Lock n Load's Battles on Demand series

Started by Crossroads, November 12, 2017, 11:30:17 AM

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Crossroads

#15
Time to get serious, then.

Here's how the counter sheets look like from close. The chit edges are marked with a square, so you need to cut out each row and column separately.

At first I thought this is unnecessary, why aren't they printed out next to each other?

Having done a few strips though I appreciated the fact there's some leeway in case you make a small error.  O0

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#16
Point of no return!

No need to return, as such, although cutting each strip was a bit more work than I expected, I typically had to roll the cutter over three times to cut through it all.

The feel of the finished chits is very nice though, so I'd not have the cardboard any thinner either. Just saying you'd might need to roll it back and forth a couple of times, is all.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

At first, I erred on safe side, and left an extra millimeter or two to chit edges. But instead, you actually need to cut as close as you can. With a rotary cutter, it was quite easy to do another go, removing just a little strip to make it better, so again no harm done.

At this time I realised I would have had Lock'n Load rather printing the chit edges on the secondary sheet, as the side with no chit borders look just perfect, while with the other side it is neigh impossible to get rid of the printed edge in fear of cutting too much. They are a tight cut, not much room after the chit edge print.

Here's the first go, with too much border left, then the first side fixed, but still some black ink showing from the edge.

Then, there's the step loss side, looking just perfect. Being the OCD that I am, again, I would have preferred them the other way around... But I am nitpicking here of course.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#18
At this stage I thought to try out if it would be possible to use scissors to cut the chits out from the finished strips.

I tried out with an extra edge, and good thing I did, for the scissors don't quite cut it here (pun intended). Cardboard being quite thick, the pressure of the scissor blades coming together crushes the edges a bit, while a cutter just cuts through it all.

The second picture is a bit blurry, but it shows perhaps the little damage the Fiskars scissors did on the strip.

Rotary cutter it is!
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#19
Next, I finished cutting the second counter sheet to strips.

The last strip was a bit tricky, as it was so narrow the ruler had trouble sticking to it despite the rubber bottom. I put the unused cardboard next to it to have the ruler balance over both of them.

Here they are!
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

At this stage, I am sure the question on everybody's mind is: CAN YOU CLIP THE CORNERS, OR NOT!?

As some 45 minutes had passed now, for I was doing things slowly on purpose, I thought I'd give it a quick try...

Answer: YES YOU CAN!  :smitten:

In fact, clipping these chits felt safer than clipping many of the printed countersheets, as the glossy paper with some of them seem not to be that well glued together... Here it was just perfect  :D
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

With the second countersheet now cut into strips (columns), time to cut each chit out.

I thought I'd cut them out at one go, and indeed with the ruler and its rubber strip bottom, they held together just nicely.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#22
That left me with just the last column remaining, and this time around, it felt like trying to cut them at one go would not work.

Here's the bottom side of the ruler by the way, with the rubber strip visible. It turned out to be a key feature for a ruler, make sure you buy one with something like that.

So I ended up cutting each chit individually. It worked out so nicely I cut the other counter sheet strips in this manner from the beginning.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

Second countersheet (markers) done!  O0
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#24
Then the first countersheet, with all the units (but the few that extended to Markers sheet).

This time around I knew how to glue the stickers to both sides

- Lift the 5mm strip from either side, bend it over backwards leaving the adhesive open
- Place the sheet on top of cardboard. Adhesive won't stick yet, as the bend strip keeps it just off the cardboard
- Once the sheet is properly in place, keep it there with your one hand, and press the adhesive edge to cardboard with another.
- Then, remove rest of the adhesive cover and attach the rest of the sheet to cardboard.

:bd:
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

I believe finishing this sheet took like half the time it took to do the first one. Practice makes perfect, they say.

Having typed that though, there's the few mistakes I at least just have to make here and there, but as I wrote earlier, good thing each column and row is separated by that little strip, instead of being adjacent, so the damage is often (very) limited to one place and one place only.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#26
With a rotary cutter, it was quite easy to actually finish each chit individually if there was too much edge left. I was a bit annoyed with the chit edge print in black ink, so I tried to make them as close a cut as I dared.

Here's the Before and the After, latter with Oregon Lam having added their TLC to those chit corners :hug:

See what I meant with the black rectangular printed on the "better" side of the chits though. Quite annoying, I must say (again) :D
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#27
Here's the countersheets done.

That was quite a lot of cutting. Looking at the timestamps on these photos, I started at 10.20AM and finished at 1.50PM, with all counters having been tidied up, including the Oregon Lam TLC stuff.

So a bit more work than what I anticipated first, but all good fun! Which is the most important thing, right  :)
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

What remained was the simple task of cutting the zip lock bag cover sheet in half, for the inner sleeves were player aids, too.
Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Crossroads

#29
Time to give it a quick test run, next  :knuppel2:

The map sheets turned out to have this peculiar overlap, so with three map sheets you ended up with a mapboard size of 2 1/3 sheets.

Very nice map otherwise, with details like Israeli tank firing ramps in place to keep them safe(r) while repelling the invader.


Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY