"When is a wargame a boardgame? - with photos." Topic

This has been something of a pet project that was inspired by a fellow blogger who created a 'pin board' wargame. I wanted to create something that was truly portable and be played almost anywhere. The armies were easy enough, 3mm scale, and I wanted to do DBA with them all based on '15mm'scale bases with 40mm frontages.

I put a lot of thought into the board itself before hitting upon the idea of using an old folding game board and texturing it! The board opens up to a 30 x 20" playing area and folds down in 8 sections into a zip lock bag. I'm rather pleased with it :)

I'm working on terrain now alongside painting my eight DBA army Classical Indian to oppose my Macedonians.

Here is the set up and things stand, still need to create areas of arable land and I have a few ideas for that.

Cheers,
Lee.

A very nice project. All good and all neat.
Good job.

Responding to your initial question.
Boardgames (counters on a board) with a military theme are probably "wargames" in the understanding of most people.
Most games that use military miniatures are wargames in my opinion.

Some folk might be exercised by this matter I suppose??

Thanks for showing your project Lee.

martin

It's a question that comes up, but at my current state of gaming, I find the definition between board gaming vs. miniatures gaming is clouding up all the time now.

Here's the journey I've been on lately – get my miniatures collections organized into self-contained (out-of-the-box) game systems.

IMO, it's actually the "box" that's presenting the useable, organizing principle.

Lee, you have an organized [boxed] system above – and everything can deploy and play from that. This can be the guiding principle, and it's also the product principle behind most board games – they're self-contained products, and everything deploys from the stored source onto the tabletop ready to go.

A couple years ago I looked at my collection shelves, and realized they revealed great potential, but nothing was ready to actually be played with – the versatility of having numerous collections and carriers all waiting my next scenario design was the problem, not the solution – the troops were all packed away, but waiting for me to work up something to make them useable again.

I have now been matching these collections to individual scenarios (or to self-generating scenario systems) before I packed them away to the shelves – but now they're ready to be played right out-of-the box (just like self-contained board games do).

Check out mid-way down in this first link (it's the box!).

TMP link

Other "conversion plays" -

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To me, it's not the board game vs. miniatures game debate – it's a matter of how well is that game box on the shelf organized and immediately ready to be played with…..

Grab that mat, or clean off the game table over there…..find the rules, dice, and rulers back in the drawer somewhere…..terrain in that box back in the basement, miniatures up on that shelf……and so now what scenario can I think to play with all these disconnected, gathered-up pieces? ……not anymore, I've got a new hobby plan – keep it together (and yes, add some 'sanity' too).

Honestly, I don't care to split the Board Game/Miniatures War Game hair down the middle. I have played board wargames a plenty, in the past. I still play them when I get the chance.

Your 3mm game is quite nice. Too small for my old eyes, but I very much appreciate your work! Marvelously, and beautifully, done! I hope it provides hours of satisfying play. Cheers!

Very nice work.

Excellent looking game!

Kim

Impressive. I've been meaning to do something similar for Warmaster Ancients using Baccus 6mm sets, but haven't gotten around to it. I like the idea of cannibalizing an old game board.

Nicely done. My feeling is that anything which represents warfare is a wargame, and it's a boardgame if it uses cardboard counters and a board rather than 3D figures and terrain. (This does of course leave a gray area of 3D figures on a flat board.)

My travel armies are 2mm with folding or roll-up mat and 3D terrain, intended to travel in something about the size of a laptop carrier and play on a 2x2 surface, so very close to what you've done.

The 6mm (and the lone 10mm) are close to FlyXwire--troop boxes, a folder with rules and scenarios to match to go with each set of armies and terrain boxes. Pull the troop boxes, the folder and the necessary terrain for the scenario, and drop them all in a canvas bag with a 3x3 board in the hatchback, and I'm ready to go and play.

Keep an eye out in thrift shops--often an excellent source of cheap game boards.

robert piepenbrink – you have given me an idea re your mention of 3D figures on a flat board! I like it so am planning to make numerous 150mm square painted terrain tiles using textured paint alone. I think my 3mm ancient armies will work well with this idea for the 'Portable Ancient wargame'
Cheers,
Lee.

Meantime the DBA project is fully transportable in a single sparkly box!

I play board games, I play on a 3D board like some board games. I Use 3D minis (like Monopoly). Ergo I play boardgames.

I do like your 3D board, I did get an artist to draw me a ploughed field as part of my terrain. It caused a bit of a stir when it first ended up at a show, folk could not believe it was flat until they touched it. It may be that you can do something like that to keep space requirements down. 2D trees would be very small and so may be an acceptable part of the solution. These are my 2D trees at 1/144 scale.

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