"My ACW "Pocket Battles" kit" Topic

Hi All,
I've had a few questions on the forum recently about some of my ACW presentations using the Muskets & Tomahawks rules modified for grand tactical Civil War gaming. Since I don't have a blog, I thought I'd illustrate some of the kit I've made for playing these quick set-up ACW scenarios. First though, I want to say that this thread will be focusing on the "pocket battles" concept more than my conversion work of M&T to the ACW, but the two do work well hand in hand.
Like a lot of you, responsibilities and space limitations have probably exacted a toll on your wargaming time. This is certainly an issue for many of my friends, and the fact too, that much of our gaming can and now goes on at hobby shops and cons. This premium on time has placed greater emphasis on being able to transport and set-up our games with as little wastage as possible, while reserving as much time for the game experience itself. All this led me to look for ways to shrink my gaming kit(s) down to as few containers as possible, and ways to get a game ready to play "out of the box" as quickly as possible. I call this the Pocket Battles concept, and it's certainly not something I've come up with, but just a way that I've expressed this idea to my friends , many whom are still encumbered with burdensome game kits, and sometimes discouraged to put on games because of the overhead that they have accumulated against doing so.
Anyway long story short, some of my game kit involves terrain modules with pre-attached terrain pieces, that are mostly geomorphic, and besides the road tiles, can be put together in many ways. Game forces (for the ACW here – brigades) that are already organized and play out of individual storage trays (little boxes), which I've taken pictures of so the players themselves can put their commands back away into their trays after a game (and ready for the next outing). Lastly, I've dispensed with the idea of doing prepared, historical encounters – my pocket battles are just small, multi-brigade actions that could have occurred on most ACW battlefields – their just snippets of engagements, which by themselves don't need a lot of pre-game briefing to start up. Just units doing battle in ACW-like encounters, and not too unlike a tournament format (but I've already "balanced" the forces involved, and the games are meant to be played with from 4-6 players).
Ok, here's a few pics of this gaming kit (I can carry this all in one arms-load). The terrain tiles can even be set up by the players themselves in an IGO-UGO pre-game phase, that's kind of fun to see come together too (maybe you'll see something you like) -

That's terrific. Thanks for sharing.

My games group likes to refer to games like this as games in one box. We are all trying to figure out various ways to carry complete, ready to run miniature games, in one box.

Excellent – thanks for posting this!

What are the terrain boards made of – ?

They're 12 inch cork squares, about 3/8 of an inch thick. They were sold pre-painted, which caught my eye immediately, but they don't seem to be available as colorized versions anymore (from where I bought them – at Michaels). Since they are meant to be put together on a wall, for making peg-boards out of for example, they're mitered with straight edges and corners. The natural-colored cork squares are readily available at craft shops or online, and could be painted, or even sprayed, and have hobby railroad grass matting glued on top of them and then cut off along the edges, as the beginning for making up a terrain tile set. The cork squares are pretty light too, and have been durable after repeated use.
The roads were also made of very thin sheet cork, with an adhesive backing, then cut and stuck to the cork squares, and flocked (weeded) along their edges to transition each road's sides to the base squares).
One hobby tip – white glue will warp the squares a bit when dried – like for attaching a fiber field or corrugated paper field (plowed field pieces). The rubber-like adhesives, like 3M brand spray glue will do this less. Still, the tiles can be gently counter-bent to flatten, again, I've had little problem with wear or warpage over time.

Thanks – great info!

JS, thanks for the interest!

Nice!