So I'm just starting to get into table top RPGs. Coming from a wargaming background, I was attracted to the tactical combat of The Fantasy Trip, and I recently had the opportunity to GM a game of the pre-programmed adventure Death Test with friends, two of which had never played any kind of RPG or dungeon crawler before. Here are my thoughts as a first time GM, running a game with brand new players.

This being a very first play-through, I didn’t want to kill everyone off too soon, and after reading about how deadly Death Test can be (and TFT combat in general), I decided to have the players build 38 point characters (32 points being considered "starting" characters.) This was probably too drastic on my part, as I think the party could have used a bigger challenge earlier on. The three PCs were: Vespia the wizard, Krog the definitely-not-an-orc-in-disguise greatsword wielding warrior, and Philip the deadeye crossbowman. I also ran a fourth character, Milo the halfling ninja, armed with bola and throwing stars, In addition to controlling all the monsters in the dungeon.

Highlights of the game include Vespia the clumsy wizard missing nearly every single roll to cast a spell except for two, both illusions. The first was a bear, who inherited its maker's clumsiness and missed every single attack roll it made. The second illusion Vespia created was a duplicate of himself, which provided a much needed tactical advantage in the last fight. Krog, the party’s tank, did tank things until getting zapped by lightning and crit-hit by a magic fist, which took him down to exactly 0HP. Luckily the party had a health potion by that point and were able to get him back into the fight. He also managed to befriend a spider early on, which rode on his shoulder for the duration of the dungeon. Milo’s bola was quite useful for tripping up enemies and setting up Krog for a few quick kills. Milo was also the party's only loss: crushed to death by a giant club.

Philip was probably the real MVP of the party however. Nothing too fancy or showy, just consistently hitting with the crossbow and rolling high damage. He did roll a critical hit and triple damage some poor goblin though, leaving the creature’s spine attached to a wall.

The party managed to reach the final room of the dungeon with an appropriately cinematic ending fight with a giant. Vespia managed to distract the giant with an illusion, while the party attempted to run past and escape, getting quite the surprise at finding the door locked and their escape blocked. This was where Milo met his end as well, crushed flat. Vespia, out of desperation and with only a few ST left, began swinging his wizard’s staff at the giant, criting and rolling double damage. Philip peppered the giant with bolts, while Krog, himself down to only one ST, managed to strike the killing blow.

Overall everyone enjoyed themselves and I think it served as a good first introduction to dungeon-crawling. I really want to lean more heavily into the roleplay aspect of the game the next time we get together.

Things I would like to do better: I need to get more familiar with the rules. I spent a lot of time looking things up and I hate to waste player’s time. As I get more comfortable with the system I hope to get more comfortable winging it and making quick judgment calls as well. 

I liked the tactical aspect of the combat, but several times during play we wound up in kind of a stalemate of the two groups just standing still and rolling dice at each other. As we start adding Talents into the mix (we played with just Melee/Wizard) hopefully that will open up more interesting options.

Final party thought: I know Death Test is a combat focused adventure, but for the sake of variety and to aid in roleplay I would have liked to have seen some more traps or environmental hazards to contend with, or maybe even a puzzle to solve. If I run Death Test again I would like to add some in myself.

The party emerges victorious

The Tombstone Tinderbox, available from Little Wars TV, is a complete starter set for historical tabletop gaming in the Old West. I recently saw it advertised on Little Wars’ Youtube channel and was immediately attracted to it. Here was a chance for some exciting new gaming, all in one package! A new time period (Wild West), a new scale (15mm), and new rules try.

Little Wars advertises the set as containing everything you need to get started gaming in the Wild West. Let’s take a look inside and see what you get.

Game Components

The set comes with a copy of Ruthless, a free two-page ruleset also available online, although you could conceivably use whatever rules you wanted to with this set. I found the rules themselves to be great, and I will be taking a closer look at them later. What is very nice, however, is that Little Wars has also included everything you need to play the rules – character cards, dice, tokens, a deck of cards, even card sleaves and dry erase markers! All components are of good quality, and I was quite pleased with them. It was very nice to just immediately have everything you need to play.

One of the best things included, however, is the scenario book, allowing you to play a four-part linked campaign covering the shootout between the Earp’s and the Cowboys in Tombstone (the gunfight at the OK Corral) and its aftermath. The scenarios themselves are interesting and quite well written, and the linked campaign looks like a bast to play.

As an added bonus, the scenario book also includes tips and tricks for building more terrain, how to expand the game, and generally how to get the most out of your gaming.

Terrain

The terrain items included in the set are a felt mat, a set of trees from Woodland Scenics, and six cardstock buildings with fence sections.

As an avid paper modeler, I quite enjoyed putting the buildings together. They are printed to nice quality cardstock, are of good design, and generally intuitive to put together.

The only thing I would have liked to see improved were the “removable” roofs. They are removable in the sense that you do not need to glue them down; however, they simply sit atop the models and as such are not very secure. Some additional supports would have been nice to see here.

The felt mat is fine, although you may wish to add a little more color to it. The trees are of the usual Woodland Scenics quality.

Miniatures

The Tinderbox comes with a set of eighteen 15mm miniatures from Blue Moon. This is the first time I’ve had my hands on 15mm minis. A google search tells me they are closer in size to 18mm, but still, I am quite impressed with their quality and detail.

I also very much appreciated the variety included – lawmen, horse riders, bandits and banditos, and townsfolk are all represented, with no duplicate poses!

The figures were quite fun to paint up, although I could have benefited with some finer-tipped brushes.

I also appreciated that the set came with basing materials (super glue and washers).

Conclusion

When they said this set comes with everything you need to get started, they weren’t kidding! Terrain Items, miniatures, and game components are all taken care of. Overall I am very happy with this set and am looking forward to getting more table time with it! I will end this post by including a few shots of the game in action. Enjoy!

How much space do you need to play a 1/72 scale wargame? In this mini post, I experiment some more with playing on a 1x1 table. You can find the previous post in this series here. The game is Five Men in Normandy by Nordic Weasel Games.

Early morning hours of D-day, chaos reigns. A small patrol of US Airborne are trying to find the link up point with their unit in the dead of night. Their objective this game is simply to exit the opposite side of the table. They cautiously advance...

The local Wehrmacht garrison has become alerted to their presence.

Rifle fire sends the Airborne troopers diving back for cover.

A lone Airborne trooper charges up the right hand side and engages in hand to hand combat, barely besting his German opponent.

