New Artillery & V&B Playing Aid

I promised photos of these artillery pieces a while ago, but my Dennewitz project distracted me from fulfilling my promise. Well, here they are. These are all Perry figures. The left gun is their Rhode Island artillery 6-lb. gun (AW103) and the right is their Continentals loading howitzer in shirt sleves (AW104). I chose to paint the latter in a more casual dress to represent a militia piece. The only regrets on painting these is that I applied my wash before waiting my usual 2-3 days for the paint to dry. The result was the paint that I used for the anchors on the Rhode Island hats ran, fading the anchors significantly. Lesson learned on that for sure! Next on the painting table are 6 American mounted generals I hope to finish this week for a game I'll be running this upcoming weekend.

This is a photo of a Volley & Bayonet game aid I made up using my laser. We've started affectionately calling these 'hockey sticks' for obvious reasons. These serve four different purposes. As shown in this photo, they can be used to measure the 1" zone of control (ZOC) to the front of a stand (using the thick 'blade' of the stick). The angle made by the thin portion of the tool is 45 degrees, which allows you to easily measure the firing arc for both infantry and artillery. This angle additional allows you to measure a units maximum oblique movement angle by placing the tool behind a stand.

The final use for the tool is to measure the 1/4" ZOC to the side of a stand. Since it's usually not very easy to get a ruler in between stands and accurately measure 1/4" the thin portion of the tool is exactly 1/4" and allows you to easily check side ZOC clearance as shown in the photo. I'm currently testing these out made in 1/8" thick baltic birch plywood which I paint green so that they don't look too out of place when they're left on the tabletop. Other players in my area have asked me to make them some which they plan to paint brighter colors so that they will be easier to see. One last thing I forgot to mention, the hole in the tool allows for it to be hung from a hook or pin in your gaming room. Some of our players like to have such play aids hung in handy spots around their game table, and the hole allows this. If you look closely you can probably see a few of these scattered about the table in my Dennewitz game photos. The Dennewitz game was the first game that we used these and they seemed be be well received. We play Napoleonics in 2/3 scale, so for that period I make suitably scaled hockey sticks.

Drop me an e-mail if you think this tool might be something you'd be interested in. If there is enough interest I may make them available for sale through my R/C business website, Wright Brothers R/C