Friday 12 August 2011

Building Blocks

The great contract chase continues and as a result hobby related stuff is at minimal levels. I have made a decision though in connection with the blocks - I am going to stick with using them as they are and will not be cutting any in half. With most miniatures rules using bases of a common frontage it makes sense to be consistent in this fashion. Having made this decision it means that I will have to tweak some of the labels slightly but I should still be able to knock out armies for both the ACW and the Balkan Wars over the weekend.
At this stage I shall be using Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame rules for my games as they are a wonderful mix of simplicity and challenge and are great for fast play purposes. To be honest I have only really thought about rules in very general terms for this project but will be experimenting (as usual) with different systems in due course. The most pressing requirement I can see at the moment though concerns the use of a roster system for damage recording purposes. The system employed in Volley and Bayonet is a simple but elegant way of tackling the issue of using a base of figures (or indeed a block) that is purely representational.
As mentioned previously, the blocks will have unit identifying labels added along the rear edge and I am also considering the use of national flags in some fashion - as well as something to indicate the size of formation the block is representing.
I also hope to be able to experiment with some ship shapes over the weekend - this would be very much for large scale actions - as I have a number of ideas for this type of approach as well.
Caeli Modum.




4 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Glad you are having fun with it!

If you get really high brow, you could use different colour/types of wood for opposing forces - light pine vs dark red stain for example,

David Crook said...

Hi Paul,

I hadn't thought of that but will probably stick with the natural wood look as it makes the production process far quicker!

All the best,

DC

Paul O'G said...

Fair enough! Maybe one for future enhancements perhaps :-)

David Crook said...

Hi Paul,

I will have to wait and see!

All the best,

DC