Rifle fire puts another German down, things are looking good for the Airborne patrol so far.

But the German recovers, returns fire...

And sends a US Thompson gunner bailing off the table.

The Americans have a man moving up the flank however.

"Guten tag"

The Airborne trooper misses a point blank shot! Fritz returns fire and puts him out of action!

At this point, with half their number down or bailed, I decide to do a morale check for the remaining Airborne troopers. They decide, wisely I think, to get out of doge and try to find another way around to link up with their unit.

Well that was a fun little exercise. The game was still a little cramped, and I had to adjust the rules a little to account for such a small playing space, but all in all an enjoyable game. Turns out you can play a 1/72 scale wargame on a 1x1 table.

Hürtgen Forest, early morning hours of a cold day in September 1944. Two enemy scouting parties bump into one another in the deep woods, and a short, sharp fight ensues.

The battlefield: extremely close quarters!

The German forces move onto the table first – the patrol leader places his two riflemen in covering positions along either flank, while he and another of his submachinegun wielding compatriots push into the center of the table, hoping close the distance on the enemy patrol.

The American forces arrived second, pushing their riflemen into the center of the table while sending their lone BAR gunner around the flank.

The two forces spot each other, and rifle shots ring out in the early morning darkness. An American rifleman flinches, and one of the German submachineguns pushes up the center. The American BAR gunner senses his movement and lets loose a long, spraying burst, sending the German scrambling back. The American’s use this brief opening to move further around the flank, placing a rifleman behind the protection of a large rock formation.

The BAR gunner, however, has left himself exposed, and on the next German activation he his hit by rifle fire. The other German rifleman uses a “scurry” die to push up the right flank without fear of reaction fire. The German rifleman draws fire during the American turn, but manages to weather it and return fire himself, causing his adversary immediately in front of him to bail and run for cover further away.

The German submachinegun decides to use this opportunity to push further forward up the center, but pays for his boldness: he is quickly cut down by rifle and carbine fire.

The next several turns see a few exchanges of inaccurate rifle and submachinegun fire combined with small positional shifts, each force trying to squeak out a slight advantage over the other.

The American position begins to slowly become enveloped, and in desperation the American squad leader rushes straight up the middle and into hand to hand combat with the German squad leader! Even though the American has a slight advantage, the dice fall in the German’s favor, and the American is bested.

This causes the remaining American’s morale to break, and they flee the field. A hard and viciously fought battle ends in German victory.

This game was played using the Five Men in Normandy rules from Nordic Weasel Games. Hope you enjoyed reading!

Super Tiny Skirmish, published by Mammoth Miniatures, is a fun little man-to-man skirmish game that lives up to its name. The rules come in at just under eight A5 sized pages (roughly half a sheet of US Letter: think booklet size) at 24pt font. This means you get a complete skirmish game in under 500 words! The game is set in what I would consider a low fantasy setting, although the system is simple enough that you could easily adapt it to other settings if you wished.

The rules allow you to generate fighters, fight with those fighters, and even gives you a simple system for leveling up, building a warband, and gaining equipment.

The game mechanics are quick and easy: each fighter has two actions per turn, and each fighter is given four stats. To preform an action (such as attack or attempt to survive an attack) the player must roll UNDER the relevant stat on a 2d6 roll. The system is IGO-UGO, and with only a handful of miniatures per player, the game plays very quickly. The last game I played, my opponent and I were able to form two opposing warbands, play a game, switch sides, and play again, all in the space of about 45 minutes.

The game does lack any real “chrome,” but, depending on your play style, I find that as a strength. With a little bit of imagination you can easily implement additional mechanics as you see fit. For instance, my opponent and I thought it would be fun to give each fighter a unique “skill” that it could preform as an action, and assigned it to the relevant stat.

Will Super Tiny Skirmish replace other games on your table? Probably not. But that’s ok because it’s not trying to. It is what it says it is: a quick little pub game, and a refreshing one at that.

You can find Mammoth Miniatures on Wargame Vault or their own webshop.

Late June, 1944. British SOE has identified one SS-Oberführer Ebbe Deitrich as an individual possessing vital intelligence needed for the continuation of the war effort in France. Local French resistance groups have reported seeing Oberführer Deitrich and his entourage taking shelter in a small bombed out hamlet, some distance behind the allied lines. Members of No. 10 Commando, who had been inserted behind enemy lines before the invasion, are tasked with infiltrating the ad-hoc SS command post and, if possible, capturing Oberführer Deitrich alive for interrogation.

The Men

The four-man Commando team selected for this mission comprises of Captain Macy (Welrod silenced pistol), Sergeant Barlow (De Lisle silenced carbine), and Corporals Dunnegan and Feron (Silenced Sten).

The Mission

The Commandos begin their infiltration from the east. Their basic plan is to split their forces into two and approach the house where Oberführer Deitrich is believed to be from two different directions. If they can reach the house undetected, they stand the best chance at capturing Deitrich alive by attacking from two directions at once. The men have observed some sentry activity but will not know the exact extent of the opposition they face.

Ed. note: because I am playing this scenario solo, from only one side, I wanted to add as much fog of war as I could. Before starting, I designated several areas enemy sentries could possibly be, marked with question marks on the map. Once line of sight was established with one of these “blanks,” I rolled on a table to determine who the enemy was, what direction he was facing, and if he was moving or stationary.

Captain Macy moves up along the north, peeking around a corner and gaining LOS to a sentry. As the sentry is not facing him, Captain Macy signals for Corporal Dunnegan to move forward. Macy attempts to neutralize the sentry with his silenced Welrod pistol, but misses the shot.

Ed. note: I goofed on the rules at this point. After Captain Macy fired he should have received a noise marker, which would have caused the SS sentry to investigate. I was able to ret-con this mistake in later, however, with one of the special “infiltrator” abilities which you will see showcased later on in the mission.

Sergeant Barlow and Corporal Feron move in to the south. During the patrol phase, several SS sentries begin to roam…

The next infiltration phase, the action stays with Barlow and Feron. Barlow moves in silently through one of the bombed out farm buildings, while Feron dashes along the outside wall. This causes a noise marker to be placed on Feron, which draws a sentry toward the noise, and directly into the sights of Barlow’s De Lisle carbine. Barlow lines up the shot, and drops the sentry with a single tringle pull. One SS scumbag down.

