Monday 14 May 2012

Game set-up,how I do it.

I'm a great believer that a wargame should "look right" for the period being fought, and to this end I have taken a few photo's of the steps Iemploy when setting up a game.(this one is for Thursday)
I started with a "germ" of an idea that I wanted to play a Successor game of Ptolemy against Selucid,based in Egypt,and to be fought against the backdrop of a city (Alexandria in this case).I decided we would be playing "down" the board rather than across it, so the first thing I did was to put a river section with a bend in it so that the city would sit nicely in the centre of the board.As a club we have built up quite an array of "extras" over the years,including this wooden fort,which has taken on many guises-Alexandria for example! I set the city where I wanted it and then decided to "dress" it with a couple of Sphinx, bought from a pet shop's aquarium section,as you can see from the photo below.
So far so good,now I added a few palm trees,again from the aquarium section of a pet store,and the city is beginning to take shape. Crocodiles basking on one of the little islands in the river,I personally like to see this kind of thing on a battle field,it lends a certain charm!!



This is a view of the corner of the board,I have placed a native "dow" anchored to a ruined temple,purely for effect,it won't play any part in the battle.


This shows the finished city from the attackers perspective,andI think looks quite the part.


This is a view from behind the city looking down the board,I have placed a temple on a slight hill to give Selucid a vantage point to command from,I have also placed some more palm trees on either flank to break the plainess of the board.


This is the overall view of the table showing the troops in place and ready to go,as both armies are basically of the same composition the game should go to the commander with the best battle plan,no doubt the winner will enjoy the "pleasures" of Alexandria afterwards.

I hope this short "blog" has described and shown you what goes into most of our games and the pleasure it gives me to be able to put on such games,any comments would be gratefully received.















No comments:

Post a Comment