Commands & Colors using Hexon - at last, some focus!

Some enjoyable time was spent this weekend putting down a few random pieces of Hexon terrain and looking again at the best way of making them work with my 20mm Napoleonics. Having abandoned the idea of my 6-inch hexes and chipboard table, I needed to come up with something that would be smaller and more convenient to set up and use.

I like Hexon. It's a great product, and although the hex sizes are probably best suited to 6 to 15mm figures, I think I can just about get away with squeezing my 20mm minis on them. The size of the units might not be as grand as what I had originally intended, but they still look fairly decent.

Figure-wise, I can fit four bases of infantry and four bases of cavalry on a hex quite comfortably. It's a bit more of a squeeze for hexes with buildings or trees, but still possible. The hills work well too. The slopes are high enough to give some reasonable elevation, but are also gentle enough for my bases not to fall off.

I have enough Hexon already for a standard C&C board, along with plenty of hills, but I need to add some river sections and get them finished up, as well as paint the buildings I bought from Total Battle Miniatures. Other features like bridges, redoubts, lakes etc, will also need to be considered.

Rather than using casualty markers, I can also use bases to represent blocks on a like-for-like basis, so I'll remove bases as they're lost throughout the game. Some players don't like figure removal in games, but it's always been my preferred way of playing. I like the table to be free of tokens or markers as much as possible. The only exception will be artillery, which I'll represent with a single base and use some sort of markers.

So, I'm happy that I've finally settled on a way forward for this project. I'll be back to more regular posts from now on, so I'll share more on this project soon.

Having a rethink...

The finished board - big, but a bother to move about

The past month or so has been pretty much a write-off in terms of available hobby time. As normally happens when work and other things take over, I tend to lose my momentum a little bit with projects, so when time does become available I've run out of steam somewhat.

Enough of the complaining though. Life is returning to normal once more, so I'm slowly climbing back on the baggage train.

As you can see in the photo, I did at least mange to finish making my Commands & Colors board. All six chipboard sections are done - all hexed up and flocked. I should be pleased, but...

A bird's-eye view of the board with seating space for an impossibly slim opponent

But, I'm having second thoughts. In the process of laying out the boards for the first time, I realised just how much space the whole thing takes up. Silly, really, since I had calculated all this beforehand, so it should have been no surprise. And it's not just the space requirement - it's that the boards are quite heavy and cumbersome to move, with the added hazard of getting a splinter or two. All in all, the effort was enough to be annoying.

Some 10mm buildings from Total Battle Miniatures - still to be painted

On the up side, the boards do look ok. I'm happy with the flocked surface and the level of visibility of the hex lines. Each section lines up well, even if the chipboard is a bit roughly along some edges. As far as the hex sizes go, 150cm is a good size for the number of bases I had decided to use to represent the units.

The number of troops needed, however, is another reason for me having second thoughts. Despite having painted a fairly large amount of Prussians and French, I'm still not even half way to being done, which is a tad daunting.

So, I'm having a rethink.

I think using this size of board might be a bit too ambitious and impractical. I need to consider something smaller that also uses fewer troops. What I really want to do is actually feel like I'm nearly finished with the Prussians and French, so that I can move on to other painting projects.

At the moment, I'm looking afresh at my collection of Hexon terrain. I had dismissed these 4-inch hexes as being too small for my 20mm Napoleonics, but they do have a lot to recommend them. It means I'd have to use a much smaller footprint for each unit, but then that's what I want anyway. They will be much easier to set up and clear away, and my dining table can comfortably accommodate a standard 13 x 9 hex C&C layout.

I'll post more on this next time. I have pretty much all the hexon I need, except for some more river sections and a bridge or two.

The flocked chipboards will probably be relegated to the garage in the meantime, perhaps to return one day in the future when I have a bigger collection of painted minis.