A noise marker is placed on Barlow which would have drawn the attention of the other sentry, but Captain Macy is able to use the “Deception” infiltration ability so that the sentry is prohibited from moving during the patrol phase. With that taken care of, Corporals Dunnegan and Feron move forward, and make LOS to another potential sentry “blank.” Corporal Feron rolls on the sentry table, and the original sentry marker is removed and instead replaced with two potential enemies.

During the next patrol phase, one of the possible enemy contacts roves to the outside of the building and reveals himself. Corporal Feron attempts to take him out with his Sten gun but misses. Sergeant Barlow drops him instead with another well aimed shot from the De Lisle. Again this causes noise, and with Captain Macy having already moved, draws enemy attention. The SS sentry begins investigating, and ends the patrol phase directly behind Barlow, with only a wall separating the two!

During the next infiltration phase, the rest of the team moves into position surrounding the target house. Sergeant Barlow, with a sentry being so close to him, must make a decisive action. He decides to round the corner of the wall, firing his De Lisle point blank at the sentry… and misses.

Alarm!

Things begin happening rather quickly. The sentry facing Barlow dives at the commando, attempting to take him down in hand-to-hand combat. The surprise of the encounter must have shaken him however, as the brawl end in a draw and Barlow retreats further into the farmhouse. An SS sentry steps out of the target building and fires at Corporal Dunnegan causing him to retreat to safety. Corporal Feron responds with a long burst from his Sten, and the sentry bails off table!

Before Oberführer Deitrich has the chance to fully respond, Captain Macy rushes inside the house and engages in hand-to-hand combat, attempting to wrestle SS leader to the ground. An unarmed SS radio operator joins the melee but is beaten back. Oberführer Deitrich is captured! SS reinforcements are beginning to arrive, however, so it is time to boogie.

Macy and Dunnegan begin withdrawing back to allied side of the table. An SS sentry attempts to rush Sergeant Barlow again, but this time is cut down by the De Lisle. Feron lets loose another burst from his Sten and sends an SS scumbag scurrying back.

The following turn, arriving SS reinforcements are able to get a flanking position on Feron, who does not survive the resulting fire. Barlow responds with the De Lisle, which once again drops its enemy.

The rest of the team is able to withdraw safely. Mission accomplished, but with the loss of a good man.

Enemy casualties: 1 captured, 4 KIA
Friendly casualties: 1 KIA (Corporal Feron). His sacrifice will not be in vain, as intelligence gathered from Oberführer Deitrich should further the Allied war effort and save Allied lives.

The game played is FiveCore from Nordic Weasel Games.
The VTT used is Owlbear Rodeo.
The map is by 2-Minute Tabletop.
The tokens are by Historical Battlefields.
Dice were rolled by me, John Mayes.

For Christmas this year my sister and bro-in-law picked me up a set of Italeri 1/72 US Paratroopers. Life being the way it is, I've only just got around to painting them up.

The start of the project - first figure off the sprue.

I started with a thin base of grey primer. As you can see this brings the details on the figure out quite nicely. I have been pretty happy with Italeri's casting quality so far.

A pathfinder.

I also picked up a few 20mm metals, pictured here in the foreground, to go along with my plastics. The figures are from CP Models / TQD Castings, and I am quite happy with them. The proportions on the figures match the Italeri 1/72 nicely, and, because of the kinds of bases they came with, would end sitting at the right height off the table with the other figures as well.

CP Models starting to get painted up.

Also pictured is the color choice I made for mid-'44 Airborne uniform color. I did not have anything that matched well, so I decided to mix 2 parts Vallejo Khaki with 1 part Vallejo German Field Grey to try and approximate the color. As you will see I ultimately regretted this decision, but live and learn.

Progress being made on the CP Models. The detail on these is great!

Once I got all my base coats down, I gave the figures a healthy application of Army Painter Strong Tone. The wash leaves quite a bright sheen, but an application of Vallejo Matte Varnish will flatten the figures back down nicely.

A figure pre matte varnish.

I based the plastics on pennies, and kept the 20mm metals on the bases they came with. I find that pennies are a good size for basing 1/72 plastic figures. The weight of the penny also gives the figures a good heft, and helps to stabilize them on the gaming table.

Once the figures were attached to their bases, it was time to start adding ground texture and flock. A simple but effective basing method I have been using is wood filler as a base for dirt, then very watered down dark brown paint. Because the paint is so watered down, the wood filler absorbs it well gives the dirt a nice saturated yet varied color. Then I dry brush on some lighter shades of brown.

The Situation

France, late June 1944. Early in the morning, Lieutenant Anderson personally leads a four-man American scout team, seeking possible safe passage through the dense hedgerow country the Americans have been fighting in for weeks. Only one of the scouts returns, badly wounded. A second team is dispatched to retrieve the fallen and potentially save any who may still be alive. Lt. Anderson is well liked and losing him would be a serious blow to the men’s morale. The Germans, meanwhile, continue to lie in wait…

The Team

The task of retrieving Lt. Anderson and the wounded scouts has fallen to Sgt. Buck, who has been friends with Anderson since Sicily. He chooses four men to accompany him on the rescue: Privates Roman, Cline, and Roth, all riflemen, and Corporal Branson, a bear of a man who can handle the BAR like it was a child’s toy.

The Mission

As the Americans approach the ambush site, Buck divides his team in two. Riflemen Cline and Roth go with the BAR on the left flank, approaching the suspected machine gun nest from the cover of a hedge row. Buck takes Pvt. Roman and advances along the field, staying close to the protection of a low stone wall.

Danger lurking just beyond the hedgerow.

The German machine gun team spots the approaching Americans and opens fire, causing Buck and Roman to dive for cover behind the wall. Crouching low, they are out of sight for now.

The German squad leader takes this opportunity to dash across the road into a flanking position where he will have a clear line of sight to the enemy.

Roman sees the silhouette of the German squad leader’s helmet peeking over the stone wall, draws a quick bead, and fires. He rolls double ones, and the squad leader goes down!

The German machine gun nest retaliates by firing another long burst into the field, causing Roman to flinch and dive back into cover. The German squad leader, meanwhile, miraculously recovers: Roman’s round had only grazed the top of his helmet, briefly knocking him down.

The German squad leader once again peeks over the low wall to fire on the Americans, but Sgt. Buck has his grease gun trained on the position. A steady -thump-thump-thump- emanates from the gun, and heavy .45 caliber slugs smash all around the German squad leader. The German panics, and gives up his position!

Thinking twice about that grease gun.

The Americans roll a “scurry” for their next turn, which allows them to reposition without fear of reaction fire. Buck and Roman move within arms reach of the first downed scout, but cannot yet leave cover for fear of MG42 fire.

