Category Archives: Game Boards

New Gaming Mat

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I just took delivery of a new gaming mat.  I had this design printed on vinyl about a month or so ago but this time I went for fleece.  I’m really liking this version a lot better.

Measures approximately 60″ x 80″  and since it’s made of fleece, you can put bits of terrain underneath it to create small hills and bumps.  Also because it’s made of fleece it’s really easy to fold it up and put it away or transported to a convention.

I’m working on a game scenario where the president of Malakastan crash lands at the airport, and while he survives the crash, rebel forces from the neighboring Krapistan attempt to capture the president. The crashed airplane will be on the runway in the middle of the board and the Krapistanis will enter from one side of the board and the Makastanis will enter from the other side.  Both sides will be attempting to capture the president alive.

You can check out this new game mat  on the GCmini website by clicking here http://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/game-mat-airport/

Bridges For My Battle Mat

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As I discussed in Episode 20 of “In The Game Room”, I wanted to get rid of the printed overpasses and create a couple of 3-dimensional bridges.  I put together the basic structure of the bridges today and tested them out and it looks like they will work fine.  Now I’ll some details, texturing to look like concrete and then color.

Still trying to decide how (or if) I’ll glue down the printed river section and road section.  I have a feeling that if I glue them down they will crease and/or crack when the game mat is rolled up for storage.

Something I’m working on … and a stupid question

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I saw this photo of a tower in Damascus Syria and thought it would be a really cool piece of scenery to make for my middle east games. So, here it is almost done and wearing it’s first coat of primer.

So, here’s the stupid question; Does anyone know what it is? My best guess would be some sort of memorial or monument or maybe one of those towers with speakers at the top that do the daily call to prayer thing. But it seems like a lot of work (and concrete) for a speaker tower.

 

Airport Terminal

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Tonight I finished up my Airport Terminal building with Control Tower.  This is something I wanted for small airports and I’m making it available as a kit on the gcmini.com website.

 

Battle Mats

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I just got these in the mail a few days ago and I’m pretty excited about them.  These are 4′ x 6′ cloth gaming mats that are printed with cool terrain on them.  These are not paper or vinyl, they are a fleece material … so if you get really cold at a gaming convention you can wrap yourself up in them and stay warm.

Normally I prefer “hard terrain” boards with very detailed 3D terrain and features, but honestly moving boards like those around and taking them to conventions is a bit of a pain in the backside.  So, at the last convention I experimented with some modular hex terrain and now I thought I’d give something else a try, cloth battle mats.

These come from Cigar Box Battle Mats at http://cigarboxbattlestore.bigcartel.com/

None of the mats on the site specifically say they are good from 6mm (1/285th scale) gaming but I took a chance on two that I thought would work and I’m very happy with the ones I got.  It seems that some of the mats are available in two scales; 10-15mm and 25-28mm, the main difference between the two is the width of the roads and other details, otherwise they are pretty similar.  In both cases I opted for the 10-15mm versions.

The ones I bought were:
#102 Europe (10-15mm) at $69.00
#103 Desert With Roads (10-15mm) at $69.00

For these photos I just threw them on my bed and put down a few buildings (and shrubs on the Europe board) to give you an idea of how they look. The light in my room was horrible, sorry about the quality of the pictures … but I think you’ll get the idea.

 

 

 

Thunder Run at Orccon 2015

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Tonight’s big Micro Armor game sponsored by GameCraft Miniatures. Good times were had by all. The Iraqis got the backsides handed to them but they took out a respectable number of M1A1 Abrams tanks in the process,,, 6 of them, that’s roughly 6 more than the real Iraqis took out in this campaign.

Photo Fun….

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I do not have any other gamers around so sometimes I just like to get out some miniatures and combine my love for Micro Armor with my love for photography and just have a little photo shoot.  Here’s today’s effort.

How the Thunder Run boards get from place to place

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The question was raised on the GHQ forum  about how I transport and store the thunder run game boards. So I thought I would post a few pictures to show you.

First there is a flat board with four casters on it and four small wooden dowels sticking up out of the base which fit into four holes on the bottom of the first shelf unit. That first shelf unit also has four small wooden dowels coming out of the top of it which fit into the holes on the bottom of the top unit. This arrangement makes it very easy to transport these boards in the back of my truck, or possibly even a small car. Once I get to the venue I just stack the boxes on top of the base, and wheel the whole assembly inside.

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Thunder Run 2003 – The Final Big Game

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Had a great game tonight with 6 players, 3 per side. In the end, the Iraqis made a hell of an effort and eventually lost but they took out a lot of American armor in the mean time. The Americans ended the game with 2 M1A1 Abrams and 3 M2 Bradleys remaining. I think the Republican Guard would probably consider that a pretty good day against the Americans.

Thunder Run ,,, The Night Before

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Trial run for our big Thunder Run game scheduled for tomorrow night. Tonight we had three players and we had a great time. Two guys ran the Iraqi forces and one guy ran the Americans. The Americans were outnumbered two to one and got their asses handed to them but they made a great effort. The entire exchange lasted about 7 turns and tool a little over two hours to play. Tomorrows game should have at least 6 players and take 4 or 5 hours.