Posts made by MajorTaylor87

Wow, incredible.  Looks like the board weighs … 75 pounds?   :mrgreen:

Haha, yeah it is pretty big and heavy. I haven’t weighed it yet but I plan to before I build the table. This is definitely not a portable version.

@Hepps01:

Where are you from?

LOL.  That would be not close!  I’m from Toronto Ontario Canada.

Yah I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it work. Just a suggestion.  But now that all your tiles are glued down I can understand that its a bit too little to late.  :wink:

But as far as the sourcing of materials goes…

Yeah Toronto is pretty far away. Thanks for the advice on sourcing some materials. I will be sure to put it to use!

@Hepps01:

MajorTaylor87 where are you in the real world?  I ask because I have access to several exotic woods companies.  So if you’re in close proximity to me I could hook you up with materials connections.

Regarding your sea zones….

I like the concept of greater movement flexibility.  But wouldn’t it have been better to stagger each course of sea zones? That would have eliminated all the 4-way intersections and allowed for even more freedom of movement around the worlds oceans.

Hepps01, I live in McKinney TX. Where are you from?

Staggering the seazones is something I had not considered. I may have to play test it to see how it works our. For this board I will have to stick with the grid since it is already layed down. I had considered Hexagonal sea zones, but sourcing or cutting tile in that shape proved difficult.

I think I may have found a way to make the grid work through movement rules by allowing ships to move diagonally. Either with unlimited diagonal movement or with allowing only one of the two or three movements to be diagonal.

@Hepps01:

Curious,  and maybe I’m just missing something, but how are you going to handle the sea zone divisions?  Are each of the tiles meant to be a sea zone?  I guess I need to go back and take a closer look.

Thanks for the wood working tips Hepps01! I am definitely wanting a high quality wood finish. From your suggestions it sounds like I need to find a lumberyard with a bigger selection of wood types.

To answer your question, yes each tile is meant to be it’s own seazone. I have always been a student of history and have felt that the current seazone designs offers little in the way of naval tactics and maneuvers especially since WWII had some of greatest naval battles of all time. With this grid system and tweaks to unit movement abilities I am hoping to make naval combat a little more interesting.

I am still testing my rules but I think I can keep ship movement at two or possibly three zones per turn to keep the balance of the game. Using an atlas to design my board and consistent seazone sizes also has the benefit of providing true distances between destinations. I really wanted the Atlantic and Pacific to be a great divide between the US and other territories.

Hello everyone, I have made good progress on my board and posted some new pics if anyone is interested. The tile work is just about done, only a few islands left. Next I will be moving onto the table design.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73326585@N03/

I am not sure what wood to go with yet for the table. I know I want to stain it a dark cafe brown. I have seen redwood, and poplar at the local home improvement store that look very nice. Any suggestions?

With all the different unit options coming out recently I can easily see A&A moving to a 12 sided die. It is getting to the point where you need a bigger spread in attack and defend to really create niches for all the different pieces. Especially if you want to incorporate HBG’s or FMG’s pieces.

@koba:

For my SS panzers, panzergrenadiers, Tigers I use GHQ 1/285 micro armour painted in the ambush scheme with the JBG SS markers.
http://www.ghqmodels.com/

Man those GHQ models are sweet! If I were rich my A&A board would be made of those exclusively.

@CWO:

@MajorTaylor87:

I’m really out of my area of expertise here, but here’s another thought.  The part about chiselling out the grout sounds messy and labour-intensive, so I’m wondering: could the space between the tiles be filled instead with melted paraffin wax?  If this is technically feasible, it would (I think) have two advantages: the solidified wax would be somewhat plastic (hence it wouldn’t crack if the tiles shifted), and the wax around a specific tile could be melted easily to allow the tile’s extraction for replacement.

Wax would make an interesting filler. I would imagine it would behave just like rubber or silicone that is used in joints that may flex. I bet melted wax would be easy to pour into grout lines and smooth out while it’s warm also. Sounds like another method to test out on my small scale! I have setup a small map with sea and land zones made of scrap tile I use to test out new ideas.

@boboshonda:

That is truly amazing.

Are you planning on putting a clear overlay on the countries with economic value/victory cities/sea zone numbers?

For territory and sea zone names I am going to have stainless steel placards engraved and the letters filled with black ink. The placards will be small and removable so when the board is not in use you see only a world map. I have found a local trophy and engraving shop that will do the work for me. They do package deals for sports teams, I am just cutting out the trophy part.

The owner said he could also print and cut out on metal any image I can provide him. I am considering letting him also make all my markers including flags, naval base, airfield, and convoy markers. Maybe some unit logos too if the quality and price are right.

@CWO:

@MajorTaylor87:

If you guys have any recommendations please feel free to send them!

Here’s one idea that may already be part of your plans.  Since the map is basically a giant mosaic, you may want to attach the pieces to the table in a way that’s non-permanent (in other words, not with glue) so that individual pieces can be removed easily for replacement if they ever get damaged.

CWO Marc, that is an interesting idea. My tile work in the past has been kitchens and bathrooms so my focus has always been on making it permanent, this will take some more thought, lol. Ease of repair and the ability to change a desired territory or seazone would be a nice feature.

The issue I run into is in how the tile adheres to the board. I will be using an extremely fine grout between each tile so I will need something that holds the tile firmly in place so the grout does not crack because of shifting pressures.

I think what I can do is apply whichever adhesive I use on a every single tile rather than the entire board, this way if I need to replace a tile I should be able to chisel out the grout around it and pop out the single tile with a puller. I will have to do a small scale testing and see how it works out. Thanks for the great idea!

Pretty soon I will have to pick grout colors. I am thinking black between land territories and medium or dark grey between sea zones and on the coast lines. What do you guys think?

Glad everyone likes it!

I am in the process of doing my final fit right now, this involves cleaning all the tiles and placing them to check their spacing and making any necessary adjustments. I will try to take some new pics tonight. The board looks amazing when it is completely covered in polished marble.

I made a last minute substitution of colors for Germany and Japan. The dark grey German tiles were beautiful, but in the end just too close to the black ocean tiles. And the yellow marble used for Japan was far to brittle, I was unable to get the desired detail, it has been replaced with a tan marble.

If you guys have any recommendations please feel free to send them!

@Sime:

Here’s the link to Major Taylor’s Flickr:

Thank you Sime! I really appreciate your help. I will be uploading some more pics soon, and hopefully I can upload them here soon as well.

Hello all! I am currently building my own custom table but am having trouble uploading pics and/or posting links. Can anyone recommend a good way to upload or link photos? I have a flickr account under MajorTaylor that has some pics.

My board is far from finished. The gaming board itself is 3/4" sanded ply board roughly 36"x60", and map is made out of handcut marble tile. My map is based off of an atlas, so the design is more accurate than the standard boards (Africa looks much better now). I chose tile because it is a material I know very well, and it should make this piece one of a kind. The marble map will look great in my game room, and the table color and design will match the rest of our furniture.

The land territories are made of various colors based each nations pieces and the ocean is black. I am considering using a medium gray grout between the seazones and a black grout between the land territories.

My table will be about 24"-30" high, dark stained wood with drawers for every nations pieces and slide outs for charts, battle boards and map enlargements (if necessary). I have also ditched the traditional sea zones in favor of a square grid system.

I would love to post pics to get everyone’s opinion. Any help you can offer would be appreciated!

Is it best to upload pics, or can you provide a link to your flickr account?  I am new and wanted to post pics of a custom board but can’t seem to get anything to work!