So close. Hang on brother!

The BAR team, meanwhile, has managed to clear the hedge and enter a small grove of trees, looking for a position to provide a good base of fire.

The following German turn does not see much action, but the German squad leader manages to regain his nerves and prepares to get back into the fight.

Buck throws a smoke grenade over the wall in an attempt to provide some concealment against the German machine gun. The grenade bounces slightly and pops. The resulting smoke screen just manages to obscure the LOS from the machine gun to the first downed scout.

Roman moves forward under its cover and checks his downed comrade – walking wounded. Under the protection of smoke, the wounded scout begins making his way to safety.

The smoke clears the next turn however, once again leaving Roman exposed to machinegun fire. MG42 rounds rip through the air, and Roman panics, hunkering down next to the low wall.

On the American turn, the BAR team finally moves into position to provide support by fire. The MG42, being otherwise engaged, does not notice the impending threat. The loader has keener eyes and takes a pot shot at Pvt. Cline as he emerges from the brush, causing him to flinch. Branson opens up with the BAR and looses a long burst into the machinegun nest – the MG42 goes down, and the loader flinches!

The following German turn, the machinegun team manages to recover and return fire against the Americans. Pvt. Roth has a rapid change of heart and flees backward toward the hedgerow, while Branson and the BAR dive for cover

Attacking MG42s is not for the faint of heart.

With the BAR team hunkered down, the action returns to Buck and Roman in the field, still crouching behind the low wall and desperately trying to reach their downed comrades. Buck is in position to see where Lt. Anderson lies fallen – the furthest from cover, Anderson must have been leading from the front, as usual. Buck throws his last smoke grenade in front of Lt. Anderson, but the wind picks up and the smoke dissipates to quickly to be of any use. The German squad leader has since managed to regain he bearings and rejoin the fight. He hurls a grenade at Buck – the grenade bounces harmlessly away, but lands right next to Roman! The grenade explodes, instantly killing him. The Americans have suffered their first casualty. Buck returns fire, but only causes the German squad leader to duck back behind cover.

Branson, meanwhile, has managed to get his BAR back into position, and begins to once again lay down fire on the German machinegun nest. The volume of fire is to much for the MG42 gunner, who panics and flees off table!

Without covering fire from the MG42, the German squad leader is now dangerously exposed on his right flank.

Sensing the desperation of the moment, he decides to charge forward and engages Buck in hand-to-hand combat. This catches Buck by surprise, and it costs him his life. Two American lives have now been lost in an attempt to save three.

The BAR team, seeing their beloved sergeant go down, respond with a bayonet charge of their own. Screaming and hurling grenades, they charge the lone German occupant of the machine gun nest.

One grenade lands true, and the German rifleman is downed in the resulting blast.

The German squad leader has lost all of his support, and decides that discretion is the better part of battle. He flees off table, living to fight another day.

The surviving GIs gather around their beloved Lieutenant and check his condition: the dice have fallen, and so has Lt. Anderson. The battle may be won, but to the men, it feels like a hollow victory.

One more day in Normandy.

Thank you for reading this battle report, I hope you enjoyed it. The game was played using "FiveCore" by Nordic Weasel Games, a fun little set of skirmish rules that generates strong narratives such as this one. FiveCore may be found at Wargame Vault. NWG may be found at their blog.

This holiday season saw our family gather and saw games played! This is an AAR of a game of Five Men in Normandy, played Christmas Eve between myself and my brother-in-law. Enjoy!

Set Up

Early Hours June 6, 1944. A small group of Americans encounter the German garrison of a small hamlet, somewhere along the road to Colleville. The American objective is to push the German's out of the area. The German objective is to render at least half the attacking forces combat ineffective.

Inching Forward

As the attackers, the Americans have the initiative. The Americans split their forces up into two sections. The Lieutenant, armed with a Thompson submachinegun, takes the light machine gun team and two of his riflemen and pushes forward along the road. The remaining four rifleman advance through a few fallow fields and stop short of some hedgerows. The American LMG team begins laying down suppressing fire, causing one of the German MG42 teams to “Bail” and seek cover further away from the threat.

The American’s suffer an early setback, however, when a German rifleman lines up a clean shot on the American .30 cal and rolls a “six” on his kill die, destroying the machine gun team outright. The Americans have lost their only heavy weapon. It will be up to the remaining riflemen to go it alone.

The German MG42s, meanwhile, have been able to reposition and do a good job repulsing the GIs along the road, rolling many “flinch” and “bail” results on their shock die. This keeps the GI’s heads down and forces them to seek cover, slowing their advance. One GI is hit and goes down, but later recovers.

Along the hedgerow, the Americans manage to cross without incident. However, the German’s roll a “scurry” during their next turn, which allows them to reposition without fear of reaction fire. One MP40 submachinegunner and one rifleman push forward aggressively, denying easy access to a grove of trees which would provide a good base of fire for the GIs.

The German MP40 gunner steps out of the cover of the trees to fire on the exposed GIs, but is hit by guard fire. His buddy rushes to his aid. Making base contact with a friendly allows the downed figure to roll for recovery – the MP40 gunner recovers, and the two men move back into the cover of the trees.

Death in the Tree-Grove

Recognizing the importance of capturing the tree grove, the Americans rush forward. Snap fire from the German submachinegun puts one GI down, but another two make it into the grove and a fierce series of Brawls ensues. Twice the GI’s enter hand to hand combat, and twice they are repulsed! The German defenders roll a tie in each Brawl, and the Americans are forced to move back. Emboldened by their success in repulsing the enemy, the Germans initiate a counterattack. This time, however, the dice do not roll in their favor. The submachinegunner looses his edge and gets the edge of an American fighting knife instead. The rifleman is hit with snap fire and goes down – he is not outright killed, but without the ability to roll for recovery before the American turn, and with no one to provide him with guard fire, he is left dangerously exposed. The following American turn sees the GIs move in for the kill.

The tree grove is lost to the Germans and the GIs continue their steady advance.

Fix, Flank, Finish

For the time being, the focus of action returns to the American section advancing up the road. Despite the heavy machine gun fire, the American leader manages to rally his men. Disregarding his own safety, the Lieutenant personally leads a bold flanking maneuver and manages to get into position behind one of the German MG42s. This forces the German MG to relocate. The MG team sets up,

draws a bead on the American Lieutenant,

and fires. The Lieutenant, however, has nerves of steel. He weathers the machine gun fire and responds with his Thompson, causing the German MG team to bail! With no other cover to flee to, the MG team instead flees off the table.

