A Farm Near Waterloo

 

One of the secondary goals of the Bear Project is creating 2" square grid terrain.  I hadn't liked the walls I had previously designed, but I think the latest variant will work well.  The bears will likely not be re-enacting specific battles of history, but if they would, they fit nicely.  For those who are not as steeped in history, any of these buildings could fit into any warm weather climate.  Painting the buildings darker gray could probably give a convincing stone look.  

Painting has not progressed.  Facing colors have been selected by the Princess.  The order of precedence has not yet been.  The full suite of four facing colors will only be needed for the infantry. The exact paint matches might be slightly off from what is shown below.

Combining Buildings into Built Up Areas

One of the keys to my plans for wargaming in small spaces is keeping terrain requirements in check. All of my gaming ambitions need to be stored when not actively engaged.  I suspect the average wargamer has more storage occupied with terrain than miniatures or rulebooks. My plan is to be able to combine simple buildings into more complicated (interesting) built up areas, giving me more complexity with fewer starting components.  With a church, 2 cottages, a barn, and a fort, I was able to create a small town, a gated farmstead, and a small fortress.  The small fortress and farm can exist without creating duplicates of any pieces.  Putting the town on the map with either the fort or farm would require a duplicate of one of the houses. 

Small Fort with Barracks and Tower

Town with Church and Two Houses

Gated Farm with House, Barn, and Orchard Behind

I'm not completely convinced I've got the fences and gates right.  I'll keep working on them.  Only the Generals remain, and rightfully so, my daughter wants her pink army to be led by a princess bear.  I'm thinking that the coat would be the same for the Princess General as the other bears, but have a skirt covering her legs.

Army Pink

0 of 1 General Bears

4 of 4 Line Infantry Bears

1 of 1 Grenadier Bears

1 of 1 Cavalry Bears

1 of 1 Artillery Bears

1 of 1 Cannon

Army Blue

0 of 1 General Bears

4 of 4 Line Infantry Bears

1 of 1 Grenadier Bears

1 of 1 Cavalry Bears

1 of 1 Artillery Bears

1 of 1 Cannon

More Terrain Progress

 

The Current Terrain Collection

The terrain collection has expanded.  It now includes (left to right) a barn, two house variations, 2 forest variations, a church, and a blockhouse.  All structures fit in a 2" grid.  The barn, houses, and church have removable roof pieces which can conceal bears.  The blockhouse is a single piece, but bears can occupy the ramparts.  

I've also added corner embellishments that can be added to any of the building models.  These primarily add some visual weight and breakup large flat walls.  The corner supports also add rigidity to the structure when 3D printed, making it more suitable for smaller hands.

Over the past few days, the 3D printer has been churning out models.  I'm going to be out of the house for a considerable chunk of the upcoming week to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Hopefully I can get both sets printed before I leave.  

Army Pink

0 of 1 General Bears

4 of 4 Line Infantry Bears

0 of 1 Grenadier Bears

1 of 1 Cavalry Bears

0 of 1 Artillery Bears

1 of 1 Cannon

Army Blue

0 of 1 General Bears

0 of 4 Line Infantry Bears

0 of 1 Grenadier Bears

0 of 1 Cavalry Bears

0 of 1 Artillery Bears

0 of 1 Cannon

Terrain Progress

 Designing the bear-game terrain continues.  I've redesigned the roof texture to be more Mediterranean.  Smaller roof tiles allows smaller roof segments to have appropriate detail.  The church and cottage below have the same exterior dimensions and base roofline but I think they loos sufficiently different.  The church gets arched and taller windows and doors and a small steeple to differentiate it from other buildings.  These designs are heavily influenced by the simple terrain designs highlighted at https://gameofmonth.blogspot.com, and https://portlandlittlewars.blogspot.com.

Church

. 

Cottage

I've also made a breakthrough on the forests.  The trees are big enough to obscure the bears, yet small enough to fit in the same 2" grid as the bears.  Hopefully the straight section of trees isn't too top heavy.  If they do end up being too heavy, I'll glue them to a base that the bears would also stand on.  The sections with trees on two sides shouldn't be a tipping hazard.  

What Bears?

Terrain Yet to Start

Large Buildings

Fences: Linear cover away from buildings

Fields?: Slows movement & conceals some bears?

Field Works?

Rocky Outcroppings: Linear cover away from buildings

Hills?: Might avoid.  Tends to complicate rules.

Cliffs?: Might avoid.  Tends to complicate rules.

Terrain Work-In-Progress

Small Buildings

Forest

Modular Terrain

Now that I'm relatively locked-in on the bears' dimensions, it's time to work on some terrain.  I'd like to keep the style relatively generic so that it can be adaptable to wherever the bears might find themselves fighting.  (Bonus points if it can be used for humans later)  To that end, I've settled on a slate tile look with very simple doors/windows and stucco/flat walls.  

