Wall solutions

[DSWargamer]

Just curious, wondering if anyone has mastered any methods to put this on the wall yet.

There is the obvious metal paint and magnetic counters, but the map is still what it is, 9 feet of height and 21 feet of run.

Now if the map is allowed to be a left side and a right side, that makes it 11 feet of run. Most rooms worth being in are at least 11 feet. My hobby room has an 11 foot length of wall (admittedly it is covered in shelves with models on it).

If the map is also called a top half and bottom half, then it becomes 2 sections of 5 feet.

Keep in mind I am not making a lot of bother to split the measurements to fussy levels. You will lose some just in needing edges for handling.

Consider this.

4 panels of common backboard/pressboard/paneling or whatever you wish to call the 1/8 inch stuff that they basically use for drawer bottoms or backs of furniture. Yer going to need to buy likely several whole sheets though at the usual 4x8 and you will need of course to find a means to cut them as a left half and right half to arrive at an 11 foot length. Get them to cut them for you in advance, not all of you will have tablesaws like me.

Now having made the 4 rather long admittedly, panels and 5x11 feet is quite the item even if it's only 1/8 inch panel, all you really need from there, is a mounting system. You really just need to have hooks on the wall at a nice height, and you then 'hang' the panel up on the wall, do the needed actions for that panel, remove, replace with the next of 4 and proceed to play the turns out.

Hey it's not a cheap notion I admit. And not an 'easy' solution what with all the lifting, but, look at it like this, great exercise while you play the game.

But the panels are also easy to relocate too. So you can likely use this notion at a gaming spot with friends, or in the summer take it out to the garage, or possibly use it in a basement where the space might be simpler. The trick being, it permits you to get a 9x21 game into an area less than 9x21.

Might even be possible to play this at a school, and keep stored in some storage area and bring it out to play in the gym.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I have no idea if this is what you are looking for, but I will share my experience with you.

I have not done any tabletop gaming in many years. But, years ago, I was an enthusiast. I paid someone to build a game cabinet to store my games 'in progress' I had sheets of plywood that would slide into the cabinet the supports at the edge and could bring the game out at the start of the playing session and put it away afterwards without fear that the cat would eat the counters (good story for another day!).

At first, I used plexiglass to cover the maps to smooth out fold wrinkles and would continue to do so for some games. For other games (like WIF), I permanently mounted the maps onto these boards. I did it by the process of Decoupage. To be very simply about it, this is gluing the map to the board with a solution that will also be used to coat the map. This worked wonderfully. First of all, the map stayed put. Second, the coatings protected the map. I still have them and they look like new after more than 10 years.

We never used magnets. We never had a catastrophe. To be sure, we were very careful loading and unloading them and occasionally needed to straighten some stacks. We also did not pile our naval units any higher than 4 or 5 counters but placed them in lines perpendicular to the Sea Boxes so there was no doubt where they belonged.

The production charts, etc. had their own board.

I suspect you could do the magnetic paint onto pressboard or paneling and then mount the maps to it in this fashion. Or you might choose to use magnets to hold the maps in place. I feel the wonder of being able to play on the wall, but I have concerns as to how you will store the sections without taking a chance of 'knocking' the counters off.


But, how big is the room? How much table space do you have to devote during play?

I would suggest that you consider going back to the horizontal paradigm. Especially if you are willing to move them around as you are playing. We found this to be a wonderful solution. Furthermore, if you don't have a cabinet and don't need to protect things from pets and children, there is another trick you can do. I did this during the plexiglass days before I had the cabinet built. Put bars of soap (still in their wrappers) on the board and use them as supports for the next layer.

Just some ideas... I suggest that if you plan to fix the maps onto the boards with this method (vertical or horizontal) that you practice on something not quite so dear as the new WiF maps. Or at least use the south pacific section off the coast of Chile [:)]

Here is a quick video of how to do this. If you look at it, be sure and watch all of it because the way she does it first is to demonstrate that it is NOT the right way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNsRu_3KLI

I hope this is helpful and I will be happy to answer questions if you have any.

Dean

[DSWargamer]

I have also thought of this before in the past with other games.

I am guessing you mean store in layers of boards in a cabinet much like a baker's oven racks?

It would mean of course a lot of layers naturally but would require a smaller active surface for active maps if done well.

In my current realm, I can manage a 4x6 surface with a 'storage zone' underneath it of about 4x3.5 with height of 3.5 feet. Done right, the maps might squeeze in. I'd likely need to get out some graph paper to visual the idea, I use pieces of paper cut to scale size normally to move furniture around on a scaled out map of the floor space before the furniture gets moved around. Saves moving items the hard way.

Not sure it is better or worse or just a variation on challenging
Never had to plan out a 9x21 map before

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

Yes, like baking racks.

[Numdydar]

When we played monster games back in the day, I put up Steel sheets (I used 1/8 as they were sturdier, but 1/16 will still work, plus cheaper [:)]) I had 3-4 4'X8' depending on the wall size with the 8' side laid parallel to the floor and ceiling. Then we used magnet holders for the counters. We could usually stack the counters 4 high without them falling off. Did not have to worry about cats, dogs, etc. Children on the other hand [:@]. Even if some would fall off (which was very rare, we could easily tell where they went since ususally there was an obvious hole or gap somewhere.

I liked the magnets worked so much I used them even when we played smaller games normally. If things too longer than planned, it made it very easy to put it away for next time.

This system came in really handy when we played ASLs Red Baricades, one of my favorite games. We played it horizonally on a steel sheet so we could stack the counters as high as we needed to. And did not have to worry about them getting knocked over and flipping the wrong way [:)]

I the places I lived, I had no shortage of wall space, but flat space was always at a premimum. So this was the best solution for me [:)] YMMV

edit: can no longer spell [:(]

[brian brian]

I think a reality of the maps is not understood unless you have played the paper game a bunch: you just aren't going to use huge portions of them. Ever.

A game of America in Flames will be great on them. But to just play 1939-1945 WWII, you won't need 25 square feet of Pacific Ocean and North and South America.

The paper game even comes with a mini-map of the Americas to save space. We tend to use the America in Flames maps instead, they make the Battle of the Atlantic quite a bit easier to manage in a physical sense with the counters. A large version of the mini-map covering just east of the Hawaiian islands to just west of Iceland would have been a very handy player's aid for these maps. Just spacious sea-boxes and the important ports and cities, etc., it wouldn't have to be super detailed for land combat. Were land combat to break out in the Americas, play could switch to the regular map.

Also, you are going to have to find some where out of the way to place Africa and the Pacific anyway. You can't play the game with counters in Europe when Europe is 8 feet off the floor.

All that said, the new maps are going to be awesome to have, obviously in particular the Asian theater, and I really look forward to running counters across them, probably next summer.

A smaller, more useable set of these maps would probably actually sell more copies in my opinion, and the Americas could come out when a computer AiF does. To get the China map, I have to buy all those blue Pacific maps that will never see a counter.

[chemkid]

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