Redesigning Undaunted with Affinity Publisher

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

I knew I wanted to create a PDF document containing alternating Front and Back pages for each set of cards. To accomplish this, check the "facing pages" button in the new document dialog box, and start with 2 pages.

Affinity Publisher uses Master Pages to provide a way to store page elements that you'd like to appear on more than one page. By placing a design element on a master page and then assigning several pages to use that master, you ensure that all the pages incorporate that element. If you edit any master page element, all associated pages will update to incorporate the new master page design.

In this case, I set up two master pages: Cards, and Units. For the Cards master page, I used a combination of the pen tool and rectangle tool to generate a basic "spread" of cards and to draw the cut lines for PnP.


I then applied the Cards master to the Units master, and began filling in placeholder unit information.


Affinity Publisher lets you create and format a wide verity to tables. I used tables to organize each card's action information. In this screenshot I am demonstrating how pin objects into individual table cells, the object in this case being an ellipse with an embedded text field.


Here is the completed Allied Units master page. I would generate another for the Axis cards.

Adding Content


After generating the master pages, it was simply a matter of adding the individual unit artwork and filling out the various information fields for each card. In this screenshot, in the layers panel, you can see how I organized each card for easy editing. All I had to do was select each layer and edit. All the formatting work was already done for me by that master page.


Following the same process, I began filling out the Axis cards as well. Full disclosure: while I can get around with graphic design fairly well, I am no illustrator. All the unit graphics are pictures of military miniatures with various Photoshop filters applied. Illustration  is one area of skill I hope to develop in the future.

Creating Counters

Using a similar process, I generated one master page to use for both counter sheets. I actually did all the initial layout work in Affinity Designer,

And then transferred over to publisher and began filling in content.


Here is the completed Axis counter sheet. For the unit counters, I created a basic "template" for all the information (Name, Unit, Defensive Value, and Unit Graphic), and duplicated the template into each counter frame, changing the information as I went. Due to how I designed the counter sheets, I had to individually rotate each counter to it's "back" side, and place appropriately. I will probably re-think how I do this in the future.


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).


Mapmaking with Affinity Designer

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 pen tool with a textured brush stroke to make the rivers. I then duplicated the curves, increased the stroke width, and changed the stroke color to add a “river bed” effect through the woods.

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

Thanks for reading!

Inkscape Counter Creation

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.