Last Night at the Club

 

Last Monday night at the club Tom ran a 100 Years War game using 10mm miniatures from Tony and Greg's collections.

We refought the Battle of Poitiers - with Greg and I taking the French and Tony and Ed the British.  The French forces outnumbered the english by almost 2:1 but our commander was rated as "buffoon" which ummm limited out choices!

It was a great game and pretty close run affair but history repeated itself and the English won the day.  These 10mm medieval armies are superb and very tempting....

Stalingrad Project: Third Test Game

Last night up at the club, I we ran a third test game for Stalingrad.  For a change we used the Southern end of the board so this was the first time that section has seen in "action".  This first picture is taken from the Western (German) edge.  

A second shot looking on from the Volga river bank.  The overall table is 17 columns of 18 hexes each.  It took less than 30 minutes to set up - putting the hex column and row #'s on the back of the hexes really proved useful.  I realize that seems like a very silly detail to remark about but this game is designed to travel to conventions so set up complexity and timing are important factors.

The full table if 30 columns by 18 rows!

We had a light turn out so only two players for me to torture with my draft rules.  Both Greg and Ed were very gracious in letting me continue my self delusion that I am a rules writer.  

Artillery lands from both sides and causes havoc.  The artillery rules seems to work well. It pretty devastating when it lands!

We managed to get five turns in - the forces I laid out were likely to big to be handled by only two players

Greg's grenadiers launch a two platoon assault supported by a pair of Panzer II's.  The cleared out the building.

The Univermag Department store is very strongly defended by a Guards Rifle platoon plus a heavy machine gun section.

I tested some new aspects of the rules, some of which worked, some of which not so much.

Stuff that worked:

Command Cards:

The turn sequence is based on players alternating activating platoons.  I made up a deck of command cards for each side.  It proved to be very useful to keep track of who's moved what and each card had a minot special ability that a player could elect to use instead of moving a platoon.  They were limited to one special ability per turn.  I'll do a future post on the cards but it seemed to work really well.  The trick will be to refine the "special abilities" to be usefull and fun but not too powerful that they determine who wins.

Removal of the Auto Rally Phase:

Previous games had a separate rally phase were every unit that was either Shaken or Routed would roll to rally - that proved to be too effective.  Now, the only way to Rally is when the platoon activates so it cut down the rally rolls by half.

Game Pace: 

We only got in 5 turns over 2.5 hours but these were very big forces for two players to control and they were playing with new rules.  Each side had 14-15 maneuver platoons between their 3 infantry companies and support elements.  Urban environment terrain is also very complex with all of the line of sight checks so running 30 minutes per turn felt OK - I think it can get down to 20 minutes with some rules refinements and a lower unit "work-load" per player.  Most participation games run in a 4 hour time slot, of which the first 30 minutes are dedicated to introductions and a rules overview so you get roughly 3.5 hours of play time.  If I get it to 20 minutes a turn that will allow for 10-11 turns which should be plenty.  

Stuff that needs to be improved:

Movement: 

Currently Infantry has 4 Movement Points per turn and the terrain is pretty simple - 1MP for a clear / road hex, 2 MPs for a building / rubble.  The table is 18 hexes deep so it will take 5 - 6 turns to traverse without interference from the enemy.  I think I need to bump Infantry movement up to 6 MPs/turn and make corresponding adjustments for vehicles.  Games need to have a sense of movement to keep the pace up.

Close Assault Mechanics:

The current draft rules only allows units to mount a close assault (move into a defenders hex) if they start their activation adjacent to the target hex.  That is proving cumbersome and there are already rules for overwatch fire as units move.  I'm thinking of adding a feature to allow units to mount a "Hasty Assault" while moving or a "Deliberate Assault" is they start in an adjacent hex.  The deliberate assault would get some form of attack benefit which I need to figure out.  To be honest, this is a suggestion from Greg but I am more than happy to take credit for it.

Defensive Saves:

Fire combat is pretty simple - the attacker rolls a pool of D6 "Fire Power Dice" based on the type of units that are attacking and every 4+ is a hit, the defender rolls saves on those hits, with the 5+ base save augmented by terrain and entrenchment.  Their is an ability to stack these modifiers so defenders dave on anything but a "1" - I think I need to back that off to make any 1 or 2 rolled on a save a fail.  Ed played the Soviets and he is a natural burrower and dug in any chance he could get.  Ed is a very thematically correct Soviet player.  This one will require some thinking, which as you can surmise from my tortured prose is not something I'm all that good at.

I really do want to thank Ed and Greg again for being lab rats for my little passion project.  They are both very experienced gamers and provide great feedback and did so in a way that didn't make me cry (that much).  This  game is getting close to being "convention ready" and now all I'll need are some conventions!

LaSalle 2

Tuesday afternoon presented a rare opportunity to game up at the club and Greg ran a game of new version of Lasalle with his 15mm figures.  We refought the Battle of Elchingen, with Steve commanding the French as Ney and me playing the Austrians as Riesch.  Greg adapted a scenario from the Age of Eagles ruleset.  This was the first time Steve and I have played the new version of LaSalle.  I I did play test an earlier version but the one that made it to print is very different.

Steve's French troops are of superior quality but must deploy from a bridgehead and then attack my plucky Austrians are setup along a ridge.  Like most games, I forgot to take a lot of pictures but history did not repeat itself.  My Austians were able to launch an attack on the French's left flanks just as they were launching their attack on my center - the French attack had trouble breaking my lines and got stuck in while my flanking attack was very successful catching some infantry battalion in square.  By mid-game the entire French left was in tatters and Steve elected to concede the field.  The Austrian victory was due more to our newness with the rules and the fact the scenario needs to be tweaked a bit more to make it more balanced.

So is LaSalle 2 Any Good?

I am intrigued with the rules, and definitely want to play them again but there are some good and really confusing aspects to them.

Good Stuff:

Sequence of Play

The turn structure is very fluid and your opponent can interrupt your turn based on your actions when your armies get close in.  I really like the structure and think it provides for a very fluid game with lots of hard tradeoffs.

Momentum Points / Command Friction

Each player is given a set number of momentum points based on force size and a minor random factor if you choose to commit your general and get a d3 roll of extra points.    The points are based on the number of brigades that are deployed on the table so it goes up or down based on reinforcements / losses.

Fire Combat

Artillery and musket fire use the same procedure that is simple and fun - you roll a d6 and every 4+ is a hit.  There is a second save roll for hits, with higher quality troops saving on a 1-4 and average quality 1-3.  An infantry battalion in line fires with 6 dice and an artillery battery fires with 4, which is double to 8 when in canister range.  There are optional rules to add flavor, so you anglophiles get one or two extra dive for the Brits.

Small Units

Infantry and calvary units consist of 4 bases - that make moving stuff really easy and for those of us from the church of six bases per battalion means our armies just grew by 50%.  You still get the grans look of a Napoleonic game but moving stuff is a lot easier - also 50% easier!

Confusing Stuff:

I haven't played enough to label anything as bad so will list out the "confusing" issues I have with the rules.

Melee Combat is Deadly - maybe too much

The close assault procedure is an opposed dice role where each player rolls a d6 and adds their current strength plus any modifiers for defensive terrain or formation (all of which are plus 1's) - so 2 full strength battalions running into one another have a strength of 6 which you add the roll of a D6.  If you loose the combat by 3 or more your battalion is destroyed and removed from the game.  Rolling a few "1's" at the wrong time can loose the game for you.

Skirmish Fire / Initiative Determination

Initiative is determined by each player rolling some D6 based on the units you have on the table, with every six counting as a success.   The player who rolls the most 6's gets the initiative for the turn and can decide who goes first.  You also get an extra momentum point.  Sounds great right?  Oh I should mention that the number of D6 you roll is based on the battalions you have on the field.  I had 6 Austrian brigades and about 22 infantry battalion (+/-) and was rolling 45 D6 each turn which was really tedious.  I understand the math behind rolling lots of dice as it evens out the chance for really random outcomes - like rolling a 1 vs a 6 in melee combat but the giant bucket of dice used here seems a bit of overkill 

Limited Role for Commanders

While we played with the basic rules, there didn't seem to be any of the Napoleonic flavor I expect from commanders - generals aren't really used expect to either add D3 of momentum points or you can plop them down once during a turn and perform a global formation change for any units within a set range.  That's it - that's all they do.  You also only have one per side - no St Cyr or Friants to help out in a nick of time.  Maybe I'm a little to "Hollywood" but I like my Napoleonic generals to be able to attach to units and influence combat or rally rolls and be at risk to enemy action.  In LaSalle your generals are essentially administrative counters

Overall, I think the rules are very promising.  They likely will not replace General D'Armee as my favorite but I think there are some really neat concepts in them and really do look forward to my next game with them.

