Finishing up the hex terrain today, I decided to lay out the battlefield on the table to see how it looked. I am pretty happy with the setup and, once I put the troops on, I really started to get excited about playing! In fact, I "might" have to play a quick game of "Hold the Line" in between now and the game on Sunday.
I will post a few "in action" pictures of building the various pieces for the game so you can get an idea of what went into the work.
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| A creek hex. Ken suggested that I leave the "water" flat. Oops too late but I think it turned out respectably. Later, I added a generous amount of gloss varnish to it on the finished hexes. |
Lots of work over the weekend and into today to get the hexes and terrain pieces finished. Over the weekend, the amount of hexes needed were laid out, basecoated, textured, caulked, and painted. The roads were dry-brushed using my standard basing colors. The river was painted yesterday as well and sealed with the varnish today.
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| Coming along, with many of the hexes in various stages of "done" |
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| The "mighty" Wissahickon Creek! |
Once finished with all of the road and creek hexes, I decided to lay everything out on my bright "Cigarbox" Mat. I thought I'd put the question to you all in the blog-o-sphere to see your thoughts. I have 2 x hexmats - one from Cigar which I don't like for the thickness of the hex lines, and one from TinyBattles in the UK, which has very subtle gridlines on it. (I was introduced to this company by Ken, who has a square gridded mat for "For King & Parliament" which I have to say was great fun.)
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| Germantown with the the Cigar Box Mat |
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| Germantown with the TinyBattles mat on it. |
My own opinion is that the latter option is much better and looks a bit more pleasing on the eyes. So I am 99% sure I'm going with the TinyBattles mat for the Germantown game.
So you know, once I had the field laid out, I HAD to put miniatures on it next! I dont know about you all, but it brings me so much joy to place my painted miniatures on the table and "pose" them in fighting poses for battle!
What follows are some gratuitous pictures of a good number of my AWI forces on the table, and ready for a brawl!
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| The British and Hessian lines. Most impressive! |
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| The American line - an imposing sight! Things are looking pretty lonely for those light pickets! |
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| My "quick and simple" Jaegers! I had to at least have ONE historical inaccuracy on the table! In case you missed the post, these were leftover Austrians with green jackets quickly painted on for service as Jaegers! Knyphausen looks on approvingly. |
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| Provincial Troops! |
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| Cornwallis and staff with the Grenadiers |
So that's it for now. Right now, our game planned will be a C&C "Tricorne" game - hardly "megagame" worthy like some of my past games but...2020! This Germantown scenario has about 30 units on the table and that in and of itself is a huge game for us lately! Hope you enjoyed the posts so far. If I can manage it, I'll put up the mega game post on Sunday evening.
All looking great, Steve!
ReplyDeleteThe new river tiles look great Steve and the TinyBattles mat gets my vote. The posed pictures are very nice and reminds of being a kid when we set up out toys on the table, often without then having the time for a game!
ReplyDeleteThank you Steve! I would do the same as a kid, and spend many hours setting up battles on the dining room table!
DeleteIf it were down to aesthetics I’d go Tiny Battles, but the Cigar Box seems more practical and shows up better on your photos. Not that I’m awkward or anything 😆.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jeffers, theres always one!😂
DeleteI really like the Cigar Box lighter grassland mats as I think the minis show up better. I dont like the huge hex lines though!!
The Cigar Box mat looks a lot clearer in the photos, which could be important if you’re playing on line. I think the Tiny Battles mat looks better from a ‘realism’ point of view if it’d a F2F game. Cigar box looks a bit more like a board game board. Nowt wrong with board games, but if you’ve gone to the trouble of beautifullly painting and basing miniatures, a less ‘boardy’ looking mat is a better fit in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point about the board game aspect. I hadn't thought of that!
DeleteTiny Battles mat all the way! One thought: As an experiment, perhaps photocopy a segment of the Tiny battle mat, cut out a hex or two from the copy, mount it/them atop an mdf hex, and apply the road 'paste' atop that. That'd help make the road blend in more with the background of the mat.
ReplyDeleteAgreed sir, a so, an ingenious idea to photocopy the mat and apply to the hexes!! At this point though, with the battle 5 days away I dont know if I could pull it off!!!
DeleteGreat stuff ..... nothing like a clock ticking down to put some excitement (and pressure) into terrain building.
ReplyDeleteThe Tiny Battles mat looks a good choice and since movement rates and weapons ranges are fairly contained, the ‘obvious’ hexing of the Cigar Box mat is not really adding much, in the way that it would for a modern tank battle etc.
I see you are using small dice to divide the centre / flanks. A few years ago at a show, I saw gamers doing a 3D Memoire ‘44 game and they divided their board into three by using two lengths of wool, pulled taught and pinned under the table edge, so that it remained taught. I though that was a useful visual in which nothing was ever in doubt.
Enjoy your game and have a great day.
Thanks Norm, after setting up the layout for the game I'm getting excited to play it!
DeleteThe dice were a field expedient method to divide the sections. I need to think more on your suggestion - it sounds very practical.
Looks excellent sir Good luck with the game.
ReplyDeleteThe Tinybattles mat would be the one I would go with.
Units look fantastic!
Thanks Darren! Yes, I'm really looking forward to the game!
DeleteThat looks brilliant. I really liked the way that this post went from, 'here is my rough, first pass of a river hex' to 'ta-da' a fabulous table filled with beautiful figures!
ReplyDeleteRegards, James
Thanks James! That was kind of my thought to show a progression of how the terrain build went. I'm still working on the houses.
DeleteTable looks great, and I agree the aesthetics of the Tiny battles matt are superior, but I'd use the Cigar box one if it was a remote game.
ReplyDeleteI think we all get a charge out of setting up the table, and then laying down the troops. "The stage is set..." and all that!
Yep there is something appealing about a table full of minis ready for battle!
DeleteThat looks really great Steve! Very best wishes for a great Christmas with your family, and I hope you are all happy and well.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much, Paul! We ste all good here. Same to you and yours - it's great to hear from you!
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