How Heroscape Hexes Measure Up

 

Eight of these big 24 Heroscape Hex baseplates make up my fixed 192 Hexes of Joy game board.

 

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/

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/192-hexes-of-joy-affronted-by-re-basing-and-ground-scales/

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.

Standard desert hexes (centre) alongside my painted “desert pinky” grey hexes (left),  flocked sand and green hexes and impassable forest tree Heroscape hex experiments. I shall have to try palm trees next! 

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.

A single Heroscape hex at 4/4.5 cm across shown with 2 bashed old Peter Laing WW2 British infantrymen – a single hex can fit 4  15mm Peter Laing or 20mm Airfix bases comfortably enough.

 

Bob Cordery measures Heroscape hex tiles at about 4cm across, but add the locking bits and I reckon that this is almost 4.5cms.

 

‘Snowflake’ Seven Heroscape hex piece with 15mm Peter Laing artillery.

 

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.

Twin or double hex pieces and triple hex pieces in the range of standard Heroscape colours of green, sand and grey stone. 

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).

 

192 Hexes of desert joy in 3D mode from my recent Blowing up Desert Trains scenario. 

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!

My recent ACW railway bridge crossing scenario based on my two portable game boards in box lids – 54 hexes each.

 

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:

15mm Peter Laing priest and his flock on a single hex, flocked preaching mound next to the abbey remains (Heroscape ruin) 

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

 

Waterproof Garden Games Terrain?

Tipped off by some blogposts about the delights of the “Home Aquarium” section of pet stores and garden centres, I recently popped into a Pets at Home branch and spotted a 3 for 2 offer (buy 3 get cheapest free).

I didn’t tell the checkout lady the truth when she asked about my non-existent fish and tank, that these weren’t destined for underwater fish usage but for the gaming table or out in the garden / yarden for gaming.

This offer and their reasonable asking price (6 pieces of terrain for around £30) made affordable what I think are sometimes overpriced pieces of potential games terrain. I understand  that it is not cheap to produce these if it has to be a certain type of safe resin and safe paint to protect the fish from chemical harm.

The underwater Ewok village tree houses become a mysterious Asian jungle village and temple with the addition of some 20mm or OO/HO Airfix Gurkhas.

Even bigger jungle tree house using 15mm Japanese Samurai figure (unknown maker,  from a job lot).

Some features like the old fishing boat seems Chinese or Japanese.

35mm Heroscape Samurai figure in the Old Fishing Boat.

 

What I like about many of these generic buildings or features  are their versatile uses. They could equally grace a garden game and stay out in the rain  or appear on a games table.

Rope bridge with Heroscape Samurai 35mm figures and hex tiles.

With some imagination, the rope bridge could be a vital but damaged rail bridge with a narrow piece of rail track across it. It could be in Southeast Asian Jungle or the Amazon, Darkest Africa or the Wild West. It could be built in many time zones. It works across different scales or sizes of figures.

Front and back of the tree houses and front view of the four faced jungle temple.

Similarly the tree houses could be on Fantasy or alien planets, or in Darkest Africa or Asia in a Colonial campaign.

Exploring the abandoned temple village:  “I don’t like it, Sergeant. It’s quiet. Too quiet …” Peter Laing 15mm Colonial British infantry.

All good Indiana Jones stuff.

A little bit of cutting and glueing work to put some balsa wood floors into the buildings should make them even more versatile. The cluttered temple floor might need some clearing or building up to be able put more figures inside.

Airfix OO/HO Roman Archer (painted by me in the early 1980s) and the back wall of the Temple.

Once again 15mm Peter Laing figures seems to suit these buildings quite well, as well as Airfix OO/HO.

More precious and now fragile Airfix OO/HO Romans which I painted with paper shields to replace those lost, as these were sometimes scarce figures in the 1980s.

A surprise awaits these Airfix Germans pausing at this ruined Temple outcrop, somewhere in the Med, North Africa or Italy. Good rocky desert camouflage for these Airfix vehicles and the lovely original 1960s German and British 8th Army figures (version 1)

I was quite intrigued setting up future game scenarios how helpfully  camouflaged or painted the temple is for example when used with WW2 figures.  I haven’t done matt grunge khaki camo painting for over twenty years but I found a few things in  my surviving box of battered  Airfix vehicles.

These were painted up in the early 1980s for Donald Featherstone WW2 rules  (War Games 1962) and go quite well with these North Africa / Med / Middle East / Italy temple ruins. About time these had an airing on the games table with whatever I have left. WW2 Vehicle and camouflage scheme purists look away now!

 

 

Camouflaged Sherman Tank (one of the useful sturdy Polythene premade type) and Airfix German and British Eighth Army infantry figures (1960s first  version). 

Image colour faded to match the desert scenery and camouflage tones.  Battered German Airfix Tiger tank and Hanomag half track amongst the Temple ruins.

With my small  WW2 15mm Peter Laing force I can stage a few skirmishes. I have  A few spare German WW1 steel helmet infantry to  be painted up in Afrika Korps / desert camouflage to take on my WW2 British infantry.

Peter Laing 15mm German WW1 steel helmet infantry in Desert camouflage.

These six aquarium buildings cost (after 3 for 2 discount) only around  £30 in total but they offer lots of interesting possibilities for scenarios in many time periods and scales.

Great fun for last weekend’s garden game.

 

Yes that rope bridge is upside down – our quick weekend game in the garde using the aquarium buildings and Heroscape hex tiles and figures.

They certainly proved quick and fun terrain pieces in my recent weekend family game https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/heroscape-duelling-in-the-garden/

The Drowned World

Ever since gazing into those childhood fish tanks, I have long had  a bit of a fascination with the kitsch nature of aquarium ornaments. There is something suitably Gothic, melancholy, Romantic  (and Bronteish), out of reach or  abandoned about these drowned ruins and wrecks. In many cases it’s the plain surreal weirdness and lack of taste in some of the designs, they truly  are the garden gnomes of the aquarium world in their “love them or hate them” colourful and kitsch nature.

My long lasting aquarium castle on the contested rockery battleground in a garden game last year 2016.

I have had one aquarium piece for years, a ruined castle frontage which was free or unwanted from a bundle of aquarium stuff that someone brought into work. It has  moved from house to house or garden to garden with me over many years.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN 24 June 2017.