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An Elvish Tete D' Tete

 The purpose of this post is to showcase my new battleboard. It is a 3'X4' magnetic dri-erase board that I bought off Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016T9TQU/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 Here I have set up a sample battle with lots of terrain. This is the situation: The Dark Elves are besieged by the High Elves in a fortress. The High Elves need to bring up a Scorpion quickly to reduce the fort before Dark Elf reinforcements can battle their way through and lift the siege. Dark Elf Dragon Riders have spotted the Scorpion column making its way along a road beside a river at the base of a cliff and are sending a small force to try and destroy the hated Scorpion. The High Elves have a 2000 point escort composed of Bowriders, Knights, Swordsmen, the Scorpion, Battlemages, Bowmen, and the rear is held up by Elder blade wielding Rangers. The Dark Elves have sent the best force they could assemble on short notice, though it is only a 1500 point force composed of a Dusk Lord at the very top of the map and hiding behind the hill are Lashmistresses, dragon Riders, and a unit of Coven. Manning the barricade in the road is a unit of lowblood spears.

 

On turn one the column approaches the roadblock cautiously as the Elven general Akbar yells, "It's a trap!" On the Dark Elf turn they come over the ridge and open up ineffectively on the High Elven column as the Lash Mistresses fail to do even one point of damage on the scorpions and the Dusk Lord does only one point. To make matters worse, the Bowriders disrupt the Spearmen manning the barricade.

The next turn the High Elven column swings into action! The Bowriders charge the barricade in an attempt to open a path for the Scorpions but the spearmen hold, the Knights and Swordsmen also leave the road and begin moving to charge the threats from the hill. Behind the Scorpions the Battlemages turn on the Dusklord whilst the bowmen open up on the Lashmistresses. The Rangers begin sneaking around for a flank surprise.

The Dark Elf turn finds the Lashmistresses focusing on their objective. the Lashmistresses attack the Scorpions again....This time they do five wounds with five dice and the scorpions are no more! The Dark Elves have saved the day and win!

Conclusion

Although this game was over quickly, it was only because of the excellent attack by the Lashmistresses, had the attack failed miserably, like on the previous turn, the Dark Elves would have been swarmed by the High Elves and the turn out might have been quite different.

The magnetic board

You will note in the first picture that I have the board at a 45 degree angle. I find that this is the most comfortable angle to play at. The magnetic "pins" work very well. They certainly are strong enough, if anything they are almost too strong, but once I have units on top of felt backed terrain they are perfect. All in all I am very happy with the magnetic board! It works extremely well for solitaire play and I hope to try it out soon in a two player game.

Dri-erase magnetic board

I thought it would be great to try and find a way to play the game on a vertical surface as one of the advantages of BG is that the cards can do what minis cannot, which is be mounted on a wall for easy viewing. First I tried felt, and while that was sort of okay, things didn't adhere that well and there was no way to use the YMG terrain.

Then I remembered these really powerful tiny magnets I used to use for holding weapon armaments and making models poseable when playing that unnamed miniature system. I imagined that those tiny magnets and a magnetic surface would be just the ticket.

So my first effort was to try magnetic paint on a gameboard. It wasn't strong enough, was very expensive, needed xylene for a thinner, and I decided it wasn't worth it.

Next I tried a dri-erase magnetic board. These boards come in a 3'x4' size which is perfect for a game of battleground. In the picture below you see a regulation size (30"x36") sheet of gaming paper held on to the dri-erase magnetic board. This allows room for off map maneuvering and  maybe some extra charts mounted also. I happen to have an old drafting board that I rested the magnetic board on. I should make clear that the board is not magnetic, but metallic and magnets are able to stick to it. The next post will be an actual game played on this board, but I wanted to talk a little about the board itself.

I also wanted to show this other gaming paper battle mat I made. This one is 26"x15" which is the dimension of the rectangle between the two deployment zones of a regulation game. I like to play around with minimums to see how little one can get by with and still have an awesome gaming experience using BG instead of minis.If you're curious about gaming paper here is their website http://www.gamingpaper.com/ and I will vouch for it being everything they claim it to be. It is inexpensive, very durable, and comes in a range of colors and with an assortment of hexes or squares in different sizes.

I got my magnetic board from amazon  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016T9TQU/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I paid $83 for it, but just now I see it is $90. That is still the best price and I can vouch for the quality. The reviews complained about this clear plastic that was attached and very difficult to get off, but they must have adapted to that because mine didn't have that coating. Since it is dri-erase, you could just draw on your terrain and borders, but I prefer the terrain pack and my gaming paper.

Magnets
The magnets I selected are from K&S http://www.kjmagnetics.com/products.asp?cat=157 and these are magnetic thumbtacks. what that means is that they have the plastic heads like push pins, but a magnet at the base instead of a pin. I bought twenty green for using on the mapboard and 12 each of black and white for using on the units. I think the way I'll actually use them is the green for terrain and units and the white and black for objective markers. The thing to watch is the shipping. Magnets have some very stringent shipping requirements because if they get stored next to electronic media they can cause mayhem, as well as messing with shipping and tracking devices. These are powerful magnets. err on the side of getting more than you need rather than having to order twice.

I tested the magnets and found that one magnetic tack can hold eight cards without falling off the vertical board. This means they will easily and securely hold a card on top of terrain on top of a gaming paper battle map.