Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Dice, Slice, computer Mice... and something Nice at a good Price!

I have a quite full wargames project schedule from now until; Historicon 20156 in mid July. We're in the final stages of preparation for our big Snappy Nappy Waterloo "Campaign in a Day" on Sunday, April 26th. I also set and submitted my Historicon games schedule... which is probably more than a bit too aggressive!.As it stands, I'll be running Ligny with Filed of Battle 2nd edition Thursday evening and again Friday AM. Friday afternoon I'll be running a Napoleonic game with Bob Jones' new "Die Fighting II" rules. Friday evening Ken Baggaley and I will be running a "Chariot Wars" era game with my New Kingdom Egyptians vs. his Canaanites, and repeating it Saturday AM. Once we will use Pulse of Battle and once Archon, 2nd edition). Saturday night I'll run La Bicocca 1522 with my own Hostile Realms rules (all rules by Piquet, Inc). In between I hope to look in on the 2-3 Russian Civil War battles Jared will be running with Field of Battle 2nd edition, as well as some Punic Wars games that Jeff Grein is planning, perhaps including one each with Archon 2 and Pulse of Battle as well. The good news - I'll be so busy that I am not likely to buy much while I am there!  Meantime, I have another 200 Prussians to paint in 3 months, along with a small (6 figures) contingent of Marins de la Garde!


So the here's the "Dice" part of the post title - 200 red "resource" dice, 50 each green and yellow "free" and "command" dice respectively, and a dozen "black dice", all courtesy of Amazon.com, and needed for my Die Fighting II event.


Next is part of the "Slice" part of today's title. The tables for the Snappy Nappy event have a lot of "minor roads", and we needed a way to make a lot of them quickly and cheaply. Everyone who is doing up some tables will do it a bit differently, but I got two rolls of 7/8" wide x 67 yards long heavy cloth ribbon in a golden yellow color for about #$.50 each at the fabric store. I cut them with a carpet knife into 6 foot long sections, and spay painted them a "Terracotta" color, followed by a dusting of off white "Ivory" spray paint. They should do the job, I think. 


I also need yet *another* wargames table cloth, so while I was at the fabric store I checked out their felt. They had this nice orange-brown heather type 6 foot wide felt - the color on the back of the felt can be seen above. I then took advantage of the (finally!) warm, sunny weather and light breeze yesterday to use my collection of spray paints on it, using light ivory, medium brown, pale yellow, dark green, and light green cans in multiple passes to achieve the desired effect. I also have some 8 x 12" blue felt sheets that I'll cut up into strips for the many rivers that mark the edges of many tables.


I've definitely been spending a lot of time manipulating my computer Mice - the Waterloo Campaign in a Day will use eleven 4 x 6 foot tables, and each table needs a map such as the above (drawn in MS Paint), and then the individual maps have to work together so the roads, etc all more or less line up. Fun but very time consuming!



 I decided that the table for Ligny needed at least one windmill if not two, and after looking around I have decided to scratch build them myself... cheaper and probably better looking than the limited choices out there in 25mm. I'm going to use the general design above. (from: https://wargamingraft.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/building-a-windmill-in-15mm/)



The background here is more of the "slice" - a sheet of white 1/4" thick foam board, some 7/8" dowel, and some 1/2" square balsa wood that I got at the local Michael's craft store. I of course browsed the other merchandise available there, and found these two towers, allegedly for use as Birdhouses. To me, they immediately suggested the kind of "Zigurat" towers that might have formed part of the walls of cities of the ancient middle East. A gateway can easily be made out of foam board to link them, forming a nice backdrop for a Chariot Wars era game. 


The same Terracotta color that I used on the roads was spay painted onto the wooden structures ( 4" a side at the base, and just under 8" tall, and made out of light pine wood) as base coat. It shouldn't take long to paint the "stones" a light tan or off white color, possibly with some decorative features as well. The brown will show between the stones. The towers are indeed very "Nice",  I think - and at less than $5 each, they were definitely had for the "good Price"!

Well, that's it in a Thrice! It seems that rhyming has become my new Vice...

15 comments:

  1. You've had a very crafty time recently. The towers are a find, I am one table done and another to start today....and it is only Tuesday so all three should be done in time.

    I take it Liege is table 11?

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    1. Good work on the table set ups for the Big Day! Liege is one of the maps - it's not hard to see where it would fit in general terms from the Master Theater Map (Belgium).

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  2. Excellent! You are a crafty gamer! There is much on your plate but I am certain you will pull it all off splendidly. That windmill is a very handsome model.

    Is Die fighting II a "boxes of dice" game?

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    1. Yes, hopefully my versions of the Windmill will come out nearly as well!

      DF2 - not in the sense that you're talking about, Jon. You don't (usually) roll huge numbers of dice, but you do "consume" the red dice as they are used. Each action you takje costs you 1 or two red dice (your cholice), plus free "green dice" (essentially being the tactical modifiers), plus (possibly) zero to 5 yellow command dice - the yellow dice are replenished once a turn, and once they're used for that turn there are no more until they are restored - see the Die Fighting label at the side for much more DF/DF2 info.

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  3. Thanks; I thought they looked suitably "Ancient Near Eastern"!

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  4. I count at least 6 games on that list to sign up for!

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    1. That's encouraging to hear, Tim! If all goes as planned, we shoukld have a record Piquet/FoB/HR showing for games at Huistoricon this year. I'm still hoping we can convince Eric to run a 7YW game, or Vauban's Wars game there this year, too!

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  5. Looks interesting. I too have been wondering about Windmills. Agreed the commerical options seem limited!

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  6. Great to see it all coming together Peter. I always think there is something exciting about seeing such a large quantity of dice together, even if most are used as markers or counters as you say. I suppose it just shouts out "game on" or something similar to me.

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    1. Collecting dice is another side aspect of our hobby at times, isn't it?

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  7. Oh nice towers! You've given me three great ideas! My green felt "woods" areas look very plain should I try the colours you mentioned above? Never thought of making a windmill! Will have a look at the local pet store for gold fish one first.

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    1. You could try a similar range of colors sprayed on - if you don't like the effect, you can flip them back to their "pristine" side. I searched on line for aquarium windmills for quite some time - didn't see any I really liked, and many were fairly expensive especially when shipping was added. Good luck exploring, though!

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    2. Thanks for the suggestion Gonsalvo!

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