"Why all the paper figs and no paper maps?" Topic

I've noticed a lot of paper figures recently on the front page, and some of them are very good looking indeed. I don't have much interest in them, but they are high quality.

It got me wondering why none of these companies make a set of modular top-down paper maps, that could be taped together and laminated or placed beneath some plexiglas to make a gaming table? If something like that existed, especially if it were for the ACW and included rail fences and terrain contours I'd definitely consider buying that… hint hint. Otherwise I'll have to do them myself… and probably not as well…

I remember seeing a really interesting table at one of the Scottish shows a couple of years ago that used thin layers of cork matting to represent contours, giving the overall effect of a 3-D relief map to represent the terrain. I think it may have been used for 2mm World War Two, although my memory may be faulty. It really did look like the view of a 1,000-foot general. I'll maybe see if I can find an image on the web somewhere.

There are a lot of top down maps available now, they are called board games, :)

Erm… at the risk of taking a joke post at face value (it's not quite 5:30am, and I'm not sure whether or not the OP is serious), but there are a ridiculous number of paper maps out there for gaming- a quick glance at Wargames Vault, among other sources, will cough up dozens, if not hundreds, of floorplans, battlemaps, and so forth, for almost any genre you can think of, be it historical, sci-fi, or fantasy.

Many of them even give you the option of an optional grid (although that's easily handled with a pattern printed on said plexiglass or laminating material even if they weren't).

Anyways, if you were serious, I hope that helps, and if you weren't, I'll be over at the Sleep Dep Cafe, still not sleeping.

- Monk

Didn't we have a printable wargame map advertised on the front page just a couple of days ago?

Boardgames are the fully cardboard version of these games, if you are looking for more paper on your battlefield then there are tons of printable paper buildings and whatnot you can clutter your paper battlescapes with.

Dear Forward March studios.

Already did it. For my American Civil War game, I use the "Woodens" from Windcatcher graphics. To go with the spirit of the figures I made all my terrain 2 1/2 dimensional. That is, out of flat foam core with printed terrain features on it, except for the hills, though I could do that too.

I've made the following pieces.

1. The Standard requirements for any Civil War Battlefield. Every Civil War Battlefield must have..

1. A Peach orchard,
2. Wheatfield
3. Cornfield
4. Stone Wall
5. Sunken Road

I also made the following

7. Cabbage patch
8. Briar Patch
9. Mire of Despond
10. Bayeux Bayou.

11. 8 Sections for the Mighty Missipissi River.

12. Miss Fiddle De Leigh's Plantation.
13. The fortifications for the battle of Peckersburg,

The Angle, The Dog Leg, the Sand Trap, the 19th Hole, the Caddyshack, the Clown's mouth, and the Windmill, the Water Hazard, The Rough, and the Washbord.

14. The buildings for the battle of Fredericksburg Of Hollywood (basically Fredericksburg)

15. The town buildigngs for the Siege of Vicki's Burgers, and the city of Gnoshville.

16. The complete railroad of the Chatnooga Choo-Choo. With Station and paper Engine.

17. I also made 4 10" siege mortars, 4 11" dahlgrens and 4 24 lb parrots.

18. 6 Ploughed field sections (Tottie Fields, W.C.'s Field, the Home field (or behind the woodpile), The Outfield (or the back 40).etc.

I think I owe you photos of these. I have the photos from the last game we played (The Battle of 2nd Molasses) and I will upload them soon, as soon as I figure out how. Or if you want I will send them to you on a disc.

They are quite easy to make if you have a good printer and a Corel Draw or similar sophisticated Vector Art Drawing program.

Presently I am also making models of brick pentaganol artillery forts for the battles of New Oilins, and Fort Sumptydumpty.

All of the models have a base on which the buildings fit in slots. The whole thing is made of foam core with the printing on it put on through the use of Avery Labels. The buildings are typically just cross pieces put together with a slot like any egg-crate box.

Oh yes, I also do trees (deciduous and confiers the same way, and have just completed another of the perquisites for a Civil War Battlefield, – The Cemetary, complete with three rows of gravestones.

The stuff is wonderful, very light, you can knock down the most elaborate set up to fit inot simply white mailer boxes, This makes it great for conventions. My whole Civil War collection of fields, entrenchments, soldiers, everything packs up in six regular computer paper boxes, including measuring sticks, dice, and the Civil War Song Book for morale checks.

Oh yes, the rules are called
"Magnolia's Mint Juleps N' Gritz" and are one page two sides.

I'll try and figure out how to post the pictures over the weekend.

I have Billy Bones' ECW period paper stuff and they are wonderful. I really like the 17th century style of steel engraving that he used to create these. Anyway, he recommends, and I agree, using an off-white cloth painter's drop-cloth for the table cover. Combined with his matching terrain, it looks pretty doggone good.

Billy Bones will also be releasing ACW terrain like trees, buildings, fence, etc in the future to go along with his paper ACW line.

As to paper maps, etc, there is so much available that any simple search online would find it. As for taping them together, I think a better idea would be to mount them onto 2'X2' sections of black foamcore.

Or have a look at some of the terrain-printed maps used by air combat games such as Wings Of War.. They may not be to your scale, but are nicely done on black foam rubber..maybe a version of this is what you mean?

link

There are tons of cardboard on paper games they are called BOARD GAMES. I have a couple of hundred in my collection going back to 1960s. Still making them today. I see those ads too and I don't get the appeal. Want to do all of Gettysburg? Let me pull out my copies of "Terrible Swift Sword" and you don't have to look for an oldie, GMT among others still make great board games. If you are going to do miniatures then do miniatures. Your mileage probably does vary and I don't care.

Woof, this question has touched some nerves somehow! C'mon people, it's Friday!

My purpose in bringing this subject up is in part because I want to use my left over 08 figs for some highly portable tactical level games. Say, where one or two strips on a 20mm frontage is equal to a regiment in line on 300 degree frontage. I'm still basing up most of them for large 2:1 battles, but I wanted something I can play without an 18' x 6' table and terrain. So I came up with this other idea.

Now, one could, theoretically, make a terrain board that has the fine level of detail I mentioned above, but I've tried and it sort of looks lousy. Now, if one had a map or even better pieces of a map that one could move around and make customized boards plus overlays for roads, fences, rivers, streams, houses, etc, etc, then you could have the best of both worlds, in fact, something like a hybrid board/miniature wargame.

I came up with my own solution, which is to copy crop the Ferraris maps off the website, then crop the images down to just one terrain type. Then I copy those over and over at the optimal resolution in PowerPoint and then print off whole sheets in color. I can then chop the basic terrain types up- be it marsh, open fields, farms, woods, orchards, etc., then cut out the shapes I need and glue them down onto foam core. I put a sheet of acetate over top of that, mark out the elevation contours, the roads and water with colored markers, fences, then plot a piece of plexiglas over top of that. And the game is played on the plexiglas. Simple. And the level of detail is fine enough so that you can play with the very small ground scale I mentioned.

300 degree frontage

??? What's a 300 degree frontage?

Whoa! meant 100m…

This is a whole game but the board appears to be something like what you are talking about

link

Muzik- thats exactly what I was talking about! That map looks awesome. Dunno about buying the whole game,but thats generally what I meant. That is actually what gave me the idea to begin with….