Some of my naval wargaming readers may be interested in this professional Wargames news story which I picked up through Twitter and on BBC local radio in the Southwest UK.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 19 December 2019
A few Twitter pics of hexes and the tactical board game instructions:
Some more photos and videos can be seen here:
As it is fast approaching Christmas, there is lots of wrapping and dispatching of parcels in our house at the moment.
I noticed on this Sainsbury’s brown wrapping paper with festive shiny red dots that they have a handy small square grid marked on the back to help with tidy cutting and wrapping.
Like most gamers, my brain instantly thought of gaming applications. I quickly wrapped a spare piece around the backing part of a redundant picture frame – one instant portable game board.
I had put this wooden picture frame aside for future game board use, when its glass broke long ago (Reuse Reduce Recycle etc.) It still has the string on the back, so I can hang this board out of the way somewhere on a spare wall when not in use.
I tried the grid board out with the nearest figures to hand, some of my recent Poundland 36mm colonial plastic conversions https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/poundland-desert-warriors-finished
Marking out grid lines on the game board can be tedious and intrusive. These wrapping paper lines are very faint and instant!
With two sides to the frame backing board it would be possible to use either side for game play or more tediously reverse the frame backing board each time. Undoing of the tiny metal clips is fiddly and not a long term solution.
Changing the hanging strap arrangement (D-rings to the side, string with some kind of clips?) would help in making a two sided game board more flexible.
This would allow the same board to be easily used on either of the two sides for two different grid sizes, different terrain habitats or flexible grid sizes.
If I decide to keep this paper grid long term, I will think about pasting the paper down as wrinkle free as possible (possibly with spray mount?) and a coat of varnish to probably help keep it neat. I shall test out on a spare scrap of this wrapping paper to see if some light watercolour terrain patches cause any wrinkling.
I tried the hex board out with some smaller vintage 15mm Peter Laing figures, smaller figures suit the hexes even better.
Obviously such a square grid could feature small size squares or larger squares made of four small size squares.
When I get tired of this grid paper, I can paint over what was before and mark up a fresh new grid board for quick skirmish games.
This gives me a variety of sized hex and square portable game boards, without any carpentry at all! You can see more of them on various of my blog posts including:
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/192-hexes-of-joy-a-larger-hex-game-board/
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/my-portable-hex-games-board/
Grid Based Wargaming
Lots of interesting discussion of grid based wargaming, both hex and square, on the gaming web including these three excellent blogs:
http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/
Author of The Portable Wargame blog and book, Bob Cordery’s Wargaming Miscellany blog features links to his other blogs including The Portable Wargame!
http://gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/
http://archdukepiccolo.blogspot.co.uk/
Both Peter at Grid Based Wargaming and Bob Cordery sometimes use 15mm Peter Laing figures on their grid based portable games, making them even more worth looking at!
As for Christmas, I have some Peter Laing 15mm figures to look forward to, already wrapped and packed away, embargoed throughout the last few months until Christmas Day. Something to share on the blog in the New Gaming Year of 2018.
Happy wrapping. Happy gaming to all my blog readers.
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 8 December 2017
As I mentioned in my reply to a blog comment by David Bradley, I completely forgot to put the measurements on the blog post about my 192 Hexes of Joy game board.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/01/192-hexes-of-joy-a-larger-hex-game-board/
This is partly because the game board was a “take it as found”, scrounged before skipped notice board, rather than a purchased or commercial notice board as I think Bob Cordery used. Bob may have put his board dimensions on his post.
Recent Heroscape hex-periment blogposts
I have been intrigued and quite curious to see how Bob Cordery will incorporate these into his Portable Wargame set up. I enjoyed his stylish and smart coastlines, well worth looking at these on his blog:
http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/messing-about-with-my-heroscape-terrain.html
Certainly a good miniature match for his Hexon coasts:
http://bobscolonialwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/clearing-nest-of-sea-rats.html
along with Bob’s experiments in painting or not painting, flocking or not flocking.
http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/to-paint-andor-flock-or-not-to-paint.html
and Bob’s trial of which shade of green is best for your Heroscape hex gameboard. http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/some-more-not-quite-forty-shades-of.html
I know that John Patriquin the Wargame Hermit blogger in the USA also uses a board of Heroscape hexes, all sprayed uniform green http://wargamehermit.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/two-experimental-wargames.html
Hex-bashing
The Heroscape hexes are versatile enough that you can flock them, paint them or plant a tree on them.
