First, a big THANK YOU to Pete Forster, who sent me a link to WARGAME MAP TOOL hex map drawing program. As the following images from the relevant page on Board Game Geek website show, it seems to meet all my requirements ... and possibly more!
I have now downloaded the program, and hope to try it out over the next few weeks.
I recently wrote about my experiments with various terrain-drawing programs. One of my regular blog readers (Mike C) suggested that I look at the Memoir '44 scenario map editor ... and I tried to, but discovered that it seems to have been withdrawn by the publishers, Days of Wonder.
In the conclusion of my earlier blog post, I outlined the three options I had:
Well, I have tried using Hexographer but I am finding the screen size problem just too much of a strain on my eyes. At present, there seems to be no published release date for HexDraw2, and I could easily have to wait for months (if not years) before it becomes available. I am therefore left with the third option ... to draw my own hex grids and individual tiles using MS Paint.
I've done this in the past, and I used my home-drawn hexes in my book, A WINTER-ISH WAR.
I thought that I had lost my original drawings when I had a computer memory failure a couple of years ago, but I found that I had saved a copy of them on a memory stick and I now have a starting point from which I can work.
Whilst trying to find a way to draw the hex-gridded maps for my Belle Époque project, I have – at times – felt cursed ... which isn't that surprising when one considers the meaning of the word hex.
According to an online dictionary, the various meanings of the word hex are as follows:
In the past, I have drawn my own hex grids and individual tiles using MS Paint ... but for a project this large, I wanted to find a terrain-drawing program that I could use. So far I have tried the following:
HexPad
HexAtlas
Hexer
Hextml
HexDraw
Hexographer
Having looked at each of the above, I concluded that HexDraw should be my first choice ... and then I discovered that it is currently unavailable as a new version is due to be launched sometime soon.
I therefore downloaded my second choice (Hexographer) and I began experimenting with it, but it has one major drawback as far as I am concerned ... the program is designed for use with a much larger screen tan the one on my laptop!
I am therefore left with three options:
I'm not sure which of these options I will choose ... but I must choose one if I want to use hex gridded maps for this project.
As I have not mentioned my Belle Époque project for some time, I imagine that it will come as little or no surprise to my regular blog readers to discover that this project is currently stalled.
Now, I could come up with all sorts of valid reasons why this has happened, but to be truthful, the project has reached a point where it really should be coming together and a conclusion should be in sight, but I just could not seem to get the enthusiasm together to push things forward ... and in particular, to create the maps that I need. I had hoped that taking a break would help, but it hasn't.
So, what could I do to overcome this impasse?
What I chose to do was to begin by looking back at one of the things that inspired me to begin this project, namely, John Ruddle's garden wargames. One paragraph stood out:
'John's garden was laid out to represent six countries: Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, and Turkey, and areas that include Flanders, Africa, Arabia, and Northern Italy are regularly fought over. The actual layout was in no way geographically accurate, with the lawn acting as the 'sea', the paths as 'rivers', and the various flowerbeds and rockeries as the countries.'
My Belle Époque imagi-nations almost coincide with John's even though I have called them by different names:
Although my project is not going to be a garden wargaming one, I decided to look at the layout of our garden to see if I could get any inspiration for an imagi-world map.
A (very) rough sketch map of our garden. The house and patio are to the left.
Although the layout of our garden is not suitable for 'conversion' into a Belle Époque imagi-world map, it certainly made me think that a U-shaped layout – similar to that seen on some model railway layouts – had distinct possibilities.
A map of the famous final version of P D Hancock's Craig & Mertonford model railway layout. It took up a room that was approximately 14' 6" x 10' 6" (4.4m x 3.20m) (© P D Hancock)
After a brief period of time – during which I entertained the idea of building a permanent or semi-permanent model railway-like terrain for the entire Belle Époque imagi-nation project – I decided that it would take up far more room than I would ever have access to, even if we moved house to a much bigger home. (It was, however, something that I would have loved to have done; in other words, to replicate a quarter-sized, indoor version of John Ruddle's garden wargames.)
So, I decided to start with a U-shaped layout for my imagi-world map and add to it.
A simple working diagram that shows the relative positions of the various imagi-nations to one another.
The result wasn't quite U-shaped, neither was it like our garden ... but the relative positions of the various countries seemed to work.
I now had a starting point for my imagi-world map ... and I began thinking of adopting a style of map for each country that is similar in style to the one that I used when I produced a version of the PORTABLE WARGAME rules that I could use to fight SHAMBATTLE-style mini-campaigns.
The map I drew for the play-test of the version of the Portable Wargame rules that I developed to fight Shambattle-style mini-campaigns.
