?!

Old Guard Infantry arrives to bolster the crumbling French Left! I got lucky when Kyle got really cold dice - 1 hit on 8 dice needing a 3+ to hit!

Meanwhile, Barry (D'Erlon and part Lobau) has destroyed Picton's entire command and is rolling up Hill's now, too. 

View from D'Erlon's starting positions. The "reluctance" of the DB cavalry to charge really handicapped them. Game ended turn 11, and at that point French had lost 11 units of 30 vs 19 of 29 for the Allies. With over 60% losses losses suffered by the Allies, Napoleon is victorious! "Give me night or give me Blucher!"

Thanks so much to Barry, Thomas, Kyle and Chris for playing! I had a blast!

Rules/Scenario Changes from Playtest

Game took about 3 hours to reach a conclusion. Therefore I am going reduce the hits taken by each unit by one across the board. That should see units eliminated faster.

Add Zone of Control (none for LI and Units in BUA's) and diagonal movement rules similar to those in To the Strongest!

Eliminate most of the special rules: the retreat from fire rule, Conscript, Steady, Impetuous, Reluctant and Shock attributes (In the end, they didn't really add much to the game, and some were often forgotten). KISS!

Change rules for Ney so that he simply acts as additional commander who may lead units of any command. 

Earlier release of  Guard Cavalry Turn 3 vs 4), Guard Infantry Infantry (Turn 6 vs 8)

Transfer one Line Infantry from D'Erlon to Reille; that will make all 3 French commands have 10 units each. 

Finally, perceiving the grid on the hills was sometimes difficult. I had planned on making custom ridge lines for the game, and even bought a new foam cutter to do it. Barry has been doing some terrain boards and had a nifty idea about using ceramic magnets to hold the components together. Barry explains "The magnets are from JoAnns fabric, I used a 3/4” speed bit to drill the holes in the foam insulation. The metal tabs were cut from thin sheet metal(from Home Depot or Lowe’s HVAC isle) and then I cut the area they are to go into with a utility knife.  Both magnet and metal plate were hot glued in place."

Sheet metal inset flush into the edge of the foam board

Magnet inset flush into the foam boar edge

Tools and supplies!

    However, I am planning to transfer the bulk of my Geohex terrain to another gamer who will pick them up at Historicon, and space in the car will be tight, so it makes sense to use the Geohex (prior to transfer) for this event at least. We had a variety of ideas for marking the grid, but I think I may just go with rocks on 1" bases, which I already use as casualty markers for other games. I may need to make some new ones, though. That is pretty quick to do, however. If I am happy with how the game goes such that I might run it again at other and/or future conventions, I may tackle some custom hill/ridge terrain for the 6" grid.