The Heroscapers gallery section on terrain https://www.heroscapers.com/ has some interesting ways of building walls, hedges, fences and walls of buildings around the outside of the hexes so that you can place figures inside. Something to try perhaps for a French-Indian War or Civil War stockade fort section.
Bob Cordery measures Heroscape hex tiles at about 4cm across, but add the locking bits and I reckon that this is almost 4.5cms.
So the ‘seven hex’ almost snowflake pattern plates in my recent post about Peter Laing and Base Overhang are about 13.5 / 14 cms across at their three hex widest point on any side.
Heroscape Hexes also come in ones, twos, threes, snowflake sevens and 24s giving a variety of possible 3D or 2D shaped terrains.
The eight large plates of 24 Hexes (which that fit onto my board to make the 192 hexes of Joy) are the standard Heroscape large base plate. These are about 6 Hexes wide or for each plate 24 cms at widest, 6 hexes long about 27 cms longest edge. 2 of these combine however to make a rough rectangle of only 38 cms long, as seen making up a quarter each of my hex base board (above top).
My big 192 Hex board (an old possibly handmade but disused noticeboard) is around 79/80 cms long and 54/55 cms wide. This includes 2cms of trim at each end – effectively the trim and painted wooden gap round the edge are about 3-4cms wide, almost one hex wide.
My smaller portable game boards are two wooden box lids of 54 Hexes each. These are used as bought / found, being no carpenter, bring 40cms long, 30 cms wide including 1cm lip (3cms deep) around each side. There is some wasted space around the hex edge to box lip which I infill with AstroTurf strips for rough grass scrub. Together they make up a board of 108 Hexes, good for small fast games.
Together they would make up 300 Hexes of Joy!
I have yet to put all three hex boards alongside each other, mainly as I don’t yet have a table quite big enough. I have no games room so the smaller boards have the advantage that they can be lifted off a table and put on a shelf if things like meals claim the table. The bigger board after gaming when stripped back to the 8 interlocking big hex base plates can be stowed away easily enough or even hung on the wall as modern art.
Heroscape tiles by Hasbro / MB are currently long out of production but the starter Master Sets are fairly cheaply available on UK eBay (usually the first Master Set called Rise of the Valkyries) and with more variety on American eBay including the Superhero variants.
On Amazon pricing is bizarre – complete Heroscape new starter sets and sequels are in the £200 to £300 plus region!
However on EBay you currently pay anything from £20 for just the completist set of hex tiles through to £50-60 for a used slightly bashed starter set; Some people split sets and sell components. Beware that you can pay a lot of money on some sites for individual specialist tiles, trees, mountain sections etc. More about these sets and web links on
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/heroscape-duelling-in-the-garden/
These master starter sets contain 85 interlocking tile sections, made up of:
8 x 24 tiles, enough for the base of my board of 192 Hexes of Joy!
and then the interesting extras that give the 3D-ness:
2 ruin corners, which need a bit of work like upper floors to make them useful
10 x triple hexes (like a triangle),
10 ‘snowflake’ seven Hexes,
10 double hexes,
26 single hexes
21 fairly flimsy thin blue water tiles.
These hexes are in a variety of colours: sand, grey rock, green grass.
Oh and 30 bizarre painted fantasy figures (see previous blogposts) https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/heroscape-duelling-figures/
Further ideas or alternatives
Lots of terrain and hex modification ideas at the gallery at the Heroscapers.com fan forum https://www.heroscapers.com/community/gallery/browseimages.php?do=browseimages&c=9
I have never bought the Hexon 10cm hex system that many other gamers like Bob Cordery also use for their games. I get the feeling from other blogs that it is quite expensive but you may prefer the look, size and flexibility. Each to their happy own!
I generally want smaller hexes in a smaller cluttered playing area for skirmish games like Donald Featherstone’s ‘Close Wars’ (appendix to his 1962 book Wargames) so the 4/4.5 cm hexes suit me from 15mm and 20mm through to 40mm figures. It might even stretch to 54mm figures on the usual 2p bases for very small skirmishes or duels.
The Hexon website for those who want to check these out is: https://www.kallistra.co.uk/index.php?page=37#anchor262386
Wishing you joy of your hex, whatever size.
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN blog, 16 August 2017
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