Following on from a series of comments after my "The Charge of the French Cuirassiers" post I have decided to develop the idea of hidden terrain.
My idea is that each player will have a markers that they can place at any time during the game after initial deployment provided that:
- The ground has not yet been traversed by either side
- It is not within 150mm of any deployed unit.
The process is that once placed any unit that comes within 100mm of the marker will roll 1xD6 to determine what the hidden terrain is:
1,2 or 3 - false alarm and the marker is removed
4 or 5 - the unit has encountered some sort of unseen obstructive terrain that is impassible to cavalry and artillery and through which infantry can only move at half speed. A marker is placed representing any one of the following:
- a patch of marshy ground
- an area of rocks or boulders
- a gully, escarpment or wide ditch
- an area of brush
6 - the unit had found a swale or dip sufficient for some or all of the unit to temporarily disappear from view. In any turn that a unit occupies or passes through that area it will be classed as being in cover.
With all this in mind I started to make some markers. I decided to use some old CD ROMs as the base. Why CD-ROMs? Because I had a stack of them, they are of a standard size, they will not warp and they were free.
For the basic marker I just covered up the central hole, painted the top of the CD dark brown and covered it with my basing mix.
Over a couple of evenings I made three of these and will make a few more.
For the rocks and boulders I used some rock pieces made of air dry clay using an old Woodlands Scenics mould.
For the marsh piece I applied some water effect to a CD and then applied my basing mix and a few grass tufts.
The escarpment was just a piece of carved foam board covered with sand, painted and then my basing mix nd grass tufts added.
The area of brush was made with a couple rock mould castings, some clumped foliage, some of my basing mix and a few twigs from the garden.
I am quite pleased with the way these have come out and I will make more although it may be some time before they make it to the table.
You could also get a friend, family member or umpire to mark out, on a map, before the game, the areas of hazard .
ReplyDeleteLovely terrain pieces and a nice, elegant and uncomplicated implementation. I really think that it will add an extra element of surprise and realism. The British cavalry falling down that gully at Talavera is always something that comes to my mind. I can just see it now "Sorry sir, we failed to drive the attack home as we tripped over a Britney Spears and came unstuck on the Spice Girls". I can't wait to see it implemented in the next AAR.
ReplyDeleteIt should be fun...but I'd rather trip on Britney and land on Kate Beckinsale...
DeleteSimple and very effective Mark:).
ReplyDeleteThank Steve, it should be some fun.
DeleteJust uncovered some cd's at the in laws, some will get used this way. Good idea on varying things on the table.
ReplyDeleteI have about 200 that had been sitting about waiting for me to find a use for them.
DeleteThe pieces do look very effective, Mark, nice work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray.
DeleteThat should work nicely. 😀
ReplyDeleteI think so too.
DeleteWhen Stew and I played through our Longstreet ACW campaign, one of the most disruptive and annoying parts of the rules was when he or I had a "surprise marsh/rocks/roughground!" card to throw in our opponent's face during their turn. At first the idea was novel, but after a second game of the same occurence feeling more of a disruptive random aspect to our games rather than a fixed feature to find a tactical solution to resolve it ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back as far as Sam Mustafa's "Longstreet" rules set for us. (There were other things in there we very much weren't fans of, but this specific thing was the most annoying)
ReplyDeleteAm interested to hear how your own random disrupting terrain feature affects your games, if at all. But if they do, what your own solution might be?
I think the answer will be to limit the number of pieces. I am hoping that no more than one or two that will turn up in a game and I want to limit those to just movement inhibitors rather than anything that would provide a serious tactical advantage.
DeleteLooks like a good idea Mark - I am sure I shall be on the receiving end of a particularly inconvenient piece of terrain at some future game!
ReplyDeleteIt should provide a bit of a twist...
DeleteGreat idea ! A good way of adding a little bit of disruption to the Generals carefully laid plans
ReplyDeleteI am hoping it will create some minor disruption, without being decisive.
DeleteNice use of materials to hand and after reading your cuirassiers post I can see the application!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
They were fun to make too!
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