Grenades: enemy of many and friend of none.

The Americans are now in position to assault the farmhouse. In an attempt to soften their target, each GI within throwing distance hurls a grenade. The grenades mostly bounce away harmlessly, and cause no casualties – however, one grenade lands close enough to the last German MG team to cause the team to flinch and duck behind cover. This gives the GIs the chance to rush forward and get into position along the low wall next to the farmhouse, without fear of reaction fire from the MG42.

The Germans respond by throwing grenades of their own. The rifleman inside the farm house throws a grenade from the window – two Americans are killed in the resulting explosion.

The MG42 gunner attempts to toss a grenade at the Americans hunkering behind the low wall, but the grenade clips the top of the wall and bounces directly back at him and his assistant gunner! Neither of them survive.

The rifleman inside the farmhouse is now the last surviving German defender. He fights bravely as the GIs close in on him, but he has little chance of holding the house. Surrounded on all sides, the rifleman is shot down.

The game ends in an American victory, and a hard fought victory at that!

6 June 1944, a few miles inland of Gold Beach. Elements of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, 8^th Armoured Brigade are pushing into France. Corporal Curtis of HQ Squadron, Recce Troop is leading a reconnaissance patrol on foot, looking for a suitable place for the Ranger’s armor to cross the river Seulles. Although stiff in places, German resistance is mostly disorganized. A few men of 352. Infanterie-Division have been tasked with slowing the British advance, fighting a delaying action to give the rest of the division time to reorganize and stage a counterattack.

Feldwebel Steiner, meanwhile, is having a bad day. Steiner was recently wounded on the eastern front, and was supposed to be using Normandy as a place to rest and recuperate. Now, Steiner finds himself in command of a small group of fresh recruits, desperately trying to hold off the Allied onslaught...

Hello! This will be my first playthrough of Five Men in Normandy. I finished painting my first set of miniatures (here,) but do not quite have enough terrain built to run a game just yet. However, I really wanted to get my hands on the game and see how it plays. So, for this first AAR, I decided to go electronic. If you are new to "Five Men" like I am, here is a few quick rules explanations, shamelessly stolen from this blog post: At the beginning of your turn you roll a single d6 to determine the type of turn you will have. A 1 indicates it is a Scurry: All of your figures can move. A 6 indicates it is a Firefight: All figures can fire. On any other roll, a standard turn takes place: half of your squad members can be activated, moving and firing as you see fit (and being subject to reactions if allowed). During the enemy turn, you can conduct reaction shooting at moving figures. Ranged combat is resolved through a one-roll system. The weapon, skills and situation will grant a number of Shock and Kill dice which are rolled simultaneously. All dice in combat are D6's. The dice are checked for 1's and 6's which are applied, meaning an attack can have four outcomes (Kill die 6 = out of action, Kill die 1 = down and must make a recovery roll, Shock die 6 = "bail" (aka panic) and must make a recovery roll, Shock die 1 = "flinch" (aka heads down). Enjoy!

The British objective is to secure the bridge against nearby enemy troops. At least one figure must move to the objective and succeed in a Task Roll, with no enemies within 6”. If this succeeds, the enemy will fall back off the table. The German objective is simply to prevent British victory.

The Battle Begins

The British have initiative. Corporal Curtis rolls a 5 - a regular turn. As there is no reaction fire permitted during the first turns of the game, this is a good time for Curtis to get his men moving. He orders the Bren team to advance to the cover of a small depression in the ground and start laying down suppressing fire on the MG42 spotted in the barn across the river. Because he moved this turn, Wright's Bren gun only has 2 shock die at its disposal. Wright manages to get some rounds on target however: he rolls a single "1", a Flinch. The German MG gunner ducks his head down, and he temporarily looses line of sight.

With the MG gunner's head down, Davies makes a dash for the small outbuilding to his front, hoping to close the distance on Jerry. Davies makes it to a low window, but is unable crawl through this turn.

The German's respond, rolling a regular turn. Muller, the MG42 gunner, pops his head out of cover, sees Davies exposed, and squeezes off a burst. But Muller is green and is shaken by Wright's last burst: he rolls no hits. Steiner, however, keeps a better head, and rushes into the outbuilding, catching Davies still struggling to climb through the window. Steiner fires a burst from his MP40 at point blank range and rolls a "1" on his kill die. Davies falls backwards out of the window, and goes down. He will have to roll to recover.

On his turn, Corporal Curtis rolls a 6 - a firefight! Seeing Davies go down must have gotten the men's blood boiling. Jones fires on the farm house and rolls a 6 on his sock die, a Bail! Wright once again opens up on the MG42 with the Bren gun, and this time he is more honed in. The MG gunner has a rapid change of heart and bails! As there is no cover away from the Bren gun within six inches, the MG gunner flees off the table. With no other enemy in view, the British turn ends. Feldwebel Steiner also rolls a firefight on his turn, but Steiner's troops are young and inexperienced, and no one is in position to fire.

The next two turns see both the British and Germans repositioning. Jones, Curtis and Stanton dash for cover, moving in closer to their objective, but Stanton is left exposed due to a bad roll. The Germans roll a "Scurry." Bouer recovers from having bailed, but is hunkered down and may not move. Steiner is feeling a bit trapped in the outbuilding so take the opportunity reposition himself around to the corner, staying in cover.

During the next British turn, Stanton moves up and Davies rolls to recover from "Down." He rolls a 6, out of action. Seeing his friend's situation is helpless, Jones moves north along the wall in an attempt to flank the remaining Germans in the hamlet.

The Last Stand of Feldwebel Steiner

Steiner must make a decision – he is in danger of being flanked, and the British are inching closer to the bridge. He decides it is time to fall back. Steiner orders Bauer across the river and to the protection of a hamlet of trees on the other side, and provides him with covering fire. The British position is just outside effective range of his MP40 so he rolls only one shock die, but he rolls a 1 and manages to get Corporal Curtis’ head down. Bauer is going to need it because the river is a Difficult obstacle: it will take him his entire next turn to make it across.

During the British turn, Jones clambers over the low wall and rushes forward, catching Steiner exposed. Heart pounding, he pulls the trigger of his Enfield rifle just a hair to soon and sends a round whizzing ineffectually past Steiner’s right shoulder, rolling “5” on both his kill and shock die. Seeing the fighting taking place Curtis and Stanton dash across the road in an attempt to support Jones.