Stalingrad: Second Test Game

 

Last night we ran a second test game of the Stalingrad rules using the Northern section of the table.  This game was slightly bigger as both the Soviets and Germans fielded full battalions plus support elements.  

There were three players per side, each controlling a company plus.  The scenario was based on the Soviet counterattacks of Sept 15th, 1942 which was a surprise fro the Germans as it was historically.

There were a number of rule tweaks from last time and 4 out of the 6 players had never played the game before.

The Outcome was the slimmest of Soviet victories at 25 to 24 victory points.  Artillery proved to be both devastating and unpredictable and people seemed to enjoy the rule making artillery fire persistent over a turn.  The white cotton makers outline a german strike which impact the units under the template and any units that move into those hexes over the course of a turn.  I do think its a bit too powerful and need to tone down the impact.

We played for about 2.5 hours and managed to get 5 full turns in which works out to about 5 minutes per player per turn, which is about as fast as one can get in a convention setting.  Convention games run for 4 hours of which 3.5 is real play time and I'm planning 4 players per side so I should be able to get 7-8 turns in each session which is more than enough.  

I did get a lot of suggestions for improvements to the rules which will get incorporated over the course of this week.  The new shooting rules seemed to be work well but the areas for improvement include

1) Remove / Lighten the "Free" Rally Phase

The current iteration of the rules have a rally phase for both players as the last step of every turn.  Any unit that is not in "Good Order" (either Shaken or Broken) gets a free rally roll and the results are that most units return Good Order so it's really hard to sustain an attack.  Everyone felt it was too easy to rally so I need to change this rule.  The options are to just eliminate the phase and force units to attempt to rally as part of their platoon activation or limit the number of rally attempts by forcing a platoon of company leader be in the same hex as the unit being rallied- I'm leaning towards the latter.

2) Streamline Vehicle Combat

Vehicle combat has too may steps and bogs down so needs to be streamlined.  It's also pretty inconclusive.  3 Soviet T-70's stood up to 3 StugB and 3 Panzer IIIJ for multiple turns and the germans dice rolling wasn't that bad.

3) Snipers

I didn't explain these rules very well and both sides forgot about them until. the end of the game.  One needs snipers to really do Stalingrad but its a level of chrome that may not work in a large participation game where simplicity of rules is a must.

There are a bunch of other suggestions that I need to think about but the past 2 test games are making me really confident this will be a fun game for a convention.

Now back to finishing up for the Painting Challenge.

 

First Test of the Stalingrad Rules

Last night up at the club was pretty momentous for me as it was the first time my rules and Stalingrad terrain were used by "real people" rather than just solitaire by me.  We played on the northern section of the board and had 2 companies plus supporting elements for each side.

 

Comrades Josh and Greg Surveying the battlefield as they prepare to meet the Axis invaders.  The third Soviet player Dave arrive just after this picture was taken.   The Germans players for the game were Tony, Ed and Dieter.

The soviets had 2 full infantry companies, a platoon of Naval Infantry and 3 T-34 tanks.  The german forces had 1 company of infantry, 1 company of Pioneers with a flamethrower and 3 Panzer IIIJ tanks.

Midway through the game as Ed has maneuvered his pioneers to assault Pavlov's house (the two white buildings in the center).  This was turn 5 and the Soviets finally rolled to bring on their tanks to surprise the Axis.

Sadly for the Russians, their shooting skills were poor and after exchanging point blank fire for several turns they managed to not damage any German tank while 1 T-34 was damaged and lost its main gun.  What this really means is that the rules for AT gun combat are too cumbersome and need to be revised.

Ed was able to mass his pioneers and swept the Soviet defenders away from the complex.

The critical point of the game came here at the 3 hex "Yellow House" in the center of the picture.  Josh was defending with a single Soviet Rifle Platoon against 4 German platoons.  It was an epic struggle which saw the Germans repulsed multiple times before Josh evacuated the house.  His staunch defense created a Hero unit and the Yellow house has been forever renamed "Joshinov's Hovel" in the annals of history.

Unfortunately for Josh his hero squad they were forced to retreat through errant soviet artillery fire and met an untimely demise.

We got in 9 turns of the planned 12 and the game was declared a narrow Soviet Victory.  

The rules seemed to work really well but there are a lot of opportunities for improvement.  Using hexes did prove to really speed up play.  All-in-all, it was a great first outing and I am very fortunate to have such great club members to inflict my game upon.

The task the for the next few days will be to make some rule revisions and retest the game next Monday.

