Even more thinking about hexes

When I tried to create the very large hex I featured in my previous blog post, I discovered that I need to go to our storage unit to collect some more of my Hexon II hex terrain before I can. Feeling rather at a loose end, I decided to see if I could fit a large hex/smaller hexes combination onto my existing Portable Wargame warboard. Initially, the result looked like this:

I did not like this lopsided arrangement ... but realised that if I made a few minor adjustments to the number of hexes and half-hexes that I used on my warboard, it looked a lot better!

This new arrangement would require 3 x six-hex blocks (or the equivalent 18 single hexes), 19 x single hexes, and 22 x half-hexes as opposed to the 8 x six-hex blocks (or the equivalent 48 single hexes) and 6 x half-hexes used in my original layout.

For comparison purposes, I reproduced the terrain map for The evacuation of Abou Nasir that I had previously used as an example, and the end result looked like this:

Whilst it is by no means perfect (In the example, the village is spread over both of the large hexes whereas I would prefer it to only be in one of them), I does give me an alternative way forward that I had not previously thought might be possible.

It's not quite a 'back to square one' situation ... but it is certainly a new jumping-off point!

Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering: The programme

Last Saturday, I took part in the online Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering.

The sessions were:

• The history of French wargaming from 1871 to 2026
• Foreign volunteers fighting for the Papal States in the 1860s
• Seventy years of Spanish professional wargaming
• A forum on wargaming in space
• Cartoons and War
• The myth that has developed around the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU)
• Tony Bath and the invention of Dungeons & Dragons
• From Bench to Tabletop - A panel discussion on the latest wargaming research discoveries and their potential applications in our game designs
• The Last Ever Sing Along

This was the best of these day-long events to date … and I came away with lots of new knowledge and ideas.

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How ChatGPT imagined the Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering would look. It is not at all accurate! No berets were worn or pipes smoked ... but there were a few beards!

New YouTube video: The Portable Wargame in action: A Soviet combined arms assault

I have just uploaded a new YouTube video to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The video contains a battle report that was included in the original PORTABLE WARGAME book and features the use of two rule options: the 'Going Solo' card-driven turn sequence and the 'Sudden Death' combat result.

It lasts approximately twenty-one minutes.

The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.

The Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering takes place today!

Today I will be taking part in the online Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering. This annual online event has been taking place since October 2021, and is open to all members of Wargame Developments.

My contribution will be a talk entitled THE MYTH THAT HAS DEVELOPED AROUND THE WESTERN APPROACHES TACTICAL UNIT (WATU) and is a revised version of the one I delivered at the Conference of Wargamers 2026 (COW2026).

Some more thinking about hexes

Whilst playing around with the Wargame Map Tool program, I decided to see what would happen if I made an even bigger larger hex. I made one that was as tall as nine small hexes ... which would be 90cm tall. It would also mean that the large hex would be approximately 104cm wide and would contain seventy-three small hexes and twelve half-hexes.

This would just about fit on my wargame table and would be slightly larger than the 9 x 8 hex grid I have used in many of battle featured in my PORTABLE WARGAME books.

I think that I have pushed this concept about as far as I want to ... and I might try fighting a battle on the large hex/seventy-three small hexes combination to see whether or not it is a practical shape to wargame on.

What I am currently working on

I seem to have several small projects on the go at the moment, several of which are about come to an end.

Firstly, I have a talk to finish preparing for the Wargame Developments Autumn Virtual Gathering that will be taking place on Saturday 24th October. It is entitled THE MYTH THAT HAS DEVELOPED AROUND THE WESTERN APPROACHES TACTICAL UNIT (WATU) and is a development of the talk I gave at the Conference of Wargamers 2026 (COW2026).

On Monday 28th October I am giving a talk about FREEMASONRY to a group of mainly retired people at our local community centre, Shrewsbury House. The talk and its associated PowerPoint presentation are ready ... but I'll need to do a final run-through and fine-tuning on Sunday.

I am also working on my next YouTube video, which I hope to have finished and uploaded within a week. It is a battle report of the World War 2 wargame from the original PORTABLE WARGAME book.

Once all of these are complete, my next priority will be to do some more work on the next PORTABLE WARGAME COMPENDIUM.

Who said one should slow down when one retired?

Achtung Schweinehund!

