Battlescale Terrain

     While on Facebook a couple of months ago, someone mentioned Battlescale terrain hexes. I looked up battlescale.com and after some thought, I placed an order. My plan was to get enough pieces for a 8x8 playing board; my math skills are quite atrocious and didn't order enough.  As I ordered them shortly before Christmas, I quickly forgot about the order.

      Today the order came and I am pleased with them. I must admit, having used Heroscape for years, I was expecting lightweight plastic tiles. However, these hexes have quite a bit of weight to them. You can buy "non skid" tabs for the bottom of the hexes to help keep them from sliding. To me they seem to set firmly and I don't think shifting will be a major problem. I bought a large number of plain tiles, several "rough terrain" and hills. The tiles are 3 inches across from flat edge to flat edge. I am thinking of making an edged tray to keep the base tiles firmly in place. I must admit I'm excited to try them out. Of course the size of the tiles cuts down on the portability of the board.

    The next issue is how to finish the tiles. Battlescale gives a nice tutorial on flocking the tiles. I still am leaning towards just painting them; flocking could come later.

Some of the Battlescale hexes laid out.

Some Peter Laing GNW based units on the hexes. Plenty of room for good sized regiments.

Individually based Peter Laing Boers. I think even the individual figures look  good with these hexes.  Also, rebasing the figures on square stands instead of washers was a good move. Figures mounted on washers don't stand well on the rough terrain hexes.

Trying Airfix figures on the hexes. They might be good for skirmish games.

Testing out different terrain features with the hexes. Once again, there is plenty of room for trees and houses, and stands of figures.

While setting up the hexes, I thought of "Simplicity in Hexes" wargame campaign that  I played  last year. In the rules for that campaign, the scenarios used One Hour Wargame scenarios, but set up on a 6x6 hex board. I plan to clean my workbench and set up a 6x6 board and try out a couple of games using those scenarios.

Zulu War Battle

  Although I haven't posted recently, I have got quite a few games in of No Brain Wargames. It has given me an excuse to bring out different Peter Laing figures, and try out some ideas on expanding the rules.

    My wife went to Tennessee with a friend to visit an old high school friend. While she's away, I have watched several movies that I haven't seen in awhile. I did watch "Zulu", which inspired me to play a couple of wargames using Peter Laing figures. I used for rules a set from "Battle Game of the Month", Colonial Tabletop Teaser Battlecry. For the game I used my small squared off board and regular dice instead of Battlecry dice. I just really wanted to see how the rules would work. Needless to say using an 8 X 8 board that fighting started quickly. I thought the game would be bloody using Battle Cry dice, so I went with D6; 6= kill and 5= retreat.

I started photographing the battle late in the game. The Zulus have pushed the British back to the rivers edge. The British commander has just been killed. He single handedly held off one Zulu group for several turns before being killed.

The British counterattack and gives themselves some space.

One Zulu. unit swings behind a British unit, cutting off its'  retreat.

The Zulus isolate one unit.

The British try disparately to link up and consolidate the line.

However, a lucky dice roll gives the Zulus the initiative and they once again isolate the British right unit.

The Zulus finally eliminate the rightmost unit, and are closing in to encircle the left unit.

The British make a mad dash for the river.  After this battle I did play a game with the British in a Rouke's Drift  type of setting. At first it seemed like they would hold the position, but the Zulus started infiltrating the line, and eventually carried the post.