On his turn, Steiner turns and fires at Jones, rolling a six on his kill die. Jones is hit and goes down, never to rise again.

Steiner then re-positions behind a nearby tree to better guard against the advancing British. Bauer, meanwhile, is struggling across the river, and has reached the other side. He will have to wait until his next turn to scramble up the bank and into safety.

The British have lost two men and are down to only two activations per turn. Corporal Curtis needs to act decisively. Curtis sends Stanton around behind the outbuilding, while he himself scales the low wall and approaches Steiner's position, readying a grenade. Stanton moves into Steiner’s view. Even though Steiner fired last turn, Stanton is within four inches of Steiner and so draws reaction fire. Steiner rolls his kill die, but his nerves are starting to break and the burst sprays wide. This gives Curtis the opening he needs, and he hurls his grenade toward the German. The grenade lands and explodes only a few feet from Steiner, sending shrapnel whizzing through the air, and leaving Steiner, crumpled and unresponsive, on the ground. Feldwebel Steiner has met his end.

Parting Shots

With their heavy machine gun fled and their leader knocked out of action, things are looking dire for the Germans. They are also down to only one activation per turn. Bauer spends it finally freeing himself from the river bank and moving into the safety of the tree-grove. He fires at Stanton, now in the open, and causes him to bail. Bauer then moves back into the protection of the trees.

Stanton decides he has had enough and flees off the table. Corporal Curtis keeps a better head, and he and Private Page rush the bridge. Page sprints a full 12 inches and reaches the bridge, but because he Dashed this turn, he will have to wait until next turn to make his required task roll. A long time to wait, exposed and alone.

Now is Werner’s time to act. He moves to the door, draws a bead on page, and fires. He rolls a “1” on his kill die, and Page is Down! With Page going down, this opens line-of-sight between Werner and Curtis, and Werner draws reaction fire from Curtis. Curtis rolls a 1 on his shock die, causing Werner to flinch and retreat back to the safety of the building, where he hunkers down – he will not be able to move or fire next turn.

Corporal Curtis rushes to Page’s aid. Making base contact allows Page to roll for recovery. Page rolls and “2” and regains his bearings – he just had the wind knocked out of him. Corporal Curtis then makes a task roll secure the bridge, and rolls a 4 – Mission accomplished! Curtis' cool head, consummate leadership, and decisive action has carried the day. Seeing that their situations has become hopeless, Werner and Bauer flee the battlefield.

Closing Thoughts

As I explained in my last post, I am just starting to get into tabletop wargaming with miniatures. As such, I want to start slow. That means, when it comes to painting my first army, I will not amassing huge quantities of paints, washes, bases, etc. - at least not at first! In this post I describe how I painted my first set of minis with almost nothing other than materials I already had laying around the house.

The Finished results. Read on to see how I got here!

After some research into various scales and rule systems, I decided that 1/72 plastics was a good place to start. A box of 40 figures costs around $10, which is good for the budget. The figures are large enough to base individually for small scale skirmish games (which is where I am starting), but small enough to be used well on a small table. 1/72 plastics are also compatible with many of the very nice 20mm metal figures available, if I ever want to upgrade, or perhaps add a few heroes to the table.

As I said, I want to ease myself into the hobby as inexpensively as possible, so for my first project I determined that I would only use paints and materials that I already had on hand. In fact, other than the minis themselves, the only thing I purchased for this project was a small dropper bottle of Army Painter Quickshade.

Priming and Basecoating

I primed my minis with a can of spray primer I had out in my garage. Grey seemed to work well, although in the future it might be fun to experiment with different colors.

For basecoating, I used my wife's old dollar store craft paints.

A few figures in progress.

A selection of American Infantry, base coat finished.

The paint may seem a bit bright, but a coat of quckshade toned the colors down quite a bit. At this point, with the quickshade wash applied so think, I thought I had ruined my mini! Thankfully, however, the wash lightened up quite a bit while drying.

For basing single figures, I used pennies, wood filler, and homemade flock. The pennies are a perfect size for 1/72 figures, and the wood filler is a nice base for simulating dirt. I watered down some brown paint and dabbed it onto the filler while it was still freshly applied. The filler soaked up the paint unevenly which gave it a varied look.

For basing weapon teams, I simply used an old paint stirring stick, cut to appropriate lengths. It worked well, with no need to go buying all different sizes of bases. A 10-pack of 1 Gal. paint sticks cost me $0.98. Here you can also see what the wood filler looks like unpainted.

A finished figure! Completed using almost nothing other than materials found on hand.The flock is a combination of sawdust mixed with paint, and dried landscaping moss.

German Infantry

For my German Infantry, I used much the same process. However, as Apple Barrel craft paint doesn't have a "World War II" line of paints (perhaps they should!) I had to get a little creative in painting the German uniforms: I mixed my own feldgrau. I used two parts dark grey, one part hunter green, and a splash of black.

Applying the color. Looks close enough for the game table, I'd say.

The finished results. I decided to paint the old grey trousers on some of the German figures to delineate "Veteran" units. This is before applying a wash.

After a coat of quickshade wash, I based the individual figures on pennies, as before.

Add the wood-filler and flock, and done!

And here is a shot of my completed American Infantry.

I learned quite a bit during this project. Mainly, you don't have to break the bank when you are first starting out! Just take a look to see what you have around you and try to think of creative ways to use what you have on hand. I definitely want to keep learning and improving, however. Next time, I think I will try to take my time adding a few more little details, and especially use highlighting and dry brushing techniques. For now, I just hope to get these guys on the game table soon. Thanks for reading.

Ever since being introduced to hex and counter wargaming a few years ago, I’ve wanted to get into miniatures. I enjoyed modeling as a kid, and painting miniatures seems like a fun, relaxing, and rewarding creative outlet. Further, Wargame tables are often beautiful in their own right – not to mention the enjoyment of playing on one! There is just something deeply rewarding about interacting with a physical environment. And the games themselves just sound like good ol’ fashioned fun.

One thing has kept me at arm’s length however:  the cost. And not just the financial cost either. There is also the cost in time needed to paint, assemble, and build everything needed for play, as well as the cost in storage space when not in use. All three are limited resources. However, with more time having opened up this year for hobbies, I’ve decided to take the plunge.

