Valor & Victory – 1918 (German v. French Megagame)

Here is a sample of the Imperial German (regular army and “stosstruppen”) units so far.  The first number is an “APFP” (antipersonnel firepower), basically an attack value for anything besides hardened bunkers or vehicles.  The second number is a range, the third number is “casualty points,” basically a measure of how much damage the unit can absorb.

Note some units have two figures and larger values, some counters have one figure and smaller value.  These are full and half squads.  When units take hits, they can be pinned (up to a point), or take damage.  The number of “casualty points” the enemy player scores is the number you have to “pay for” by pinning, reducing, or removing units.  Knocking down full squads to half squads is one way you can “cover the butcher’s bill” to account for inflicted casualty points, but still retain a cohesive force.

There are also leaders (note our German commanders are named for German BoW community members) and support weapons.

Here are their counterparts for the United States Army circa 1918, and the US Marine Corps (famously engaged with two regiments at Belleau Wood).

So the first thing to do is to create some maps.  Map boards in the Valor & Victory system have a certain format, which doesn’t have to be strictly adhered to, but helps it you’d like the maps to be compatible with maps that come with the base game, its expansions, or maps other community members have created.

Of course, custom maps are also very possible.

We begin with the template hex grid.

**I’ll be using Adobe Creator Suite 5.5, Photoshop 14, Illustrator, and Acrobat Creator for this project.

Next up, I add a background texture for my base game mat.  Satellite images of deserts are my go-to, then re-hued in PS14 for whatever terrain I’m going for (desert, urban, temperate, tundra).

The I start building assets.  Craters, buildings, a few different kinds of rubble, etc.  These are steadily built up, with different versions for different building layouts and levels of damage.  Because they are transparent .png-format layers in the PS file, I can layer them together to create different combinations (rubble “beneath” damaged or ruined buildings, for example).

I start to shuffle all these assents together with the base background and hex grid to create a working template.

Below is the first file.  The roads are a simple layer of sand painted on with an outer glow effect of darker brown, so it appears automatically wherever I draw with the WACOM pad.  The trees are a two-color blend template I’ve created in my PS brush files, that allows very fast addition of light and heavy trees.

Much more to come!