Things are progressing well. Of course, all this map making is so I have a vehicle to play the game on. I finally got everything thought out and written down enough to start (again) my solo playtesting. Well, I've been doing that for a long while. Most has been done in Excel to try and tune some of the various values and see if they meet my expectations.
The unit counters are finalized and so is much of the map. Here are some close ups of an attack by a Soviet Motorized Division against the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry. The bad guys have two regiments in the first echelon, attacking with a total of 4 battalions plus two additional tank companies from the division's independent tank battalion. (most of this you can't see).
The opening set up is the first picture and the last shows the results at the end of the Soviet Player turn. It did not go real well (as expected) for the US. The Soviet's were able to insert the 2nd echelon battalions of the leading regiments as well as the Independent tank battalion, after the initial phase, the US lost two troops and the remaining two are heavily damaged. The Soviet Division Commander, luckily, was not able to insert his 2nd echelon regiments. On their turn, the US will try to move the artillery out of danger and use his last two troops to cover their withdrawal.
We didn't have the term at the time, but this whole covering force battle is likely to be a Kobayashi Maru sort of scenario, as the Regiment is not expected to win the battle, but to strip the 1st echelon regiments and make the enemy commit his tank division (if possible) while telling the Corps Commander where the main effort is so he can mass his units behind the 11th ACR to defeat it. Hopefully, some of the regiment gets out to fight another day.
Been very busy tuning various components of the system. Not so much map work. This is the start of my first real attempt to solo test the whole game for a couple of turns. Two view. One from the West looking across the Frontier of Freedom (generally marked by the yellow line) toward the communist masses. The other shot is from the East to West at the small band of brothers who will be trying to keep out the forthcoming liberation of the west. The odds are 4 divisions with a total of 21 regiments against the reinforced 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment of 8 battalions. So that's 63 battalions to 8 or a mere 7.87: 1.
This has been a long row to hoe and I am excited to get to this point. Soon, I hope to start to send off components to be fabricated, starting with the counter sheets.
Note my snacks in the corners: The M&Ms Combined Arms Mix (Yellow, Blue, Red); the colors of an armor division patch signifying the cooperation and power of armor, infantry, and artillery working together.
Out of the picture is the bourbon.
The game surface for my table is just under 5 feet on each side. A little bit of a stretch to get to the center.
Here's a copy of the final planning map for the game. It's about 17 inches wide x 20 inches tall. About 1/4 the size of the game map. This has been a long time coming. Publishing date for the game is uncertain. Still lots more to do.
I turned on the black outline defining the edges of the various contour lines to make them stand out. Without them, the map is too unfocused for me.
That's quite impressive. It looks a bit too detailed for that image, but seeing the table image from previous posts tells me that it won't look that packed when blown up in the scale it will be used.
The black text in the image in the top right is completely unreadable though. Add some white glow around it.
Comments
The unit counters are finalized and so is much of the map. Here are some close ups of an attack by a Soviet Motorized Division against the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry. The bad guys have two regiments in the first echelon, attacking with a total of 4 battalions plus two additional tank companies from the division's independent tank battalion. (most of this you can't see).
The opening set up is the first picture and the last shows the results at the end of the Soviet Player turn. It did not go real well (as expected) for the US. The Soviet's were able to insert the 2nd echelon battalions of the leading regiments as well as the Independent tank battalion, after the initial phase, the US lost two troops and the remaining two are heavily damaged. The Soviet Division Commander, luckily, was not able to insert his 2nd echelon regiments. On their turn, the US will try to move the artillery out of danger and use his last two troops to cover their withdrawal.
We didn't have the term at the time, but this whole covering force battle is likely to be a Kobayashi Maru sort of scenario, as the Regiment is not expected to win the battle, but to strip the 1st echelon regiments and make the enemy commit his tank division (if possible) while telling the Corps Commander where the main effort is so he can mass his units behind the 11th ACR to defeat it. Hopefully, some of the regiment gets out to fight another day.
This has been a long row to hoe and I am excited to get to this point. Soon, I hope to start to send off components to be fabricated, starting with the counter sheets.
Note my snacks in the corners: The M&Ms Combined Arms Mix (Yellow, Blue, Red); the colors of an armor division patch signifying the cooperation and power of armor, infantry, and artillery working together.
Out of the picture is the bourbon.
The game surface for my table is just under 5 feet on each side. A little bit of a stretch to get to the center.
It looks brilliant, Mike
Don't you mean the ones *I* had already eaten before you got to them?
I turned on the black outline defining the edges of the various contour lines to make them stand out. Without them, the map is too unfocused for me.
The black text in the image in the top right is completely unreadable though. Add some white glow around it.
But I agree with Remy on that top box text.