The terrain as seen from the Blue City end of the tabletop battlefield.
The terrain as seen from the Blueburg/Red City side of the tabletop battlefield.
The terrain as seen from the Redton end of the tabletop battlefield.
I think that each imagi-nation's map could comprise a number of these 8 x 6 hex grids. For example, by using six of the hex grids it is possible to create a map that is 16 hexes x 18 hexes:
I now have a starting point from which I can now move forward with regard to the maps I need for this project ... and more importantly, my enthusiasm to do so seems to be returning.
Until I reached my teen years, I really wasn't one for reading fiction. Then, thanks to a Canadian-born English teacher, I 'discovered' C S Forester, and I began to appreciate a good story in book format!
(By the way, the book that he made us read was THE SHIP, which was Forester's fictionalised account of the Battle of Sirte, and which featured as its main characters the crew of the cruiser HMS Artemis.)
I happened to mention my enjoyment of Forester's books to a librarian ... and they suggested that I ought to try several other authors, including Rudyard Kipling and John Buchan. I followed this advice ... and I was soon hooked! In particular, I enjoyed the latter author's stories that featured Richard Hannay, later Major-General Sir Richard Hannay KCB DSO OBE and his cronies:
I began with THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, which I had seen on film in two versions:
However, the film version of the story that - in my opinion - keeps closest to the original story, is the 1978 version, which starred Robert Powell.
Robert Powell as Richard Hannay.
Not only that, but it proved so popular that it resulted in a spin-off television series that was simply named Hannay.
By coincidence, the latter is currently being televised by the Talking Pictures TV Freeview channel, and I have been watching them. There are two series and the episodes are as follows:
The stories are not based on anything written by John Buchan, but they are very much in their mould, and are set in the period immediately before the outbreak of the Great War. (i.e. the Belle Époque). There is one recurring villain in both series, Count Von Schwabing, who is played with great gusto by Gavin Richards ... who is probably better known for the role of Captain Alberto Bertorelli in the Second World War comedy, 'ALLO, 'ALLO.
Until Saturday morning, my wargaming life was bimbling* along quite nicely. I was working – albeit at a leisurely pace – on several projects. These included:
So, what happened on Saturday morning?
I opened a cupboard in my toy/wargame room ... and found something that I thought was in storage.
It was the printed copies of first ten years of my blog posts.
Now, many of my regular blog readers might not be aware that way back in 2018 I decided to have the text of my blog posts printed and bound in hardback format. I did this because I was afraid that if Blogger was ever to close down, I would not have a copy of what I had written. I have not had the last eight years of blog posts printed or bound ... but its something that I really need to think about ... just in case.
So, how did this discovery cause me to go off at a tangent?
I made the mistake of opening the first volume of my printed blog posts ... and immediately began to read it. Back then, my blog posts were about the then recently published reprint of Donald Featherstone's WAR GAMES by the History of Wargaming Project and its impact on my RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES (TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED) rules. In fact, between 20th September 2008 and 21st October 2008 I wrote eight blog posts about the rules and my play-tests as well as four about the Colonial version, which was entitled REDCOATS AND NATIVES (TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED).
Looking at the rules now (and the former are available online and in the History of Wargaming Project's reprint of Donald Featherstone's WARGAMING AIRBORNE OPERATIONS), I am struck by how much fun they were to wargame with. I was also struck by the fact that they could do with a bit of updating and improving because since I wrote them, I've had a lot more experience in writing wargame rules and developing slicker – and hopefully better – game mechanisms.
So, I now have another project to add to my growing list ... and I can see myself having a bit of fun tinkering with these rules and even pushing a few figures and tanks around on a tabletop!
Here are some images from the play-tests of my RED FLAGS AND IRON CROSSES (TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED) ...
... and REDCOATS AND NATIVES (TARRED AND FEATHERSTONED) rules.
I hope that they convey how much fun I had ... and how few figures etc., I needed to enjoy myself! Sometimes, less is more!
* For those of you who have never come across this verb before, it is defined as being 'to walk or travel at a leisurely pace.'
Further to Archduke Piccolo's recent blog post about how he stores his various wargame collections, I thought that I should share some photographs of where and how I store my Belle Époque collection.
My Really Useful Boxes tower unit.
One of my larger Belle Époque armies (the army of the Kingdom of Schwarzenberg) in an A4-sized Weston Boxes box inside one of the draws in the tower unit.
One of my smaller Belle Époque armies (The army of the Kingdom of Ashona) in an A5-sized Weston Boxes box inside one of the draws in the tower unit.
