Battle of Liaoyang: Terrain Prep

 With the club now re-opened (in a socially distant way), it's time for me to run a big game.  Given my current infatuation with the Russo Japanese War, the game in question will be the Battle of Liaoyang.  One of the defining battlefield terrain features is the city of Liaoyang itself as it had 30 foot tall walls. I've decided to 3D print a representation for both the city and 3 villages that will serve as objective markers.  These are not architectural models (I made up the layout) but size wise and shape its how the city is represented in period maps.  I found some 3D model files for Chinese buildings and fortified walls on the Wargaming 3D site and downloaded them.  I experimented with printing sizes and settled on using a print scale of 15%.

 With all the components printed out, I cut some bases from thick cardboard and glued the pieces down.  I found PVA glue worked best as I am printing with PLA.  These were then primed (all i have on hand is tan) and left out to dry.

The battle itself was a rather long affair running from August 25th to Sep 5th, 1904.  We'll be refighting the climatic part of the Battle during August 30 to Sep 1.  The opposing armies were fairly evenly matched.  The Japanese had 8 infantry divisions and roughly 125K men pitted against a Russian force of "approximately" 135K in 12 Infantry and 2 Cavalry divisions.  The historical reference materials have fairly large variances in reported Russian troop strength - from 128K all the way up to 245K!  Some of the Russian troop counts are suspect as their sources are various Russian commanders who either supported the Russian CIC (Kuropatkin) (lower counts) or despised him (higher counts).  "Alternative Facts" seems to have existed far before the Trump administration.  I'm going with a troop count that matches the formations present.

Another terrain feature of the battlefield was a low ring of hills to the south of the city and along the eastern edge of the map.  I've got a number of hills that are large but decided the game needed some smaller ones that fit better with 6mm figures.  The terrain on the Western side of the side was pretty open but did have lots of fields of Sorghum, which was just about ready to be harvested and approached 9 feet in height (think cornfields from the ACW)

Speaking of ACW, the rules I'm planning to use are based on Greg's wonderful ACW ruleset "Alter of Freedom". I really like the command mechanics in AoF and think they are a great way to simulate the command issues the Russians faced without making then "no-fun" to play.  This will be my second outing with my modified ruleset and I'm hopeful they work out well.  The first outing was another R-J War battle Tashinchiao - which was fought in July of 1904 with about half the forces we'll be using for Liaoyang.

For those of you who are familiar with Alter of Freedom, the scale of Liaoyang is a little bigger than Gettysburg.  If you are not familiar with Alter of Freedom well you're living a life of unnecessary deprivation - below are some links to some videos from the club about a game staged with AofF and a rules review.  Its a great set of rules that you should go out and buy.  Go ahead, treat yourself - you deserve it.

Battle of Antietam

AofF Rules Review

Normally this time of year (late June / early July) is filled with frantic preparations to put on my game at Historicon.  With this years convention cancelled, it's actually very calming to have to have something to frantically prepare for - it's a reminder that things will get better eventually.

Be safe everyone - and don't be an ass, wear a God-Damn mask in public.