 

Something A little Different for the AHPC XI: 15mm Vietnam US Infantry

 

A bit of a welcome break from grinding on my Stalingrad project - 15mm US Infantry from Vietnam.  I don't know the provenance of these figures as they were given to me by Ed from the club but these 14 chaps were fun to paint up and scenic the bases.

They're intended to be used in Ed's running campaign game using the "Charlie Company" ruleset which is a combination skirmish & RPG style game.

Ed ran a game with Tom and I last November using the rules.  It was a simple scenario where Tom I were both leading squads who were tasked with wandering down a road looking for a broken down M-113, which we needed to fix and then get off the board.  It a cooperative style game where the players control one US side and the GM controlled the VC.  It was a lot of fun and at the end of the game, Ed gave me a bag with 14 figures for my own squad, which now have been painted up.

This game is at the top of my list when I can get back to in person gaming.  Hopefully I can coax Ed into running a few more games.

I've also done a lot of work for the Stalingrad project which will get posted in due coarse.  I'm building up my strength for the last terrain push of a 100 or so hexes!
 

Quatre Bras at the Club, Part 2

 

Last night we finished up the Quatre Bras game.  Tom and Ed returned to command the Allies.  For the French we had new commanders in the form of Greg and myself.  The ruleset was General D'Armee.  Since I was playing, I didn't take any pictures except at the end.

The game resumed at turn 8 and the French attack continuing with the Allies getting ground down.  Last game Josh had effectively formed a grand battery of all the French Artillery and it continued to pound the Dutch troops.

Greg sent in Jerome's Brigade, which had the best French troops in a series a attack columns and punished the Dutch the Dutch in the center.  At the same time both Ed and Tom launched calvary attacks on both Flanks - one forced a French brigade to retreat while the other was me by French Cavalry and pushed off.  Their two British Infantry brigades deployed along the cross roads and became a formidable defensive position.

After a few turns of trading blows, the French managed to break the 2 Allied cavalry brigades on either flank.  That brought our broken Allied Brigade tally to 4, which was enough for a French victory.  It was kind of a cheap way for us to win but there you go.  Taling on those British brigades would have been difficult as the French infantry was pretty chewed up by then.

Greg did comment that the club has played Quatre Bras a number of times with the "Age of Eagles" ruleset and every game resulted in a resounding French Victory.  It's a tough scenario for the Allies to win.  Our game was a little closer run but the French moved with a bit more alacrity than they did historically.  Perhaps a better way to balance the scenario is to put some limits on the French command dice.  I really like the overall scenario and will run it again with some tweaks to make it a little more fun for the Allies.

Announcing LWTV "Caesar Awards"

 

We have a new project on the LWTV channel - The Caesar Awards - which are meant to celebrate excellence in wargaming video and other online content.  There are 10 categories of media type which you, the great unwashed public, can make nominations to by going to our web page CAESARS AWARDS.

Categories include Favorite Wargaming Youtube Channel, Best Painting Tutorial Video, Best Wargame Podcast and even Best Wargaming Blog.  The only rule for nominations is that content from the LWTV channel can not be nominated as it would be a little unseemly to create an awards show just to give yourself an award.

Did I mention there is a "Best Wargaming Blog" category?

Anyway,  Please take some time to nominate your favorite content creators.  People put a lot of work into this hobby and there are some really very well produced videos and other online content out their - even humble personal blogs about geeks in their lairs pursuing the hobby at their own personal uber level of effort.

I think I mentioned there was a category for Best Wargaming Blog.  Yeah I'm sure I did.

OK, unsightly groveling for blog nominations aside, please take some time to nominate your favorite content creators - who knows - maybe they'll win one of the coveted Caesar Awards?

Quatre Bras Using General D'Armee

 

Last night at the club, we re-fought the Battle of Quatre Bras using my 15mm Naps and the General D'Armee ruleset.  I was the GM with Steve and Josh playing the French and Tom, Greg and Ed commanding the allied forces.

I used the scenario for the excellent 100 Days General D'Armee scenario PDF which you can get from TooFatLardies.  The scenario started with 7 French Brigades on the board against 2 Dutch brigades of questionable quality.  The allies will receive a brigade or two per turn.  The French have a heavy Cavalry Brigade coming on mid game and by then the sides will be "evenish" with a troop quality advantage to the French.

The French attack got off to a slow start given some bad luck with ADC rolls and a good number of resulting Hesitant Brigades.

Finally the French made contact Bylandt's Brigade - one of Bylant's battalions managed to form a square and the other, well, didn't.  Lancers and Infantry don't mix well.

