My Axis & Allies 1942 Room…

A little over a month ago I started work on a custom board based on the original design of the Spring 1942 board. I spent about 4 hours every morning and four hours each night for a whole week designing the new map. It is 55 inches by 36 inches.

It started off with me taking the original board and taking several pictures of it. I took a single photo of each of the six panels, and closeups of the production chart, mobilization zone and of course took a top-down image as you see here.
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I used this top-down image as the reference to start outlining. I knew that there was a lot of distortion from the photo I took, but that’s no matter to me, it adds to the character if things don’t look 100% accurate.
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After the fourth night, I officially had completed the outlining. I wanted to keep all of the coastal details that were in the original game. I knew based off geological maps that the coastlines in this game look almost nothing like the real ones, but it was too big of a detail to not keep.
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After the outlining was done, I threw over some kinda decent textures into each zone and blended wooded to desert areas. It was so fast of a thing to do that I didn’t get progress pictures. This photo however shows some of the zone colors I decided to do, and the art direction I took.
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I added in the text and logo designs, altered the filters I threw over the map and ended up with this as a somewhat final product.
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Here is a picture of the entire map completed that also featured a similar under-running board. Each side has their own IPC chart, the battle strip is integrated, the casualty zone is integrated and the mobilization zone is updated and integrated.
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This photo shows what the original board looks like with some units in Germany. Note how there’s little room.
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Here’s the same location on the game but on my laptop, zoomed for size and the same units are placed on it. Much larger!
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The next step was to go to www.bagsoflove.com and order a testing sheet of the Neoprene so I could confirm the print quality. It arrived and everything was to size and looked great!
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Ordered the full sized Neoprene Mat they sell and it arrived today! Here’s the original board for comparison.
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Here’s an image of American units in the Congo and the nearby seazone on the original board.
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Here’s an image of the new map with the same zones and units. It’s so much bigger and I’m in love!
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Here’s an image of the full map as well.
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If you guys want to use this design, here’s a Google Drive link you can use to download it. It should be 11,000 x 7,200 with 200 x 200 per inch. Bags of Love did a great job with the print, however they took out the 5 pixel black border I had around it but that’s no matter to me! Be sure if you use Bags of Love, make sure it’s printed on a white background so you can keep that border but it doesn’t change much of the map if it is gone. A number of places aren’t fond of this size of project, so please do your own research before going with your service of choice. Enjoy this map! It is heavily inspired by Imperious Leader’s design, more of the fact he did it rather the actual design.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RH0c_ReZzLAPoVjSpeeBOIDnYbkZIOHC/view

@drz

Thanks for the feedback. Most of the rules for the game were crowd sourced from those actually playing an axis and allies style game. The game was never intended to be a historically accurate representation of the American civil war…as are the axis and allies WW2 games. They are themed games. You are welcome to try it out on Steam tabletop simulator if you have it before casting any kind of judgement. It really is a fun game that challenge players. If you want more historically accurate games, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Also slowly working on making my own pieces and designs for my new resin printer. I’m going to open up an online store for new pieces, boards, rules, and other items in the near future.

November Update: Pictured below are some of the new designs and things in the shop, including four new colors and four new units:

Colors:

Units:

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These and most of my other prints are $0.60 per model or less! Come check them out, and let me know if you have more ideas below.

As always, A&A forum members can use coupon code AADOTORG21 for 10% off your order for the rest of 2021: www.etsy.com/shop/NathanDetr0itDesigns?coupon=AADOTORG21

I’ve always had a problem with HBG’s “orange” Japanese units not being of the same tone of orange from OOB A&A… most other colors of custom HBG units seem to match pretty good, but that orange always seemed off to me… so much so I’ve never kept a custom HBG Japanese unit in my nation bins… sad, cuz I really like some of them.

(and yes, I’m one of those anal-retentive guys where if the color is just off a tad, it “ruins” it for me… I know I’m odd that way).

P.S.
Dang, I just realized this forum won’t let you use the first three letters of Japanese units without blanking it out as a profanity.

@Wolfshanze:

On HBG’s website, they have ONE plane, and it’s called the “F4F Hellcat”. I was inferring there’s no such thing as an “F4F Hellcat”… It’s either an F4F Wildcat, or an F6F Hellcat… but HBG has the plane on it’s website named incorrectly (either the #designation, or the nickname).

My favorite American airplane nomenclature from that era is the nickname which pilots gave to the greatly-disliked Curtiss SB2C Helldiver: “Son of a B––, 2nd Class”.

@CWO:

@wartorn:

EXCELLENT!!! These are amazing. These will be easy to trim out to just an outline. Thanks a bunch!!!

My pleasure.  Good luck with your project.  When you refer to putting the unit images in each country, are you talking about modifying a digital version of the map or are you talking about printing out something on paper and placing it on the physical map?  Just wondering.

I plan on modifying the digital map from YGH’s post a while back. I do like the map that cyanight made for his sheet metal table, so i think i may end up using that one (base map is the same as YGH’s, but with a couple of alterations)  http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33872.0

No official news; might have to buy some blanks and customize myself.

Will pass on any new suggestions to the site.