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Wednesday 19 September 2018

The Portable Napoleonic Wargame: Progress report

Over the past few days I have been making slow but steady progress with writing THE PORTABLE NAPOLEONIC WARGAME book.

It never ceases to amaze me that when I sit down at my keyboard to turn my notes into a properly laid-out set of wargame rules, I suddenly begin to notice the things that I have taken for granted and not actually included in my notes. Sometimes this requires me to go back to something that I wrote earlier, and to completely re-draft it and/or add footnotes to it so that the rules are less ambiguous.

Sometimes I need to take photographs or to draw diagrams to illustrate a point, and these can often take some time to set up or to draw. That said, feedback indicates that a lot of my readers find these illustrations very helpful, and although adding them can slow down the whole process of writing the book, the end product should be all the better for it.

One decision that I have made that I hope that readers will find useful is to add an appendix which will contain alternative terrain maps for the exemplar battles that the book contains. For example, the battle used to illustrate the way that the BRIGADE rules work was fought on a 9 x 8 hexed grid ... but the appendix has a map of the terrain for anyone who wishes to re-fight it on an 8 x 8 squared grid.

10 comments:

  1. Hi Bob,

    That is an excellent idea in respect of the maps and I am looking at the 8 x 8 option with particular interest.

    All the best,

    DC

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    Replies
    1. David Crook,

      It was suggested in some of the feedback from my previous books, and I thought that it was a good idea ... so I'm going to try to include alternative gridded maps in future.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  2. Very nice. I’ve found translating squares to hex a pain before today.
    Cudos to you for doing this :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andyroo,

      Cheers! I have included alternative gridded maps because of the feedback I had in response to my previous books, and hope to continue to provide them in future.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. Bob, it's clear that many readers will find these alternative maps helpful, so they will be appreciated. May I make one suggestion? If the only purpose of the diagram is to illustrate how the original hexed battlefield can be 'squared'it could be reproduced in a smaller size to economise on space/allow more diagrams/illustrations in the same number of pages. Just a thought.
    Best wishes, Arthur

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    Replies
    1. Arthur1815 (Arthur),

      Thanks very much for the excellent suggestions. That's a very good point, and as long as I can ensure that enough detail is still visible, I think that will work.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Bob, as a 'square' man myself thanks in advance for the alternate maps! I'm really looking forward to the rules when they become available. Best wishes, Anthony.

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    Replies
    1. Anthony Morton (Anthony),

      It was feedback like yours that encouraged me to make this decision.

      With luck the book will be ready for publication by Christmas.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  5. Bob:
    Are your rules agnostic in terms of figure scale? I might ry a gridded approach for my 6mm Naps if they were.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael Peterson,

      My rules can be used with any size of figures. I know of wargamers who use my rules with 54mm figures and others who use 2mm figures.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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