Gaming Status Report

I didn't manage a game last week, but I made some progress on other fronts.

Shipbuilding

A few weeks ago, I mentioned working on some ship counters. Well, here they are.

I happened to find some 1 x 1/2 inch blue bases so I made some single ship counters. I decided to create some very generic ships rather than period-specific. 

Here you see (from left to right), medium, large, and small warships.

For modern era, these would serve as a cruiser, battleship, and destroyer. But I could also use them as different sized galleys, or as various sailing ships.

I also found some 1 inch square blue bases, so I decided to make some multi-ship bases. I used the same images, shrunk them down, and but multiple on a single base.

Battleships (top), destroyers and cruisers (middle left and right), and merchant ships (bottom).

Yes, I know that the formations are not correct. But they're just tokens designed to represent a squadron of ships. This way, I can play some larger fleet actions.

Also note the background in the above pictures. I created a 5 x 7 inch board with offset squares. I plan to use it for quick-play naval battles.

The Micro Battle Box Set
I took a 6 x 8 inch jewelry box and put together a game box.

You can see the box with game accessories - terrain, markers, dice, and some battle boards on the bottom.

I stored a grassland, desert, and ocean battle boards in the box.

I have the armies in a separate box. There are just too many armies to fit into the game box.

Buildings

I also previously mentioned creating some semi-flat buildings for my Micro Battle set. Recently, I was inspired by this town from Grid Based Gaming - But Not Always.

I drew out some walls and other buildings and printed them onto sticky paper. I just don't have a proper backing for them yet.

In the interim, I packed some of my 2mm terrain into my game box. 

I modified some pieces for use with a 1 inch grid. I originally built them for a 2 inch grid so I had to cut them down. For example, the farm buildings (left) were previously combined onto a single 2 inch base. removed the buildings from the base. Then I cut the walls into 1 inch sections.

X-Wing

I also picked up a copy of the X-Wing miniature game.

In lieu of LARPing during the miserably hot summer, I've been tabletop gaming with my LARP buddies. I introduced one of them to Ace of Aces recently. It seemed that he would prefer something more third person. He is also a big Star Wars fan. These two factors made me think of X-Wing so I ordered a copy.

I noticed they have a second edition but I chose to get 1st edition. Second edition seems to focus on the sequels and I would much rather get ships from the original trilogy. I ended up getting a good deal on the A Force Awakens core set so I went that route. If we like the game, I plan to pick up some original ships.

A Mini Minis Game Project

Last year, I moved my 3mm MicroBattle miniatures and accoutrements to a nice 9" x 12" box. I then picked some more boxes of the same size from GMT Games, planning to move my 10mm miniatures and RPG items to those.

Well now, that leaves me with a couple of nice 6" x 8" boxes. On a whim, I decided to create a mini mini game set up that will fit in the box.

Here is my initial version.

On the left, inside the box itself, I have:

• A plastic box that I will use to store miniatures. The picture shows it with blocks.
• Some dice

On the right, sitting on the box top I have:

• A 5" x 7" gridded board made up of felt glued to cardboard
• Various terrain (river, hills, woods, and a road. No buildings yet)

My initial experiments with MicroBattle featured armies of 4 units. I think I'll return to that setup for this kit.

I want to add buildings and 3mm miniatures. Here are my plans.

• I ordered Monopoly style buildings from Pico Armor. I'll paint them in Roman and northern Europe styles.
• I will build two ancient/medieval armies composed of 3 units each of heavy infantry, light infantry, and cavalry.
• I will use my left-over Magister Militum cavalry and archers
• I need heavy infantry so I ordered some O8 legionnaires from Pico Armor
• I plan to use MicroBattle, possibly with enhancements based on Sellswords and Spellslingers. I may transcribe the rules onto index cards.

That's the project so far. Stay tuned for updates.