I’m going camping on the beach this weekend and think I’ll
have some time for a series of games. v1.6
seems stable enough that I could probably manage a small campaign over the course
of a camping weekend. I’ve got a red
army and a blue army somewhat painted.
Each features 4 regular infantry, 2 cavalry, 2 artillery, 2 dragoon, and
2 irregular units with 4 militia units unassigned to any particular army. The dragoons, irregulars, and militia are in
various states of paint, with some being near completion and others mostly
primer gray.
I have also been busy on the terrain front. I have digitally designed and printed
prototypes for hills, forest, forested hills, 3 types of built-up-areas, a road
system, a river system, and the fords/bridges to make the two work
together. Unfortunately, my 3d printer
had a malfunction that caused a part to fail.
The part is relatively cheap on its own, but my printer is a few years
old, and the newer models can get very good quality at a lower price. I have convinced myself that if I could sell
my existing printer at a reasonable price, I would buy a new printer. The new printer should be less likely to
nickel and dime me on repairs like my current printer does. I’ve been attempting to sell my printer, but
there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for used printers in my area. I’m also somewhat concerned that I’m going to
lose my printing space in a few months.
Against my better judgement, and ignoring previous
experience, I purchased a small piece of green duck cloth and am in the process
of sewing the edges to prevent unraveling.
After that is complete I will be marking the corners of the hexes with a
permanent marker. Hopefully there will
be enough contrast to make the hexagon pattern easily visible. I had previously used a large sheet of paper
and marked the corners with a pencil, but have decided I’m ready for something
a little more permanent. We’ll see if it
turns out better than my last experiment.
Click “Hex Grid Failure” if you want to read about that debacle.
Hi Ryan -
ReplyDeleteThis posting is recent enough for me to be reasonably confident you'll get to read this comment. Somehow you blog spot has snuck beneath my radar for the last couple of months. Possibly this is partly due to loss of vision owing to the onset of cataracts - the screen was getting bally difficult to read. Well, one eye op later, and I can read again.
I thought I would make my comments on previous postings here.
1. Uniforms. Great! Simple, elegant and easily distinguished. Do you plan differencing between units at all? Probably don't need to.
2. It is tempting to bonus artillery (or troops in general really) uphill of their targets. My own reading of history indicates that being uphill had a good effect on morale, but its effect on firepower was generally the reverse. I can think of several examples from the Napoleonic and American Civil War. I would consider giving charging - or counter-charging - cavalry an uphill bonus for gentle slopes only.
3. I'd suggest persevering with your rule set in its current form for a couple more battles - at least until it is very clear that a change is required. In developing my own games, I have often thought a tweak was indicated until reminding myself that the vagaries of the dice in a single game might have left a distorted impression.
4. On naming the countries. For my late 19th Imagi-Nations, I decided to stay with the RED vs BLUE paradigm, but gave my countries names based upon colours: Ruberia (RED) vs Azuria (BLUE). When needing a substitute BLUE, I lucked upon Turkowaz (TURQUOISE), using the same figures to represent a vaguely Ottoman army. Grauheim and Porphyria are a couple of 'hidden character' nations that might at some time reveal themselves. I mention this as a suggestion that you might come up with a similar scheme.