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.

Thinking about hexes

The following blog post is the result of some ideas I had whilst I was unwell a week or so ago. Rather like my recent blog posts about psychogeography, I haven't come to any firm conclusions ... but I think that my thoughts are worth sharing online.

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I own Hexon II hex terrain ... a LOAD of Hexon II hex terrain! I like using it in my wargames and my Portable Wargame rules were designed to use them.

There is – however – a problem. Ever since I broke my leg and ended up finding out that I have axonal polyneuropathy – and its related mobility problems – I've only had access to a small part of my collection of hexes. Most of them are in our storage unit, and I only have enough to fill my Portable Wargame warboard. I am missing most of the roads, rivers, hills, and mountains ... and I am not sure when I will be able to rectify this.

That said, I haven't stopped thinking about putting it to good use, especially in conjunction with my Belle Époque project. Regular blog readers will already know that I have been somewhat in the doldrums regarding the the maps I want to use for this project ... other than my decision to try to use the Wargame Map Tool program to create them.

My initial thoughts about the hex maps was to create maps that used one map hex = one Hexon II hex ... but that meant that the maps I created either had to have lots of detail on them – and would take me a long time to create – or would be 'empty' until I 'populated' them with terrain.

I then began thinking about creating a very simple strategic campaign hex map and only worrying about the specific terrain in each hex once opposing forces entered it. This then led to me thinking about whether I could break up each map hex into a number of terrain hexes.

Initially, I looked at the smallest number of hexes I can fit inside a map hex. This was seven:

I then expanded the 'ring' of hexes around the central one, and ended up with nineteen hexes inside the larger hex.

I then expanded it even further until I could get thirty-seven hexes inside the larger hex. This compares with the forty-eight hexes I can fit on my Portable Wargame warboard. In other words, this large hex/small hexes combination is 23% smaller. (I estimate that it will be approximately 70cm/27.5-inches tall and 60cm/24-inches wide ... which will just about fit on my 90cm/36-inches x 60cm/24-inches wargame table)

Hexon II hexes come in two sizes ... a six-hex piece and a single-hex piece. To create my large hex from thirty-seven smaller hexes I could use four of the former and thirteen of the latter.

This rather appeals to me, and I hope to be able to look into this in more detail when time permits.

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I subsequently looked at 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:

I then converted it to fit on my thirty-seven small hex/one large hex map. The result looked like this:

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

Wargame Map Tool: A beachhead map for my mini-campaign board

Recently, I began thinking about setting up a beach landing wargame on my mini-campaign board and decided to design the terrain using the Wargame Map Tool. It took me less than ten minutes, and the result looked like this:

I have begun to play around with some of the tools and discovered that I can scale things to fit the hexes ... and that I can set the size of the hexes up to 50mm, which is half the side of my Hexon II hexes.

This is really turning out to be a great map drawing tool ... and the more I use it, the easier I am finding it to use. 

Wargame Map Tool: My Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign Maps redrawn

The next step in my 'learning how to use the Wargame Map Tool hex map drawing program' was to see if I could use it to redrawn the maps I used for my Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign. These date back to the 2015s and included:

• Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign: Crossing the river (15th February 2015)
• Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign: Counter-attack (17th February 2015)
• Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign: Defence line (20th February 2015)

Below are the original maps, in each case followed by the relevant redrawn maps created using Wargame Map Tool hex map drawing program

The original 'Crossing the river' mini-campaign map.

The redrawn 'Crossing the river' mini-campaign map.

The original 'Counter-attack' mini-campaign map.

The redrawn 'Counter-attack' min-campaign map..

The original 'Defence line' mini-campaign map.

The redrawn 'Defence line' mini-campaign map.

As can be seen, the redrawn maps are simpler than the originals and lack some of the finer details ...

... BUT ...

... once I set up the basic hex map, I managed to produce the redrawn maps in less than fifteen minutes, and that included uploading the original exported PNG images into MS Paint to tidy up one or two minor problems and to save them in JPG format.

I am still on an upward learning curve with this program, but the more I use it (and make mistakes as I do!), the more I am learning the strengths and weaknesses of this hex drawing program.

Wargame Map Tool: My first attempt to draw a map

Having recently downloaded the WARGAME MAP PROGRAM hex map drawing program, I have managed to start playing around with it. I decided that my starting point would be to produce the sort of map I used for the Operation Barbarossa Mini-campaign that I staged last year at my local game club, Dice on the Hill. It took me a couple of attempts to get it the way I wanted it to look, and the result looked like this:

It is by no means as detailed as I hoped it might be, but for a first attempt I was quite pleased with the result.

Wargame Map Tool: Is it the hex map drawing program that I need?

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.