My Terrain of Thought

One of the objectives that I set out to achieve whilst using my block armies is that the resultant games should look as close to a 'traditional' wargame as possible. I was keen to move away from the 'map and counter' style of board games but realised very early on that using detailed model scenery in conjunction with the blocks did not look right. What was needed then, was a more stylised approach.

Kriegsspiel 1824. Note the very detailed map in use.

Most of the games I have fought using the block armies have made use of some very basic and simple pieces of terrain. Buildings are usually from the Town in a Bag range or from my collection of Greek souvenir ceramic houses. I have a number of rather crude hills - cobbled together quickly and due to be replaced with something a little more suitable in due course - and for roads and rivers I use pieces of felt cut to size. I picked up a bag of 50 assorted trees off  EBay which look pretty good although the bases I used for them are rather large. I have yet to use any fields although making them is easy enough.

A version of the Hellwig chess inspired wargame from around 1780. The game was based originally on chess but was developed into what you see above.  The terrain would be arranged as required. By all accounts it was very popular.

Going forward I shall be persevering with the buildings but I shall be doing something a little more detailed in respect of roads, rivers and hills. I have always liked step hills so will look to organise some of these as well as road and river sections. Depending on what is available commercially I will probably buy these and am thinking that 1:300th would be a good place to start. I will also be rethinking trees as my own are a real mish-mash of types.

Command Post Games in the US produce a number of map based block wargames using reproductions of actual maps of the battles themselves.

I am not averse to using printed maps with the blocks and indeed, using them really puts one in mind of a commander poring over a map plotting the downfall of his enemy, but there are a few problems in my mind. Large maps are unwieldy and limited to the area they cover. Hand drawn maps are easy enough to produce - I have done this in the past many times - but again will be quite specific to the area covered unless of course they are fictional. Maps may have a certain degree of flexibility in that they can be geomorphic to an extent and certainly the Axis and Allies versions I have used are useful in this respect. However, for my needs the use of traditional wargames terrain will be the way forward.

Simple and effective - the church, walls and trees from the Town in a Bag set.