You may recall that before Christmas I bought some gasket rubber to try as a base for terrain. So one of the things I decided I should get on with was some additional terrain using this. I have now completed some river sections and I'm very happy with the results. The rubber cuts easily with scissors and the final pieces retain some flexibility. The technique I used is simple as well. A layer of sand glued to the edges creates a textured river bank and the rest is just a matter of painting which makes them fast to complete. As a new item I made a spring area/river source piece for the ECW game I promised before Christmas. Well I didn't have one and stupidly I have written terrain rules where a river can start on the table!
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| The new river sections (the ones with the trees) |
Having created the terrain I actually also got around to setting out the table for the game and started placing troops. I quickly realised that I may have overreached myself as I need a lot more cavalry than I actually have. I mean a LOT more! Plus the table isn't big enough, the deployment zone isn't large enough for the troop deployments as sketched out, so neither side can fully deploy their lines. So rather like the New Model Army at Naseby the head of the column of march gets to deploy as intended but the tail is crammed in. Some redeployment will be allowed under the scouting rules but for Parliament the priority is re-siting the guns so they are not masked by the hill in the centre. I'm already facing problems that seem all too familiar from reading accounts of 17th Century battles. I forgot who said it of the planned Royalist deployment at Marston Moor, when shown the sketch "it is all very well, but there is no such thing in the field" or something very similar. I will put an order into Irregular Miniatures in the next few days and until then I have made up some 2D bases to cover the shortfall.
The table will stay as it is after all ground is immutable a commander has to deal with the hand geography deals him! Although I am of the view that no sane commander would have fought on the table the rules came up with. For testing purposes I am going to leave it as it stands but going forward I need to add a option for players to move or remove terrain and possibly to add terrain. At the moment I'm thinking of using the numbered playing cards (2 -10 only as the ace is already being used) for this in some way. Probably to show how many squares the terrain can be displaced by.
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| The field of battle using a 6 x 4 foot table. The tape shows the depth of the deployment area |
Details of the forces, deployment map and the table are in earlier posts here....if anyone would like to offer suggestions for a tactical plan for either side please do so.
It feels good to have some toys back on a table!
Lol. I didn’t come across this problem with my 2mm forces. What scale are you using?
ReplyDeleteYes I'm using 2mm castings but in large units. Because the ground and figure scales are almost identical at 1mm to the yard (All my chaps are strapping six footers) the units are using a base footprint which matches the actual unit footprint at order for shot and close order for pike. This gives a longer frontage to depth relationship for units then is normal for wargame rules. Hence the problem. On the plus side I know understand why battalia were broken down into groups of around six files as semi independent 'combat teams' it was the easiest way to maintain control when the human voice is is used for local transmission of orders with drums coordinating the full battalia. Wait for the next post to see the actual units on the table.
DeleteIt sounds like you’re going for a 1:1 troop scale (if my maths is right). I bet that looks great.
DeleteBy the way, the river pieces look superb.
Got it in one Nundanket.
DeleteNothing like getting figures onto the tabletop !
ReplyDelete