One of my regular blog readers (Rumblestrip) has pointed out that the chart in yesterday's blog post contained an error. I have therefore redrawn it and that section of the blog post should now read as follows:
Grading generals
In these rules, generals are a player’s tabletop alter ego. However, if we want them to perform realistically during a wargame, they should not be regarded as being infallible super-heroes and should have some limits placed on what they can do each turn. This can be done by:
- Grading each general as either good, average, or poor.
- Placing restrictions on the number of units they can activate each turn.
To determine a general’s grading, two D6 dice are thrown and the combined dice score determines the general’s grading.
This grading helps to determine how many units they can activate each turn.
This means that each grade of general has the following chance of being generated using this mechanism:
I have also added a YouTube video that covers this erratum to the Wargaming Miscellany channel. It can be found here.
I have been slowly working on the draft of my Portable Belle Epoque Wargame rules ... and have adapted a previously designed grading system for each side's generals and a playing card activation mechanism.
Grading generals
In these rules, generals are a player’s tabletop alter ego. However, if we want them to perform realistically during a wargame, they should not be regarded as being infallible super-heroes and should have some limits placed on what they can do each turn. This can be done by:
To determine a general’s grading, two D6 dice are thrown and the combined dice score determines the general’s grading.
This grading helps to determine how many units they can activate each turn.
How many units can a general activate each turn?
Before the battle begins, each side is allocated a playing card colour (i.e. red or black). The number of units they command is totalled, divided by 2, and rounded up. This gives the median value of the playing cards that commander will be allocated. The median value of the playing cards is then adjusted according to the general’s competence:
The players extract the red and black playing cards from two packs of playing cards and place them in separate piles.
The red general removes the red playing cards that have their modified median playing card value from their pile plus the red playing cards that have their modified median playing card value plus 1 and minus 1.
The black general removes the black playing cards that have their modified median playing card value from their pile plus the black playing cards that have their modified median playing card value plus 1 and minus 1.
Example 1
A red general commands a force of 9 units and has been allocated a grading of good. They therefore have a basic median value of playing card of 5 (9 ÷ 2 = 4.5, which when rounded up equals 5). Their modified median playing card value is 6 (5 + 1), and they select from the pile of red playing cards the 5, 6, and 7 of Hearts and Diamonds. The rest of the red playing cards are discarded
The red general's activation cards.
Example 2
A black general commands a force of 11 units and has been allocated a grading of poor. They therefore have a basic median value of playing card of 6 (11 ÷ 2 = 5.5, which when rounded up equals 6). Their modified median playing card value is 5 (6 – 1), and they select from the pile of black playing cards the 4, 5, and 6 of Clubs and Spades. The rest of the black playing cards are discarded.
The black general's activation cards.
The red and black activation cards are combined together along with two Jokers to form the pack of activation cards. The pack is then shuffled and placed face down.
At the start of the battle, the top card of the activation pack is turned over, and the colour and value of that card determines which side activates its units and how many of them can be activated. Once all the units that side can activate have been activated, the playing card is discarded and placed face up next to the pack of activation cards.
The next card of the activation pack is then turned over, and the colour and value of that card determines which side activates its units and how many of them can be activated. Once all the units that side can activate have been activated, the playing card is discarded and placed face up next to the pack of activation cards.
This process continues until a Joker is turned over, at which point the discarded activation cards are returned to the pack of activation cards and the whole pack is re-shuffled, and the process begins again.
During the turn sequence, the artillery and machine gun fire phases take place before a side activates its other units. Both sides can activate their artillery and machine gun units each time one of their side’s activation cards is turned over. If they do this, these count as one of that side’s unit activations.
Example 3
A side can activate 6 units. It chooses to activate an artillery unit and a machine gun unit during the artillery and machine gun fire phases. Once these phases have taken place, that side can then activate 4 other units.
It may well be that one side can have a run of activation cards, but this is part of the randomness generated by this mechanism. Experience shows that over time this apparent unfairness tends to even itself out.
I have also added a YouTube video that covers these mechanisms to the Wargaming Miscellany channel.
It can be found here.
Some years ago, I visited the late Stuart Asquith at his home in the Cotswolds. When he retired and moved there, he did something that now makes a lot of sense to me; he created the 'army in a box' concept. He had a special cabinet constructed and allocated a draw in each to an army. Once that army had filled the draw, no further units or figures were added to it.
My Belle Époque collection is currently stored in an eleven-draw Really Useful Boxes tower unit. Its draws are slightly larger than A4 in size and have a removable sheet of magnetic sheet fixed to a thin sheet of plywood in their bottom.
