All About Wargames

Chapter Four: Wargame Set Up

By Jack Scruby
reprinted with the kind permission of Jack Scruby

For those fellows who are luck enough to have ample space for their hobby, setting up a war game outfit is almost as much fun as playing the battles. If you are unlucky and don't have room for a table top, then it's the floor or kitchen table for you. If you can get the floor once in a while, the 30mm scale figures are perfect, and an area of 8 ft by 8 ft will give you plenty of room, If you can only get the kitchen table, the best bet for soldiers are the Greenwood and Ball 1/4 inch or 1 inch figures.

Of course, its best if you can build yourself a real war game table. Using a piece of 3/4 inch thick plywood (sheets generally are 8 ft by 4 ft), legs of 2 by fours, and one by four supports, you can build a nice table having 32 square feet of playing area.

The ideal size however is perhaps table of at least 6 feet width by 8 to 12 feet long. You fight your battles across the 6ft width, and the length gives you plenty of room for flanking movements. A table any wider than 6 feet will soon give you back aches in stretching across it moving men, It is also wise to keep the table top lower than a normal table for ease in moving the soldiers.

To preserve your table top - and to make it look realistic - paint it various earth colors. Inexpensive enamel paints can be mixed to produce a mottled multi-colored surface that will look like real ground.

Many beginners go all out making terrain pieces of plaster of paris, particularly hills. You'll find this is a waste of time, even though it may look good. For you should remember your lead soldiers must stand on something fairly level, or they will be toppling over all the time. The best bet for hills are pieces of 1 by 12, 1 by 6, and 1 by 4 boards cut into various lengths. By piling one on top if the other, nice "pyramid" hills can be made, and the soldiers can always climb these without failing. Paint these boards like you did the table top for ground effect.

Trees, houses, fences, and such can be purchased at your local model railroad or hobby shop, or you can construct them yourself Trees can be made of twisted wire and lichen or old sponges, Or better yet, if you have a hedge, just clip a little fresh greenery for war games, and by sticking them in gobs of soft clay, they will stand up on the table in fine shape. The alert war gamer is always on the lookout for material to make terrain.

Roads and rivers can either be made of butchers paper and thumbtacked to the table, or can be drawn in with chalk. Lincoln Logs, or an old mah-jong set makes good rail or stone fences. But remember, try and keep all your terrain pieces in scale with your soldiers It'll look much better.

The ideal setup for war games is, of course, a sand table. Few of us can have a sand table unless we have cooperative wives and the room in which to build one. There is no question but that fighting in the dirt is dirty, and the broom is used as much as any other weapon when you have a sand box. Another problem is that the dirt must be kept moist, or you have a dust pile. But believe me, if you can work it out, a sand table is worth all the trouble.

My own sand table is designed so that I have eight inch sides and a layer of about 5 inches of dirt in it. This "dirt" is actually a mixture of about 3/4 plain earth and '1/4 sand. Sand by itself is not satisfactory.

I have a sectional top that fits right over the table, matching in with the side boards, to form a "false" top. Thus, when not being used for war games, the dirt is hidden and I have a nice big table top for work bench or other uses. After a battle, I wet the dirt down thoroughly, cover it up with the false sectional top, and this helps hold the moisture in so that its in perfect condition for the next battle a couple of weeks hence.

In preparing the dirt for a battle, I first chop it up with a garden hoe, roughly forming the terrain to conform with the battle map. Then with a cement trowel, and an old garden trowel, I build up the hills, valleys, river beds, or what have you. Roads are outlined and smoothed down, and a thin layer of sand sprinkled over them. Fence lines are put in, houses added, trees put in place, and before you know it you have a real miniature landscape. Sawdust can be sprinkled over fields to look like dried wheat or corn fields. Plow marks can be made with a stick, and rocks and brush added as desired.

Of course also, dirt tables lend themselves perfectly for the construction of field fortifications, trench systems, and walled cities. Anything and everything is possible on a sand table, and if you have sprayed your soldiers with the clear varnish, you need not worry about them getting the paint worn off from abrasion. They will get dirty of course, but a wash.job now and then renews their colors.

Whatever you use, the floor, a table top, or a sand box, one more problem remains to the war game general: storage of the war game armies. With 54mm soldiers one must have shelves to put them away on, but with the smaller scale figures, the best bet is a series of matched boxes, i.e., boxes of all one size. Store a regiment of soldiers per box, packing them in layers with tissue paper in between. Thus, when ready for battle, it's merely a question of picking out the 11 regimental boxes" you want for the game, and placing the soldiers on the table. It's much easier, also, putting "casualties" away in boxes during the heat of battle, than standing them up on shelves.

You'll find by separating your soldiers into regiments, or types, it's easier to find what you want when preparing a battle, rather than digging through a mass of figures looking for some special troops.

More All About Wargames

Back to MWAN #106 Table of Contents
Back to MWAN List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com