"Modelling a Quarry" Topic

Our war-gaming club is planning to run the Franco-Prussian War battle of Gravelotte using the Bloody Big Battles rules soon. While prepping for the scenario, I noticed you needed to model two quarries on the table-top. After a bit of pondering, here is what I came up with to represent one:

Dave

That looks really good, I think. One thing I really like about the hobby is how you can switch from super detailed realism to suggestive abstraction and back again.

If I might suggest one other approach? It seems to me the representational problem is that a quarry is a sort of a pit, and you don't want to carve a hole in your gaming table. You could build up a small hill, and carve away most of it, leaving an irregular crescent shape -- as if there's a big outcropping of whatever the people are quarrying and they're digging away at it. You could treat the lower rim as you did in the photo. Hopefully the effect would be something like this:

Failing that, some water in the bottom in the bottom of your quarry might add some visual appeal.

How does the quarry scenery affect the game?

If it's just a hole which is impassable so units go around it, and/or can act as a a trench (with open back) for missile troops at the edge, then your piece is perfect.

If it's a box canyon as in Jeff Ewing picture, or a row of cliffs, you would use appropriate hill pieces.
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In the scenario and this rules set, the quarry is impassable to artillery and cavalry and infantry treat it as difficult terrain and defend it like a trench or light field work. Jeff does have a point about water in the quarry. I doubt even an active quarry could keep water completely out using 1870's technology. I have added an impression of stagnant water in the quarry and placed a division of Prussians next to it to show scale.

Dave

Nice piece Dave. I think it looks better with the water. Thanks for sharing.

OBW

Yes water makes a huge difference. I was going to mention that but in your first picture, I thought the road was rather wide in scale so perhaps it was a river. A quarry cliffside next to a river might not have standing pools of water.

Anyway, it looks great now.

Yes it does.