© Really Useful Boxes.
I have recently discovered a problem with this storage ... it isn't very easy to lift the whole army out in one go. I then remembered Stuart's 'army in a box' and thought to myself that if I could find a suitable box that would fit into the draw, it could serve two purposes:
Luckily, I had a number of A4-sized Weston Boxes close at hand, ...
© Weston Boxes.
... and I am now in the process of transferring each army into its new box ... which fits nicely into one of the draws in the Really Useful Boxes tower unit.
PS. Some of the smaller armies fit into A5-sized Weston Boxes ... of which I also have a few available!
I recently visited our storage unit to look for several wargaming items I needed. Thanks to the light in the unit not working and my torch battery giving up the ghost after a couple of minutes, I didn't find everything that I wanted.
However, one of the things that I did bring home was a small box containing some plastic bits and pieces I think that I may be able to use for my current Belle Époque project. When I got the box up to my toy/wargame room, I went to put it on top of one of the bookcases, and in doing so, I dislodged a copy of MEMOIR '44 ... which fell off and hit me on the head!
Once I had got over the initial shock and began to pick up all the bits that had fallen out of the box, I realised that I had in my hand the game's playing board ... which is a foldable hexed board that has a grid of 9 x 13 hexes that measure approximately 5.25cm from face to face! My immediate thought was this size of hex should certainly work with my Belle Époque armies and has the big advantage of being eminently portable!
The next thing to do was to see what examples of my based figures looked like on the board, and the results are shown below:
The army of the Baggari of Sahel fighting troops of the Zubian Army.
Another view of the army of the Baggari of Sahel fighting troops of the Zubian Army.
This simple experiment shows that this is certainly a workable solution, especially as I already own several different versions of this board.
Just when I thought that I had made a decision, this 'accident' has made me think again.
Regular blog readers might find some of what follows covers things that I have previously written about on my blog, but for completeness – and to help me to clarify my own thinking – I have written about how I arrived at the situation I find myself in today.
When I retired in 2014, I had visions of spending loads of time wargaming and doing wargame-related activities ... interspersed – of course – with going on cruises, doing the usual round of household chores, and fitting in all the other things that normal life demands.
In anticipation of this, during the early years of the new century we spent quite a lot on money converting our house's loft into an home office, a shower room, and what became my toy/wargame room, and for the first years on my retirement I was able to use the latter almost every day.
Then real life made itself felt. A simple test showed signs of blood in my faeces, and on investigation it was discovered that I had a small cancerous polyp in my intestines. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic I went into hospital to have a minor keyhole surgical procedure to remove it. The operation did not go according to plan and I ended up with what turned out to be an irreversible colostomy.
Two years later, what I thought was a minor problem with my urinary system turned out to be prostate cancer ... and since then I've undergone chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery. The cancer is still there, but it is under control and does not seem to be getting any worse.
Now, these two cancers rather took the wind out of my wargaming sails, but I carried on as best I could. I found things a bit more difficult as I was spending lots of time either undergoing treatment or tests, but what time I was able to devote to my hobby was very enjoyable ... and then I broke my right leg, just above the ankle.
I had been experiencing problems with my legs for many years, but by 2024 they had become very weak and climbing the stairs to my toy/wargame room was sometimes very difficult. On the evening of 10th April, I stood up from a living room chair in order to go to bed, and as I walked forward, my right leg gave way and my fall broke my leg.
What followed was nearly three weeks in hospital and then twenty-two weeks confined to bed at home. For the first sixteen weeks, my axonal polyneuropathy – the cause of my weakness – had left me unable to walk, let alone climb the stairs up to my toy/wargame room. At the time, the prognosis was that I would probably be confined to a wheelchair and not walk again, but thanks to the Royal Greenwich Reablement Team and six weeks of intensive physiotherapy was not only able to stand again on my own two legs – with the aid of a walking frame and walking sticks – but actually begin to learn how to climb up a flight of stairs.
Twenty-five weeks after I had broken my leg, we had a stairlift installed, and on 2nd October I was able to use it to go up to bed the first time in nearly six months ... and a visit to my toy/wargame room soon followed.
It soon became apparent that it was very unlikely that I was going to be able to fulfill my dreams of wargaming as much as I had hoped when I retired. Just getting upstairs – even using the stairlift – was tedious and very restricting. If I went up there, I felt marooned ... and if I didn't go up, I felt cheated of the enjoyment I get from wargaming. This dilemma has hung around every since, and every attempt I have made to find a solution has not exactly been a failure but has proved unsatisfactory.
