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Wednesday 30 January 2013

A present from my wife

As regular readers of my blog will be well aware, I am a great supporter (and user) of Hexon II terrain. I own quite a collection of the stuff – probably enough for most of my wargaming needs – but I think that you can never have too much of a good thing!

My wife and I are now of an age when we tend not to buy each other big presents for Christmas or birthdays, but just before this Christmas my wife asked me if I wanted or needed any more Hexon II terrain. I answered in the affirmative, and a week or so ago I gave her my list … and it was all delivered yesterday.

I am now the proud owner of:
  • A pack of marsh/swamp single hexes (10 in all)
  • Two packs of blue single hexes (20 in all)
  • Two packs of green flocked single hexes (20 in all)
  • Two packs of desert single hexes (20 in all)
  • Two desert transition hill sets

  • A desert transition escarpment set

The additional hexes and hills/escarpments will give me the ability to have quite a bit more variety of terrain on my tabletop.

What a great present!

20 comments:

  1. Hi Bob,

    That is some present! Your good lady has impeccable taste on the present front!

    I really like the desert/transition terrain and may well make this my next Hexon acquisition - in preference to the pure desert version. I liked the marsh/swamp edge tiles (useful for ACW river actions) and those escarped hills would be ideal for the Sudan.

    Lots of potential there methinks and I am sure you will come up with something that combines all of them in one scenario!

    All the best,

    DC

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  2. Not a bad present there Bob! I'd not seen the marsh hexes before.

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  3. David Crook,

    I am just very lucky!

    The desert transition terrain is great for so many different locations (e.g. The velt or steppes during the dry season, the desert areas near rivers like the Nile) and the rest are ideal for creating a somewhat more varied terrain than can be set up using the standard Hexon II. The marsh/swamp tiles are for a specific project that I want to do in the future (The Bay of Pigs) using my BIG BOARD PORTABLE WARGAME: MODERN rules.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  4. What a great wife! Mine says that when I learn to behave I might get nice stuff like that too.

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  5. Alan Abbey,

    Like the wives of all wargamers, my wife is wonderful (in your case, you wife is doubly so, because she has to put up with you! :^) ).

    So you can have nice stuff when you learn to behave. Can you wait that long? I hope so, because experience shows that if you are not properly 'house-trained' by your age, the chances of it ever happening is very small.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  6. Very diverse. I expect to see some excellent scenarios out of you to put those hexes to work. Maybe some Seminole wars for the swamp, then attack on the Suez Canal -- WWI and then a hypothetical WWII scenario, using same hexes with different troops and weapons. Maybe also some Italians in Abayssnia or some obscure colonial action near the Sudd of the Nile circa the Victorian Era.

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  7. CoastConFan,

    These additional hexes should give me a lot more opportunities to set up some very different - and interesting - scenarios. I already have one or two ideas ... including Word War I actions on the River Tigris.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  8. Tim Gow,

    I think that the marsh/swamp hexes are relatively new.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  9. We are lucky to have wives who are so tolerant and understanding. Mine doesn't go in for specific wargames stuff, but does keep an eye out for useful items (most recently a wooden ammo box (.30 cal, I think) which I immediate saw a use for packing essential wargames equipment: dice, rulers, hearing aids...).

    She'll let me use her credit card as well (I don't have one myself, being none too enamoured of the things in principle, so she knows that if I ask for it, I really, really need it). She says I'm low maintenance...

    Cheers,
    Ion

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  10. I was thinking that those tiles look extremely versatile. You could create a whole world with them, the hex scales being anything from a few feet to hundreds of miles across.
    Fantastic!

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  11. Archduke Piccolo (Ion),

    My wife realised a long time ago that wargaming was not as expensive a hobby as some of the alternatives.We have friends who play golf, and when my wife found out how much it cost them to be a member of a club and to play once or twice a week, she came to the conclusion that wargaming was cheap in comparison. Not only that, but you had something tangible to show for your money.

    My wife does look out for things that might be useful for me. Recently she gave me a small plastic toolbox which she found, and which she thought might make a useful box to store all the bits and pieces I might need if I was fighting a wargame away from home. It is ideal, and I am in the process of putting together the things I will need to carry in it.

    It sounds to me as if you have a great wife as well. We really are very lucky, aren’t we?

    All the best,

    Bob

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  12. Yummy, I will show this post to my better half as an example on "how to get it (aka presents) right" ;)

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  13. Archduke Piccolo (Ion),

    The hexes do have lots of potential uses. I am thinking about buying some of the unflocked ones so that I can paint them - probably in a shade of grey - to represent the surface of a built-up area.

    The only major problem with Hexon II is its availability outside of the UK and Europe. It costs a small fortune to send it to the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand and there do not seem to be any retailers who import it into those countries or licensees who can manufacture it.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  14. Geordie an Exiled FoG,

    Good luck ... and don't forget that this is a two-way street! My experience is that if you want your wife to buy you the present you want, a good starting point is to buy her what she wants first.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  15. I wish they'd had this back in ye olden dayes when I was running the RAF Stafford Wargames Club. Would have been easier to store than the TSS breeze blocks we had.

    All the best
    James

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  16. The Dancing Cake Tin,

    I had some of those TSS terrain blocks ... and they did take up a lot of space for not a lot of coverage. I was glad when I got rid of them!

    Hexon II may not be cheap ... but it easy to store.

    All the best,

    Bob

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