MAP MAYHEM

 

The Bloody Big Battles Battle of Koniggratz game played on my (old) Kriegspiel Map.

Greetings, dear reader(s?).  Much has been going on in these parts, but little has made it into the blog, something I aim to fix with this update.  Specifically, preparation for the Mayhem Convention, which is coming up fast!  Boldly (or foolishly), I have registered to run three games there. I've playtested and packaged two of them, the Battle of Lutzen and Joust for the Fun of It games, and am now proofing the last one, the convention version of my Bloody Big Battles Clash of Eagles, 1879, game. Providing that the looming spring Noreaster' coming this week doesn't leave too big a mess behind, I will be hosting that playtest on Friday.  However, in the last few months, I have been putting together a more portable map along with the means for taking the game on the road more easily.  Here is what that entailed...

Above left, the old map (sitting atop the new). The old map was so big that I kept it in two pieces. Each time I used it, I had to tape them together and then take it apart for storage--and the tape lines on the rest of it were coming undone and wrinkly. There were also some stains developing, but I was still thinking I might just salvage the old fella by reinforcing the seams with sturdy packing tape along all the map joints, making it into one solid, durable item. This I dutifully set out to to (above right).  Unfortunately, this caused the map to be wrinkly--not awful, but certainly "unflat" enough to be problematic, particularly where the sheets met: despite all the effort that had gone in to reinforcing them. There were also some issues with stains that trying to fix only made worse (ain't that always the way?). 

    So, I says to m'self, "Self, this won't do. Just bite the damn bullet and make a new fangled, one piece, loverly map that will be more durable and store more easily."  

    To which my other self replied, "Why, how you talk! Makin' this last 'un jest about kilt me. Make another? How in tarnation would you even do that? Not hardly, no sirree Bob! "  

    To which m'self replied, "Bob yerself! If ye've no stomach fer it, jest you stand aside, and watch and learn!"

I started out by creating a unified, stable backing for the map.  I used a  22" x 30" sheet of sketch pad paper, with pieces along the side that would expand it to the size of the map. I had as few seams as possible, but joined them very cleanly (and strongly) with glue and packing tape. I now had a clean, unified, surface ready to go.

I then printed out the map on full page-sized peel and stick mailing labels. 

I then cut out each of the individual pages (21 of them), seen to the right of the red arrow in the above picture. Then the fun really began. I peeled and stuck (oh, so carefully) all the sheets together onto the backing paper.  I now had a single, durable, map, resized for transport and quite big enough for gaming at 36" x 40" (which, at the half scale, translates to 72" x 80").  

Previously, I had taken an extra step before each game of going over the terrain with a water soluble pen on the plexiglass to bring it out to make key features more visible. I decided that rather than having to do this step each time I used the map, to just do it once and be done with it...

...So, I got myself some micron pens and traced over the contour lines and water features (not all of the contour lines, but enough of them to bring the features out). If you click to enlarge, you can see the result (not too bad, I think: we'll find out during this Friday's playtest if the map is now too busy!).  Needless to say, this was a bit laborious and took a few days. But, as I've said before, it was an investment in time and effort not unlike painting a batch of figures. In the long run, this will be a great time saver, particularly when setting up "on the road" at a convention or a club game night. Speaking of which, the other, equally important part of this project was portability. 

I was originally thinking that I would transport the map in a tube, but found that rolling it up was not a good idea. So instead, I decided to keep it flat, sandwiched between two sheets of foamcore that were fabricated by putting together two 36" x 44" presentation boards (above left). The plexiglass sheets that go over the map are sandwiched between two large pieces of cardboard clamped together (above right, with the map board standing behind).  

The whole shootin' match fits nicely into this 37" x  48" portfolio, which I can sling over my shoulder. It also accommodates the corrugated plastic sheets that I lay down as a base underneath the map, and also has pockets that will hold my reference sheets, play aids, & other game stuff.  

So, I've got a dandy new map and now can take my BBB kriegspiel block game on the road. First outing will be at the Mayhem convention. Being an 0800 a.m. start on Saturday, I definitely want the setup to be as quick and smooth as possible. 

Excelsior!