This is where I now find myself ... and until I can find a workable solution, I cannot seem to make significant progress. This is not to say that things have been in a state of limbo; I've been working on my Belle Époque project and I've been gaming on a regular basis at Dice on the Hill. I've also been playing around with a new version of my PORTABLE WARGAME rules for use with my Belle Époque project and trying to devise a set of campaign maps for this project.
So, what do I need to do? I need to create a truly portable wargame that is light and small enough so that I can either bring downstairs and set it up on our dining table or that I can set up on the worktable in my toy/wargame room. I have the figures, I have the draft of a set of rules that might be suitable, and I have loads of Hexon II terrain ... but the latter is not as portable as I need.
I’ve been playing around with possible alternatives to the Hexon II … and I am giving serious consideration to using either a square gridded cloth or board. The choice of squares makes sense for several reasons:
At present I am looking at using 5cm x 5cm (2-inch x 2-inch) squares. I've used this size of grid square in the past (e.g. The Attack on Morobad) ...
The Attack on Morobad. It used a 12 x 12 grid of 5cm x 5cm (2-inch x 2-inch) squares on a sand-coloured felt cloth. The Great Wall of Morobad was homemade from wooden Jenga blocks mounted on 5cm x 5xm MDF squares and the palm trees were mounted on bases made from Fimo.
... and an 8 x 8 grid would be 40cm x 40cm (16-inches x 16-inches) and a 12 x 12 grid would be 60cm x 60cm (24-inches x 24-inches). Both of these would be ideal for my requirements.
Another advantage of using this size of grid square is that my existing Belle Époque collection is mounted on 4cm-wide MDF bases (Infantry on 4cm x 2cm, cavalry on 4cm x 3cm, and artillery on 4cm x 4cm bases) that fit inside this size of grid square. In addition, I will be able to mount terrain on 5cm x 5cm MDF squares (or multiples thereof), of which I have a plentiful supply.
This is the current state-of-play with regard to my plans to create a truly portable wargame that I can easily carry up and down stairs from my toy/wargame room or fit on my worktable. Now all I have to do is to get hold of a suitably-sized piece of felt material or board ... and then I can start being creative.
I recently ordered some painted figures from an eBay seller, and they sent them to me once I had returned from our recent cruise. The seller made sure that everything was securely packed in bubble wrap and cardboard and placed into two substantial cardboard boxes that were taped together with loads of white parcel tape marked with the word ‘Fragile’ in red letters. They then passed it over into the care of the Royal Mail.
That is where things seem to have gone wrong.
I have no idea what they did to the parcel before they delivered it, but it looked as if the word ‘Fragile’ was not just ignored but acted as a trigger for them to treat the parcel with little care. When it was delivered, the corners of the parcel looked crushed and there was an ominous rattle when one picked it up. When it was opened, most of the packaging had burst open, and I would estimate that between 30% and 40% of the figures - which had been based in threes on plastic bases - were loose and quite a few were damaged.
This should not have happened … but it did. The seller did everything to ensure that the parcel and its contents were properly packaged, but the Royal Mail seems to have failed to do its duty to deliver the parcel in the condition in which it was given to them.
Is there any possible redress? Well, I could ask the seller to pursue the matter as the Royal Mail insists that it is only the person who posts an item who can initiate a trace … but that seems to me to be rather an imposition on a seller who sold me these figures at a very reasonable price. Furthermore, the compensation would be negligible.
I’ve decided to see if I can make the best of the situation and repair those figures that are repairable. Hopefully there will then be enough of them to form the basis on a further Belle Époque army.
I recently wrote about my analysis paralysis, and I got lots of useful comments and suggestions. I looked at these in detail, and in the end I decided to take my inspiration from the campaign map used by Thistlebarrow (who writes the wonderful Napoleonic Wargaming blog) ...
Thistlebarrow's Napoleonic Campaign map. It is divided up into squares.
Thistlebarrow's recent Cordova Campaign map. It is divided up into squares, each of which represents a tabletop battlefield.
... and the maps I based on the Waddington's CAMPAIGN boardgame.
The main campaign map I created that was based on the Waddington's CAMPAIGN boardgame..
The map of France.
The map of Germany
The map of Russia.
The map of Spain.
The map of Italy.
The map of Austria.
These latter maps worked well when I used them for my Franco-Prussian War of 1810 campaign and I really should have thought about using something based on them for my Belle Époque, campaign map.
I think that have now identified a way forward ... and I hope to begin preliminary work on my Belle Époque campaign map over the next couple of weeks.
Please note that the first two maps featured above are © Paul Leniston/Thistlebarrow.
