Our historical editor Jim (aka @oriskany) is running a campaign throughout the weekend and has come up with an ingenious map to show how the Bolt Action battles develope.
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Carlsberg don’t do historical editors, but if they did…
They don’t do historical editors … yet. 😀
So true!
I’m gonna get on that Sikh + Matilda and Valentine research, @WarlordCharlie. 😀
I.think we should just start referring to oriskany as the Dude…;)
That’s certainly better than some other nicknames that have been tossed at me over the years. 😀
I can see some of @oriskany previous employment has come into play with that map. Very awesome indeed,nice work!!
Excel is my Force. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the universe together. 😀
Amen
Judge me by my size, do you? As well you should not, for my ally … is Excel!
seeing that map and symbols makes me want to looking in to this more
Thanks very much, @wilco92 – Hopefully we’ll be having a lot more results for the campaign (and updates) tomorrow when the actual Bolt Action games go live. 😀
I’m stealing all of this. Great layer of realism to work into the games.
Steal away! I certainly didn’t invent Excel, the .png format, Photoshop, or the military symbology.
That’s awesome, wish I had the chance to be there
Check us out on the Live Blog tomorrow, I hope to have some great narrative results for the campaign tomorrow once people get stuck into their games.
I would love to get a deeper look at how to do this myself. Great way to do campaigns honestly.
It’s so easy, I almost hesitate to tell people. They’ll see how easy it is and no longer be impressed with my work. 😀
Oriskany rules
I cannot disagree with this statement. Just kidding, you’re too kind. 😀
Where do you post your events btw? Love the incredible background and detail you bring to yours. I hosted a huge element of your D-Day campaign a few years back at a local con, but I’m looking to make my way to various events around the US (and one day to BoW Bootcamp!). Would love to add one of yours to the list
Absolutely, @mc1gamer – I still have that Bolt Action D-Day batrep you did in 2015 somewhere in you YouTube favorites. 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6a1ppsPkrI&t=0s&list=FLDVsugoRWzpIMb9e7mA8kHA&index=40
Any kind of event I might host would have to be online, I’m afraid. We recently lost the gaming store close to us, and there aren’t many gaming opponents near us in Fort Lauderdale / North Broward County. Of course, if you or your friends are ever down in the Sunshine State, we could investigate the possibility of setting something up. 😀
Wow… High tec!
It’s a brave new world. 😀
really want to start my own campaign now… just so i can create cool maps… stop giving me ideas guys. i only have so much free time 😀
No worries, @rot6 – there is a little bit of time at invested at the front end but build up enough assets and files and you’ll be rocking quick campaigns in no time.
But i also have to build terrain, vehicles, units… so much to do so little time XD
Nothing but true. 🙂
Neat!
Thanks!
that map is very cool
Thanks very much!
nice maps!! please do narrative batle reports tomorrow
Thanks very much, @toricova – we’ll certainly try to have more updates from the campaign map later today as people start to get stuck into actual Bolt Action games.
That is a great way to incorporate tech into gaming. You may not have invented them but you certainly know know to use and combine them. Nice work and the effort you put in is greatly appreciated. It makes the Bootcamp even more enjoyable to watch. I am a big fan of campaigns.
Thanks very much, @firebuck – I completely agree on campaigns. They say narrative is 75% of the wargame, so for a historical setting like this it’s a combination of the historical background / context, and then the larger narrative of the campaign as you “rewrite” your own timeline of the battle.
If you could make a detailed tutorial of how to make a similar map, that would be amazing!
@dukeexeter – sounds good. If people are really interested I could try to put something up in the BoW Projects area in the week after Boot Camp.
@oriskany – Perhaps you could zip up your original spreadsheet and somehow link to the project so those without your skills could download it?
Definitely not a bad idea, @hobbyhub.
@oriskany – great idea Jim.
Did you consider using Powerpoint at any time?
I’m a bit of an Excel user myself, but when you started describing animations, Powerpoint jumped to mind.
So instead of a new tab, create a new slide. Would you see any downsides in using Powerpoint?
Once a Powerpoint campaign is run, one could play the slideshow, perhaps put a soundtrack to it… Just a thought.
PowerPoint would certainly work @hobbyhub, I see no reason why it couldn’t display the .png images as well as Excel. For smaller-scale, more tactical projects (Valor & Victory, Panzer Leader), I sometimes have small tables off to the side for tracking actual game data, scenario points, victory points, etc. That would really be the only reason to stick strictly with Excel. But for a display piece like this, I can’t thin of a reason why .pptx wouldn’t do as well as .xlsx.
Archiving play rounds and using military symbology, should make for some great reads on the website.
@uberqfunk – yeah, we’ll probably be putting something on this over on the project page in the near future.
Thanks for the heads up, I will be setting up notifications for that. Video battle reports are good but my favorite part of WD was the picture maps and write ups.
It will be 3-7 days before I can get to it, but I will. 🙂
Great map, thanks for taking the time to make it Jim @oriskany
@uptrebor – my pleasure, to be completely honest. 😀
Seems like Jim has a system that works well!
@collins – Quick, light, easy, accessible – almost everyone has a basic MS Office package / license and internet connection, so it’s easy to get people more involved in gaming with this kind of solution.
I am sure most of us would love to see a ‘how to’ article on creating campaign maps with MS Excel.
Awesome, @72draco – I’ll see what I can put together in the next week of so (after I recover from the boot camp and associated travel). 😀
I never thought about Excel as an art package. This does not look like the Excel I use every day at work
To be honest, the map and units are created in Photoshop 14 / Adobe Creative Suites 5.5. The Excel is used to house the completed images and allow quick and easy movement.
Awesome work guys.
While I’m not God I do know how many tabs you can have. You can have 255 tabs in an excel spreadsheet. So if you start with the Invasion of France and the Low Countries you could do WWII Week by Week in excel although that may be a tad excessive 😀
The word “excessive” is not applied to historical wargaming. 😀 😀 😀
sounds great you should make those maps as downloads 🙂
@deadhead – would be interested in just the “blank” area map as a .jpg or .pdf?
the area maps would be great as pdfs
I can probably get that worked out pretty quick. 🙂
that would be great
Cool. I have it saved a a .jpg, I will set up up as a .pdf in project as soon as I get a few other materials sorted out to publish with it.
That looks very neat.
Wow I never would have guessed Excel. Clever!
It’s just what works for the most people. Gotta keep historical wargaming accessible!