I'd like to add further to Steve Foster's article "Maps - Back to Basic" in Lone Warrior 112.

Theories for choosing the terrain on the map

Some wargame rule books do give procedures for choosing the terrain to be used on the wargame table. Used to select one terrain piece for each square of your map and the map (according to the law of average) would in theory have a different terrain piece in each adjacent square each terrain piece having an even chance of getting selected. Try and have each square showing the terrain of a wargames table and your map appears to be tightly packed if not cramped with hills and woods.

The way of getting around this is that the Map comprises several quite big squares big enough to comfortably include the terrain on the table, and the squares are joined to each other by a single horizontal or vertical line representing the route taken travelling from one square to the next i.e the squares are not joined along the length of the sides of the square as they are on squared graph paper

Amongst the various other published works on wargaming the only one that I know to suggest a method for creating the terrain on the map is that in Tony Bath's book "Setting Up a Wargame's Campaign" published by the Wargames Research Group. This method seems to give each type of terrain an equal chance of being present within each map square and rolling dice to see which terrain type is chosen. Then I presume as no further instructions are given one looks at an area of the map and allows one's emotional feelings to determine how much of that area is covered by what, for example if three of nine squares have woods and the other six squares each have a different terrain type, one must decide to have woods in five of the squares and gentle hills in the other four.

The Terrain of History

The ideal would be to use the terrain of battlefields of history such as the terrain of the numerous Napoleonic battlefields. But when it comes to filling up all the squares on your map you find there aren't enough battlefields to fill them all nor do the maps in textbooks necessarily tell you what you need to know such as the height of the hills.

Another method might be to take an ordnance survey map and trace over the rivers, woods and the contour lines of a given height say the 300 foot contour lines, then transpose the tracing onto your map. But which OS map does one choose to use, will the staff of the public library throw a tantrum on seeing someone making a tracing of 'their' maps and finally though one's map may now look pretty how do you get the the rain on the wargame table to look like that on the map?

There are two commercially published ordnance survey maps available the Bartholomew map series and the Ordnance Survey map series. The Bartholomew Map Series uses different shading to indicate the height of terrain rather contour lines which are used in the Ordnance map series. The Bartholomew maps 'look' easier to read and interpret.

Combat and the Map

How you resolve combat in the campaign influences whether you use a map of your own creation or a commercially published one. The various commercially published maps including road maps of Britain and the Continent and the Ordnance Survey and Bartholomew map series are good to use when the combat between the respective enemy units is resolved using a board game method or a mathematical formulae. When combat is resolved by means of a figure wargame the commercially published maps have the disadvantage that (in the case of road maps) they don't show the varying height of the land terrain or (in the case of ordnance survey maps) the terrain is not readily translated into what it looks like in real life and on the wargames table.

It would be a mite unreasonable to expect the umpire of the campaign to produce a three dimensional model that is an exact representation of what the contour lines on the map represent in terms of the height and shape of the terrain. One might only bother with terrain over a given height and then (supposedly) showing them on the table by artfully arranging books and things into the approximate shape of the terrain shown on the OS map. Having first made a paper tracing of the contour lines then enlarge it to the scale used on the wargame table. A very time consuming and laborious process.

For preference I would not use an Ordnance Survey map for when the combat is resolved in a figure wargame but would use them when combat is resolved using a board game or a mathematical formula or by a "if the girlfriend lets me eats the chocolates that I like out of the box I bought for her side A looses the battle but if I get to kiss the girlfriend during the film side, A wins every battle tor the next month" method!

Supplies

An activity that can employ a great part of the time you have available to spend on the campaign is that of keeping records of what supplies are where and how consumed on which day by whom (another is keeping track of the location of the soldiers the player distributes around his area of the map).

In real life each troop type does eat a different quantity of rations to the others and one might assume it's necessary to represent this in the campaign. It looks right and proper to do but is a record of the needs of each troop type more an academic exercise rather than a necessary task? Whilst you need to know if there's sufficient supplies for the troops in a given place you don't actually need to show the different levels of consumption for each troop type and doing so incurs expenditure of a considerable amount of time to do. Yes, in real life a horse eats more than a man, a guardsman more than a musketeer. But in the wargame campaign one can simply have it that each troop type each cuirassier, hussar, draught horse, fusilier, rifleman and elite guardsman would consume one ration each of food and drink per day.