On the other side of the table Steve's French finally started moving and began enveloping the Dutch - to their rear there are two British Brigades coming on the table and none-too-soon.

We got to turn 8 of 18 last night and will continue the game next week.

This will be a hard one for the Allies to pull off.

Plains Wars up at the Club

 

Last night Tom ran a Plains War game pitting an attacking column of US cavalry and infantry against the Lakota Sioux.  Josh and I played the native Americans while Ed and Steve played the forked tongued devils.

This was a "covid-fuelded" project as Tom painted all the miniatures during quarantine - they're 15mm scale and all from Old Glory.  We used Osprey's "The Men Who Would be Kings" rules and it was a very fun, if silly gaming evening.  I look forward to playing again. 

I really liked the MWWBK ruleset - it's pretty simple but flows really well and seemed to capture the feel of warfare in that age.  More importantly it was fun - thanks for a great game Tom.

Liaoyang: Another Go up at the Club

 

At the club last night I re-ran my Battle of Liaoyang game from the Russo Japanese War.  I did expand the table size from 8x4 to 8x6 and that really helped with game play.

Simon and I took the Russians and Steve Ed commanded the Japanese.  We used a modified version of Altar of Freedom that I've been working on which has been very creatively titled "Altar of Empires"

We called the game after 9 of 12 turns were played.  At the point the Russians were slightly ahead of the Japanese on points but my half of the board was getting pushed very hard by Steve's furious assaults and even more aggressive japanese accent.

Simon blunted Ed's attack and did preserve the vital Trans-Siberian Railway.  I think if we had had the time to go the full 12 turns that game would have fliped from a marginal Russian victory to a marginal Japanese one.

I've got notes for 3 other scenarios so will continue plugging away on this project.

Monday Night Gaming at the Club

 

Last night Ed and I got to playtest a new set of rules Greg has been working on.  These were Napoleonic campaign rules where the a stand is an entire division  and 1 inch is 2 miles.  It was like playing a hex and counter game on the tabletop but better.

The campaign we fought was Marengo - I was the French and Ed was the Austrians.  We're looking down at the map from switzerland

The game is leader focused - your corps commanders have lots of special abilities but once you exhaust them you may not get them back the next turn - its a die roll.

Terrain is pretty basic  - the tan strips are roads and those are very critical to movement.   The green "hedges" are rivers which can only be crossed at bridges or you can use a general action to build a pontoon bridge.

Defending a river or town halves the number of dice your attacker is throwing at you.

I managed to force a river crossing by building a pontoon bridge but that exhausted Napoleon and he wasn't involved in the ensuing attack, which while successful could not dela a crushing blow to those dastardly Austrians

In the end Ed won a well deserved victory but I am intrigued by these news rules and will gladly play them again anytime.

This ruleset has a lot of promise for doing tabletop campaigns from the AWI through the ACW.  I am always impressed by Greg's level of creativity.

Steve's Stunning Escape from Goblin Town Game

 As I entered the club Monday night I stumbled upon Steve's setup for the night's game - "Escape from Goblin Town".  Steve really out did himself - he is a superb GM and puts on a great show.  The scenario was straight out of the Hobbit and starts right after Gandalf slays the GoblinKing and he and the boys need to escape off the board.  Of course they don't really know where the exit is and there are a "handful" of pursuing Goblins.  Steve used GW's Lord of the Rings rules and miniatures and made all of the terrain via 3D printing.  I've never played GW LOTR but really liked them.

My role was the Goblin commander and I had a map of the labyrinth and kept track of the goblin bands via tiny magnets 

The start of the game with the Goblin-King down.   Stee plans to run this at a few conventions so I'm not going to give away a lot of details  but suffice it to say it was a fantastic gaming experience - perhaps one of the best games I've ever played - at least in the top 3.

 Steve also had a period appropriate die roller - also 3D printed. 

The Goblins took fearsome losses but in the end ground the dwarves down, killing two and trapping the rest.  Steve called the game.  It seems based on the outcome that the Hobbit is now just a short story on the perils of traveling outside of the Shire, there was no trilogy and Gary Gygax had no IP to appropriate to create D&D.  The world as we know it does not exist!

We did get to see the full board while cleaning ip post game but there will be no pictures - it's best to experience playing the game and not on a blowhard's silly blog.  All I can tell you is if you see an "Escape from Goblin Town" game run by Steve on a convention event list sign up - it's well worth your time.