Yesterday, I had to go up to my toy/wargame room to look for a book ... and found a copy of Harry Pearson's ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND! I sat down in my chair to just skim through it ... and an hour later I was still there and I had forgotten why I went upstairs!

ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND!: A BOY'S OWN STORY OF IMAGINARY COMBAT is a hilarious account of one man's journey through the hobby of wargaming, I bought my copy when it was published in 2008, and remember laughing so much when I read it that I actually fell out of bed ... much to my wife's amusement.

If you haven't read this book, I thoroughly recommend that you do. It will make you laugh ... and give a bit of background to the growth of the hobby in the 1970s, 1980s., and 1990s.

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ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND!: A BOY'S OWN STORY OF IMAGINARY COMBAT was written by Harry Pearson and published by Abacus in 2008 (ISBN 978 0 3491 1568 9).

Eighteen million hits!

Earlier today my hit counter passed eighteen million hits.

I am not sure if the AI bots are still making regular visits to my blog and whether they are responsible for the vast majority of hits it has received ... but I suspect that they are! As I wrote recently, I just wish that I got paid for every time that they visited!

More thinking about hexes

My wife sometimes says things that go straight to the heart of a problem ... and when she saw the hex images I used on my recent blog post, she pointed out something that I'd missed ... that the orientation of the big hex and the smaller hexes was different and that this did not make sense!

I therefore looked at whether it was possible to orient the two so that they were the same, and the result looked like this:

The large hex contains thirty-one smaller hexes and six half-hexes.

For comparison with the map I used in my previous blog post, I then reproduced the terrain map for a battle (The evacuation of Abou Nasir) that I fought on my Portable Wargame warboard as part of my MORE TROUBLE IN ZUBIA mini-campaign. The terrain for the battle looked like this:

On the strategic map, the hex containing the village of Abou Nasir would look like this:

I think that this is a better solution than the one outlined in my previous blog post.

Looking at 009/H09 and N-gauge locomotives and rolling stock

As part of a job lot of 009/H09 models railway stuff I bought some time ago, I acquired a locomotive whose electric motor was irreparable and a couple of Wild West style carriages that had been slightly damaged (i.e. the bodies had small cracks in them). I decided to use them for wargaming, and after repairing the damage to the coaches with some polystyrene glue and short strips of Plasticard, I repainted the locomotive and carriages in a green-ish shade of feldgrau. the results looked like this:

I recently bought a KATO Pocket Line N-gauge locomotive and two carriages from an online stockist for about £65.00, which seemed a reasonable price to pay for a set that has a reputation for excellent reliability and build quality. Interestingly, the locomotive isn't powered ... but one of the carriages is! The set looks like this:

Looking at both sets of locomotives and carriages, I wondered whether there was a possibility that I could use the 009/H09 and N-gauge stuff together. Afterall, they both run on the same N-gauge KATO Unitrack even if they use different couplings.

First I compared the two locomotive ...

... and then I compared the carriages.

In the case of the locomotives, the 009/H09 one looked a lot bigger, but if I was to use it as a mainline locomotive and the small N-gauge one as a shunter, I think this would work. (I might have to modify the small loco's cab slightly, but that should not be too difficult.)

The same cannot be said of the carriages ... although I suspect that – with a little bit of work – the N-gauge ones could be modified.

To help me visualise what might or might not be possible, I then compared the two locomotive alongside a 15mm Essex Miniature figure and a 20mm Britannia Miniature figure. Firstly, I put the figures alongside the respective model locomotive that was closest in scale to it ...

... and then swapped them around.

The 009/H09 locomotive is 1:87th-scale and the N-gauge KATO Pocket Line one is 1:160th-scale. The 15mm figure is 1:100th-scale and the 20mm figure is 76th-scale. Please note that these scales are all approximate!

The 15mm figure looks 'right' alongside both locomotives and the 20mm figure looks 'right' next to the 009/H09 locomotive. As it is more likely that I'll be using these locomotives with my 15mm figures, this means that the 009/H09 one can be used as a mainline locomotive and the N-gauge one can be used as a local shunter ... just as I hoped earlier in this blog post. The couplings might need to be modified to make them compatible with each other, but I understand that this should not be an insurmountable problem.

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I subsequently searched online for suggestions as to how I might be able to convert the N-gauge KATO Pocket Line set to 009/H09 ... and this is what I found:

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

Very interesting!