And in combat the amount of ammunition required is the number of times they will shoot during the game rather than the amount of gunpowder and bullets they would use in real life.

Practicality vs. Realism

It's a case of practicality versus realism. What is practical to do in the available time versus what we'd like to do recording the real quantity of supplies required for each troop type each day but the time taken to do so can turn the campaign into an exercise in arithmetic and accounting.

I would designate specific areas on the map as possessing the greater pan of the agricultural and industrial production (and thereby the greater pan of the population) of the player's country. Real lite armies do not operate over every square mile of the country they are campaigning in, instead they are concerned with gaining control over specific areas. I am generalising here. As to how large and where located such areas would be I can only suggest looking in the good quality atlases with maps and information on the world the reader looking at economic and demographic maps of both the third world ralions and the less industrialised second world nations such as Albania. Combining these with the library reference book 'The Statesman's Year Book' which tells you how many people live in which part of each country though the detail given on each country does vary from country to country.

The atlases and the Statesman's Year Book together will provide the reader with guidance on how populations are distributed within mainly agricultural countries and the size of the areas containing the largest concentrations of population in relation to the rest of the country

Some Thoughts on Maps

Finding Where Units are on the Maps

When ascertaining where the respective units are on the map at the start of each turn a method of doing so quickly maybe to:

When the map is first drawn place on the map hamlets/water-holes every five miles from each other. With the hamlets on a road the road travelling through every map square on the map The hamlet need only be represented by a large dot. Its purpose is to be a map reference point

Buy map pins which have a flat top on which you can attach a small piece of card big enough to write in large writing a number which will be used to identify the units which are where the pin is placed.

Units, brigades, division, Corps are given a number that identifies that collection of troops and for which a corresponding number will be in the players orders/campaign diary the latter two giving a detailed description of the actual troop composition of the unit/brigade whatever. The II division sort of thing.

On the map give each hamlet a name leaving a space on the map between the hamlet and it's name else when the map pin is in position the piece of card on the pin will obscure the name of the hamlet.

Declaring Locations

When the player gives his orders he must firstly state the general area that the unit is in (you might be using two centimetre wide squares, or large six inch squares as general reference points or just the provincial/regional capitals to identify a general uea). Secondly the name of the hamlet where the unit number is (this seems obvious but you will get "move II division to place X" type orders so that you would need to consult the records of the last turn to see where the unit ended it's movement. And in looking in the general area of that bit of the map your eye should fall upon the relevant map pin.

A units movement on the map should begin and end at a hamlet/water-hole. It makes locating units and giving their location to the players that bit quicker to do.

Charles Grant in his book "The Wargame" and "The Battle of Fontenoy" described that in his campaigns after each game move the opposing two players stated to each other which map sguares their troops were present in at the end of the move. Not what was where or whether it had moved or out of a square, just at the end of the move something is present in square X.

This is a good idea to use in a campaign changing it to become at the end of a game turn the umpire tells his players in which squares troops were present, but not whose or how. The player then reacts to the information to the information he has been given (i.e. that something is present in squares.. ) and plans his movement.

And not what it is usual in a campaign, where the only information is the location of his own troops and sometimes not even that, where the players movement plans are exactly akin to my cycling from London to see Kenn without using any map so that I only know that Kenn is up north somewhere. Again it's practicality versus realism. Using Charles Grant's idea the player's can plan where and what they are doing next. Without it and you have the unrealistic situation of the general knowing absolutely nothing of where the foe is. The method does not tell the player what the foe is going to do not what is in a square. The latter is only found by the player sending a unit into the square and is then told exactly what's there.

[To get an idea of a map actually used in battle, view the original one used at the Battle of Waterloo by General Wellington (he's the chap that does supporting actor for Richard Sharpe) which is in the Royal Engineers Museum in Chatham. There is also the Matchbox method or the civilised "I will meet you on the plain of ...." method of getting your army to the correct place for the battle. If any member has a system for moving opposing armies in a solo campaign please feel free to get in touch.