As with most of what I've designed, I try to use a core catalog of parts and re-arrange them to make different outcomes.  To make the bear project successful I'll need, a variant or two of small cottage houses, a few variants of larger houses, a church, some storehouses/barns, and maybe a few dedicated commercial buildings.  

Basic Cottage Variant 1

Basic Cottage Variant 2

biggest design constraint for terrain is determining if/how units on the board can interact with it.  I'm assuming that the games my daughter and I will play will be largely narrative based so bears will likely need to search houses for honey/treasure or hide from enemy patrols.  I've designed a basic building that the bears can fit in with a removable roof.  The underside of the roof has supports that keep it centered between the gabled ends.  I hope that the gabled ends of the building are rigid enough to survive play.  If not, I'll likely end up redesigning the roof such that it incudes the gabled ends.

Grenadiers Take Cover Inside the Cottage

The most challenging terrain designs are going to be the organic shapes needed for forests.  I could solve this problem by having the trees be removable from their stumps.  When a bear unit needs to occupy the forest, the human player would remove the canopy from the terrain piece and place their bears on the stump field.  This is probably the easiest to design but is somewhat immersion breaking.  The other option I'm considering is making lines of trees to mark the outside of the forest.  The downside there is that the forest would need to be 2x2 grid spaces to completely enclose bears. After I'm satisfied with a few different buildings, I'll make a decision on the forests.  

Terrain Yet to Start

Forest

Large Buildings

Fences: Linear cover away from buildings

Fields?: Slows movement & conceals some bears?

Field Works?

Rocky Outcroppings: Linear cover away from buildings

Hills?: Might avoid.  Tends to complicate rules.

Cliffs?: Might avoid.  Tends to complicate rules.

Terrain Work-In-Progress

Small Buildings

Minor Change of Plans

As stated in my last post, we had planned on being camping this weekend.  We live in Southern California which has generally comfortable weather, but is somewhat prone to forest fires in the dry seasons.  Thursday evening a small fire broke out in the hills on the way to the campground we had reservations for.  By Friday afternoon the interstate we had planned on taking was shut down and it looked like the alternate route would be impacted shortly.  Friday at noon the fire was 8,000 acres, by 2 PM on Friday the fire had grown to 14,000.  As I type early Sunday morning it is now 80,000 and within 5 miles of the campsite we had booked.  So as you may have guessed, we stayed home.  Although we thoroughly enjoy camping and haven't gotten out as much as we would like, we're safe at home and upwind of most of the smoke plume (for now).
Staying home means progress on the wargames front though.  Late Wednesday my lovely wife sewed the edges of a small piece of duck cloth.  I then used a template and permanent marker to mark the corners of the hexagons for the map.  There are 9 rows of 8 or 9 hexagons.  Close ups of mat below.

Close up of mat with partially painted miniatures

Mat on coffee table

Template made from 4 pieces of printer paper taped together

Mat on an End Table (How's that for Compact!)

I am satisfied with the outcome of this mat.  I think it will serve me well for the foreseeable future.  I did realize as I was drawing the dots that only a few more rows and I would have had a mat compatible with a compact Commands and Colors map.  I do have enough scrap to make another that would be compatible, assuming I stick with 2" hexes. 

Determined to Get Some Games In

I’m going camping on the beach this weekend and think I’ll have some time for a series of games.  v1.6 seems stable enough that I could probably manage a small campaign over the course of a camping weekend.  I’ve got a red army and a blue army somewhat painted.  Each features 4 regular infantry, 2 cavalry, 2 artillery, 2 dragoon, and 2 irregular units with 4 militia units unassigned to any particular army.  The dragoons, irregulars, and militia are in various states of paint, with some being near completion and others mostly primer gray. 

I have also been busy on the terrain front.  I have digitally designed and printed prototypes for hills, forest, forested hills, 3 types of built-up-areas, a road system, a river system, and the fords/bridges to make the two work together.  Unfortunately, my 3d printer had a malfunction that caused a part to fail.  The part is relatively cheap on its own, but my printer is a few years old, and the newer models can get very good quality at a lower price.  I have convinced myself that if I could sell my existing printer at a reasonable price, I would buy a new printer.  The new printer should be less likely to nickel and dime me on repairs like my current printer does.  I’ve been attempting to sell my printer, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for used printers in my area.  I’m also somewhat concerned that I’m going to lose my printing space in a few months.

Against my better judgement, and ignoring previous experience, I purchased a small piece of green duck cloth and am in the process of sewing the edges to prevent unraveling.  After that is complete I will be marking the corners of the hexes with a permanent marker.  Hopefully there will be enough contrast to make the hexagon pattern easily visible.  I had previously used a large sheet of paper and marked the corners with a pencil, but have decided I’m ready for something a little more permanent.  We’ll see if it turns out better than my last experiment.  Click “Hex Grid Failure” if you want to read about that debacle.