Where to start though? With so many rulesets out there, selecting the “right” one can seem a little daunting. To begin, I broke down my gaming priorities as follows:

1. Prioritize theme and “feel” over historical realism. I already own (and enjoy!) lots of big, crunchy hex and counter wargames with endless charts and tables. For a miniatures game, I just want to have fun pushing some figures around the table and rolling dice at my friends.
2. Related to number 1, I want a game that is quick to set up and quick to learn, so we can get right into the action.
3. I have limited time, funds, and space. I would like a game that plays well on a small table (3X5 maximum) and needs a relatively small number of minis to play.

Next, I identified my three main gaming interests:

1. The historical setting. Based purely on my own personal interests. Broadly speaking, I am most interested in gaming 20^th century land warfare.
2. Creating a narrative. I love a good war story. Even while playing the aforementioned crunchy hex and counter games, I create a running narrative in my mind that unfolds as the game progresses and the dice go hot or cold.
3. A small scope. Leo Tolstoy, in his work The Raid, wrote “War has always fascinated me. I don’t mean the tactical maneuvering of whole armies by famous generals – movements of such magnitude are quite beyond my imagination. I have in mind the real essence of war . . . all that interested me was the state of mind that pushes a man, without apparent advantage to himself, to expose himself to danger and, what is even more puzzling, to kill his fellow man.” Likewise, I am less interested in gaming grand strategy and huge conflicts between armies, and more interested in watching the personal struggles of a few desperate men unfold on the table.

After doing a lot of reading and research, I think I have found the rules system that best fits both my gaming interests and my gaming priorities: Five Men in Normandy (5MiN) by Nordic Weasel Games. Here is why.

Historical setting, theme, and feel

Play out a few skirmishes from the TV series? Yes, please.

5MiN is a set of skirmish rules for land combat during WWII, which fits my interest in 20^th century ground combat. It is also, comparatively speaking, a light ruleset – what I would consider to be the core gameplay rules numbers only 12 pages. The rules for character creation, skills, campaigns and encounters, on the other hand, number nearly 40 pages. Needless to say, this is a game that does not lean to heavily on the simulation side of things, but from what I have read from others, “feels” right. Ivan Sorensen, the designer, states that he wanted to design a game that felt like a war movie – and that is the kind of miniatures game I want to play.

Scope, Size, Scale

My need for a low footprint game combined with my interest in the individual soldier in battle makes 5MiN a natural fit. The game can be played on a 2X2 table, with only 5 – 8 miniatures needed per side. The rules are quick to grasp and, by all accounts, quick to play.

This offers me a few practical advantages, especially as I am getting into tabletop wargaming completely from scratch. First, I will not have to build huge armies before jumping in nor will I have to invest in much terrain. I can start slow. Second, I do not have much space available for play, so a small-scale skirmish game is ideal. Third, the simplicity of the rules will allow me to teach the game quickly to others so that we can enjoy getting right into the action. Time is precious!

Narrative

Probably what I am looking forward to the most with 5MiN. I enjoy a good tactical puzzle just as much as the next wargamer. However, when gaming with miniatures why not add a little more character?

Character skills for your soldiers.

With randomly generated characters that progress from mission to mission, campaign events, etc., 5MiN sounds as though it will provide me with no shortage of narrative. This is also the reason why I am choosing to start with Five Men in Normandy over some of the other, similar Nordic Weasel products such as FiveCore and Five Men at Kursk. I am looking forward to getting to know the men in my squad, seeing them progress through a campaign, and grow in the process. I imagine I will be witness to many small, interesting stories. And I can’t wait to start playing.

Nordic Weasel is here: https://fivemennormandy.blogspot.com/ 

Five Men in Normandy is here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/223411/Five-Men-in-Normandy-30-cal-edition

Undaunted: Normandy is a game designed by David Thompson and published by Osprey Games. It is a squad level tactical game with a strong deck building mechanic. It is also a blast to play, and probably one of the better "light" games I've played this year. Because I liked it so much, I decided to fiddle with the artwork.

Let me start out by saying that I love the original artwork in the game. Roland MacDonald did a phenomenal job; I am in no way trying to make the artwork "better." With Undaunted, I simply saw an opportunity to practice designing a cohesive set of cards and counters. I am entirely self taught when it comes to graphic design, and working on a project I enjoy helps to keep me plugging away. With that out of the way, on with the fun part!

Skip to the end of the post for download links.

I used Affinity Publisher to do most of the layout and design work, along with a little bit of doodling in Designer. What follows is my creation process as I documented it.

Document Set up and Master Pages

Adding Content

Creating Counters

The Finished Results

As seen above, here are some samples of the finished results. Overall I am pretty happy with how the cards and counters turned out. I enjoyed learning how to use Affinity Publisher throughout this project, although I will have to re-think my work flow on a few things. I've already done a few printing tests and am happy with the results; I am looking forward to putting the full print and play together.

Download Links

You can download the full card and counter set as a print and play PDF by clicking here (Google Drive file).

I've recently gained two new interests: Affinity Designer, and twobuckgames' AWI series. So I decided to combine the two and do a "Brandywine" map remake as my first Affinity project. I also decided to document the process and post it here; hopefully others can benefit from my learning process. In this post I cover the process of creating a hex grid from scratch, share a few tips on creating realistic looking tree lines, and generally just explore Designer's features.

Getting Started

Create a new document, set it up for print (CMYK) and set the margins for 11 x 17. Create a new layer and name it “HexGrid.” Select the polygon tool and, using the contextual tool menu, set its sides to 6. Set its stroke to the desired width and its fill to “none.” Open the arrange dialog and, with “Align to” set to margin, align the hexagon to the top and left corners of the page.

Create another new layer, naming this one “HexNumbers.” Use the text tool to place the first number into the hex, aligning as necessary.

Enable snapping with the options shown. Select all, and duplicate with Ctrl-J (Cmd-J on Mac). Repeat this process across the page, snapping each new duplicate to the appropriate hexside. Notice two things, first, the two elements we are duplicating (the hex number and the hex itself) automatically get duplicated into their appropriate layer. Very useful! Second, Ctrl-J also duplicates the last movement (transformation) of the object being duplicated. This will come in handy in just a second.

Select all, duplicate with Ctrl-J, and align the second hex row under the first. Now, as duplication also duplicates the last movement, simply Ctrl-J all the way down the page. Once this is complete, you may have to do some fine tuning inside the transform dialog to get everything to fit. Next, enter in all the correct information for the hex numbers and viola! We have set up our hex grid. Now let's start adding some terrain features.

