And Relax.

Well I am over the disappointment of yesterday and the ballroom double booking. SO that's gone and now forgotten.

So what's happening today.
I went up the shed to do some work on the moon boards, got cold and came back down to the house. But did a few snaps so we can talk about its construction. The first step is to get some 6mm mdf and some battening. Cut them to size nail them together after you first put some white wood glue on all the edges that touch. That's pretty straight forward so no need to detail that. There are on this board 3 sizes of craters, each is made from a cardboard tube cut down to an appropriate height.about 10mm for the small 18mm for the medium and 26mm for the large. It does not need to be accurate, or even level close enough in this instance is good enough so don't sweat it. The small craters use loo roll or kitchen roll cardboard tubes and I would start with them if I was following this guide as they are by far the easiest. The medium tubes are the core from rolls of masking tape. The large tube is mad not found. Simply cut some thin card into a strip I use the width of a steel rule to get the right height. Bend it round to create a circle fasten it somehow, I have used staples and tape in the past so it does not really matter as long as it is fixed firmly. Once you have the amount of craters you want, scatter them in a semi random way. You don't need to think about it much, just make sure that they are not in lines, not to close to the edge (you do want some close to the edge though or players will create clear lines of fire and movement. ) As a general rule an inch is ok for medium craters, think about the slope being roughly 45 degrees and go from their, a lot of it is trial and error so have a bash and see what happens. The next stage is perhaps the most important of the whole process. Use masking tape (as in the second pic) and place it directly across the card tube pushing it down firmly both in the centre of the crater and outside the crater. It takes a little thought and practise to get it to create the right slope. But once you have the knack it's really straight-forward. I tend to work like a spider and scatter them at quite wide angles around the tube say at 90 degrees, then 45 degrees. You don't need to be prescriptive about the angles just roughly as the next step will fill in all the gaps. keep repeating the above process all the way round the rings, overlap the tape and make sure there are absolutely NO GAPS. You really want to do this 2-3 times to give a good and smooth slope. The odd bump or wrinkle makes no difference as long as everything is completely covered and a couple of layers deep.  Unfortunately it does take a lot of tape, but it does work and as I can get 2 rolls in the 99p store it's not that expensive a way of doing it. I would suggest using the low price stuff because there's no point in using the expensive when the cheap will do.

On other wargames thoughts:
I have decided to abandon the secret project unstarted. It was to build some modular Venice boards. I think a three musketeer type game in Venice would be great. Or Zombies in Venice. Or a bond type roof top chase. Even WW2 spies. I think the setting would look spectacular for a game. But for me the realisation that I would need to make about 50 buildings for the plan to work, as most of Venice is really close together. All the buildings would be of a piano-noble 16th-17th century design. So at least 3 stories tall with a shop, workshop or store on the street level and living quarters above. Anyway It would mean I would have to build at least 2 buildings each and every week to a high standard. I still like the idea but can't see myself finishing it ever let alone in time for broadside.

Anyway the upshot is that I am still looking for a game for Broadside, but I do have several ideas no doubt some of which will turn out to be impractical. For now though I'll get Crimbo out of the way and take it from there.

That's it for today.