More Hex Terrain: Major Rivers and Forrest Testing

 The major river hexes I need for "Secret Project 12AZ36" are pretty much finished and I've laid them out on the table.  Ignore the hexes in-between the rivers as they are more for spacing purposes.

Whew - I made enough plus 6 extra.  Usually in these type of projects I make too few and need to add.

Why are a handful of hexes not fully done?  I suspect there will be some form of special terrain there...

 I like the look of the hexes but also see I need to pay more attention to flocking the edges.

And the progress to date.  I have really enjoyed making these hexes and look forward to a lot more.  One of the more enjoyable aspects is each hobby session can result in some finished hexes - as they are small at 4" across flat side to flat side.  Most terrain projects tend to drag on over multiple sessions so that sense of accomplishment is often delayed.  Equally positive is one also fails fast, which is just as good.

It's a good thing I have found making hexes fun as one does need a lot of them.  To fully cover a 6x4 gaming surface one needs 216 hexes!

A close up on one of the river hexes and two road ones.  The texture on the river banks was super easy - just. a few passes with a wire brush and *presto* "instant" sedimentary levels.  The roads are also the same width as a minor river within the GHQ "Terrain-Maker" format.

Speaking of failing fast...

I've been experimenting with how to make tree's and forested hexes.  Standard Terrain maker forests have the trees permanently affixed to the hex, which looks great but can be difficult to play on if one is attempting to move troops on a hex in the middle of a wide board.  This issue is magnified for those of us who are encumbered with, ummm, excess provision storage around our waists (hey, I resemble that remark!). 

I've been experimenting with different ways to make both trees and make them removable without excessively damaging the hex.  I think I've come up with a way that works by using small plastic tubes as sabots to hold the trees and covering the area with a forest floor flocking.  I've also been experimenting with making wire trees and pine trees from bumpy chennel.  By the way, there is a great "2 Minute Terrain Tutorial" on how to make 6mm pine trees on the Little Wars TV Channel - heres a link.

The green color is a little too bright so I washed all the pine tree in a 50/50 water / vallejo russian green primer.   I think it will look fine.

The copper wire trees proved to be too delicate so it's back to the drawing board there.  The plastic tube sockets worked great, so that's a keeper.

Once I figure out the tree method I'll do a more detailed "how-to" post.

Secret Project 12AZ36

My Terrain workbench is a disaster but I have started work on a super top secret project for the club.  Since wargaming blogs pretty much guarantee anonymity on the web, it's ok to share with you - but no blabbing!  I'm actually excited to get working on this as its my first time making a lot of hex terrain.  Fellow club member and generally great guy, Ed, has an extensive collection of the GHQ "Terrain-Maker" hexes and I've always wanted to steal (oops I meant to say "emulate") that collection.

For this project we're going to need a lot of "Major River" and a handful of urban hexes.  The GHQ "Terrain Maker" system use standard sized hexes which are 4 inches wide flat side to flat side.  It also employs standard dimensions for road and streams that are 20mm wide and exit centered on the flat side of a hex.  For major rivers, I just made them wider and used just about all of the flat side.

As you can see, there are a lot of river hexes.

I've been testing different color matches and have borrowed one of Ed's stream hexes to match terrain coloring .  The streams are a bit greenish so to contrast a bit the major rivers will be a darker mix of green, brown and black paint.  I've got a good match for Ed's for the ground color and flocking.

 To paint the rivers, I used a white gesso as a primer for the river bed.

Once the gesso had dried, the rivers were painted using craft paint.  The colors are Brunt Umber (the war-gamers goto brown for scenery), Medium Blue and a Hunter Green in roughly equal proportions.  The trick is not fully mixing the paints so you can see faints streaks as its brushed on.  Work in small amounts of paint.  I'll do some touch up and then cover with a few coats of gloss modge podge to make it look wet and add some ripples.

I really need to clean up my workbench.  Lee over at the quarantined gamer you tube channel has an episode on just that topic - here's the link

If one has rivers, one needs bridges.  Here's a shot of a test piece.  There still got some work to do on the urban hexes but the overall look of these 3mm scale castings from Pico Armor is pretty good.  By the way, I highly recommend the company - they have great products and superb service.

Hmmm, I wonder what we're trying to build out here.  Please be advised some of the clubs projects never see the light of day - usually because I'm involved and screw something up.  This might be one of them.

Making these hexes and scenicing them has proven to be really fun.  I've also got some ideas of using these hexes to bring some hex and counter games to the tabletop.  So many plans, so little time.....