Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Bunker Hill

My "theme" game for the Williamsburg Muster will be Bunker Hill. Given that I am using a battle that predates the "Wars of 1812" it is a bit of a stretch, but it does feature Americans and British troops at least.
I want to use this blog to walk through my process to create a gaming layout for a convention game. I try to create games for our conventions that go a considerable step beyond the standard club game, trying to give the many gamers who travel to our convention something special.
Here is the wikipedia entry for Bunker Hill - I am using both of the battle maps from there to make my gaming table.
I have several rulesets that I want to playtest with, and the coming month should see several playtests. I am set on a 25 yards per 1 inch groundscale, with 1 figure equaling 25 men, and an effective musket range of 75 yards.
Now for the setup:
My layout will be 4'x6', fitting cleanly on a 5x6 convention table with 6" to spare on each long side for the players to put their dice, tape measures, rosters, etc. Conveniently, a 4x6 layout also fits perfectly in my SUV for the drive to the convention.
I have a base of 1/8" thick masonite because the insulation sheathing that I am using to construct the terrain is somewhat fragile, and the masonite will help to prevent any major damage. Too, I can paint the masonite where necessary to provide the illusion of depth to the "water" that I add to the gameboard.
In my next post, I'll show how I cut the foam and build the terrain layers. Here is a teaser picture of the gameboard after the first night's efforts.

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