I imported the original map as an image so I could see what needs to go where. Let’s start with the woods hexes. The simplest way to get the effect we want would be to trace along the border of the woods, and then “Fractalize” the line. Unfortunately, Designer does not yet have this feature, so to Inkscape we go. Thankfully, the process I used was still fairly simple and time efficient, and generated good results. First, use the pen tool to trace around all the woods hexes, stroke the line, and export the line as an svg.

Open the svg in Inksape. Select the node tool, select the object, and go to go to Extensions -> Modify Path -> Fractalize. Once you have a result you like, save the svg.

You can now open the svg back into Designer and set the fill and stroke however you like.

Next, I populated the hexes with a few trees, sourced from here: https://www.pixeden.com/vector-objects/trees-vector-collection-pack Pretty good results!

Adding Details

You can create hills by using the pen tool, with the stroke set to dash, to give the ground some contour. Next, switch to the pixel persona, select a brush, and with a good opacity setting, go over the contours to add a little more “depth” or texture.

To create the marsh hexes, first I opened a new document and copy pasted into it a hex outline from my main map. Second, I opened a swamp cartography element found online. By placing this graphic as a sub-layer attached to the hex, it constrains the graphic to the perimeter of the hex (or any layer above it). Using this method I can then move and size the cartography element however I like, and then trace over it with the pen tool.

Using the same sub-layering principle I was able to create some nice swampy looking areas. I used texture brush for stroke the lines, to give it more of a hand drawn feel.

I used the same principle to make the roads.

Creating custom curved text is easy. Just create a shape using the shape tool, and then select the shape with the text tool active (you will see the tool icon change). Your text will now wrap around whatever shape you made. After I put down all the text, I just had to add a few finishing touches, like the fords over the river. As one last note, I thought the export options Affinity has were quite useful. I think it would be worth it to spend some time in the "export persona" and learn in better.

Finishing Touches

I put some more work into my Brandywine map, this time scaling the map up to 17x22 inches and adding a map key, turn sequence summary, and turn track, among other things. This is my first time trying a map of this style and I like the results. The stylized charts were created with the help of the the corner tool. Playing around with the corner tool's various settings generated some nice custom touches.

The Final Map.

Map Details.

twobuckgames: https://sites.google.com/site/twobuckgames/home
Where I sourced my trees: https://www.pixeden.com/vect.../trees-vector-collection-pack

A common practice in DIY wargaming is creating counters. While there are many templates and other artwork resources available on the internet, it can be useful to know how to generate a countersheet from scratch. This tutorial will show you how to do just that, using the free vector art program Inkscape (available here ). I don’t claim this to be the best way to make counters, but it is at the very least a useful exercise, especially if you are new to using Inkscape.

First, create a new document in Inkscape. Next, go to File / Document Properties to set the size of the page. This countersheet will be designed for US Letter 8.5 X 11 inch paper in landscape. However, we want the document to be print-and-play friendly, and most home printers have a “print range” i.e they won’t print to the entire width and height of the page. The print range varies, but .25’’ margins are a safe bet. So we are going to set the width of the document to 10.75, and the height to 8.25.

Next, use the square tool to draw a square. These will be 5/8 counters so change the width and height to 0.625 inches.

Open the Fill and Stroke dialog box and set the fill to none and the stroke to 0.010 in. This will allow some room for cutting the counters out.

Use the Align and Distribute dialog box align the square to the top and left edges of the page. Next, go to Edit / Clone / Create Tiled Clones.

Ensure the setting are as pictured and create a nice 8 X 2 grid. Make sure to group them all as one object.

From here, you can simply copy and paste four more of the same object. Align them all to the left edge of the page, and align the bottom most grid to the bottom edge of the page. Under distribute, select “make vertical gaps between objects equal.”

Group the entire object, copy and paste once more, and align to the top and right edges of the page.

Open the layer dialog, and create a layer named “counter outlines” and move everything we have so far to this layer

At this point I decided to add a title to our countersheet and re-adjusted the vertical gaps. So far we have created a blank countersheet template. Save the file for future use!

Let’s create a few companies of Marines for a Platoon level game, starting with some infantry markers. First make a new layer, and name it “infantry.” A quick Google search will yield plenty of NATO symbols to make use of. Add one and center it in the first counter. From here, we have a couple different options. We could individually copy, paste, and align each symbol we need into each individual counter. This is a good technique when there are just a few counters to make, or when dealing with many different unique graphics. However, we want to automate things a little bit, so let’s create a tiled clone. Inkscape tiles clones based on a percentage of the original object’s size, so we are going to have to use a little bit of high school math to tell Inkscape exactly where to put every one of our infantry symbols. To find out what percentage we need the Infantry symbol to move along the x axis, divide .625 by the width of the symbol and multiply by 100. To find how far along the y axis to move, divide .625 by the height of the symbol and multiply by 100 once more. Placing the appropriate numbers in the x and y columns of the Clones dialog box, making sure that the "exclude tile" checkbox is checked for both.

Using a combination of the techniques we have learned so far, we can now fill in the rest of information we want on the counters, remembering to assign them to their own layers. Here, I have added information for unit size, nationality, platoon and company markings, and placeholder text for game system information (like movement, range, etc.) The alignment tool is your friend!

Now we add color! Select each layer one at a time, and, using the Fill and Stroke dialog, fill the elements you wish to add color to within each layer.

Finally, to export as a ready to print image, go back to the document properties and change the document size back to 11 X 8.5. Next, select all and group everything together as one group. Align this group to the center of the page. Export at 400dpi, and make sure the export area is set to "Page." There you have it!

If you would like to use the files created in this tutorial, you may download them from my google drive here.

The Winter War expansion for the Combat Leader system originally came with fairly basic maps with the standard "ASL" style artwork. So, for fun, I "winterized" the maps with some new artwork. I also used the opportunity to try out a few new techniques for creating woods hexes.

Here is an artwork re-design project I completed about a year ago, as fun personal project. The maps and counters are from Combat Leader: Poland 1939 by Minden Games.

I took on this project largely because I wanted practice creating maps and counters. I learned a lot in the process, and I hope you enjoy!

(The original counters, via boardgamegeek)

(The new counters, front and back)

(The original maps, via boardgamegeek)

(The new maps)

A few of the more valuable lessons learned were how to set up a good workflow, how to use and organizes layers productively, and to work consistently across multiple files. Unfortunately, when working on this project I had yet learned how to optimize for print. I am still happy with the end result, however.

If you own Combat Leader, you can download and enjoy the files for your own use here (from google drive).

Thanks for looking!