New module - Britain Stands Alone

Module Discussion
1

Hi, I have mostly finished the initial (digitising everything) stage of creating a Vassal module of the 1st edn of Britain Stands Alone. I have also added more counters, variants and scenarios (and a few corrections). However I have not made a Vassal module before so if anyone is interested in assisting with this project, please let me know. I hope I have not picked something too complex! One concern I have is that My game files are about 97 Mb uncompressed at the moment, and the modules on the web site rarely exceed 20 Mb. Some is due to duplication and discards but I am hoping that getting Vassal to generate the counters instead of using my scanned ones will reduce the file size???

I have included the following possible changes/additions:

Additional Counters

Britain:

Army: Railway Guns, Commandos, Corps HQ, GHQ, slower movement for some units
Navy: Curacoa (CL), Cairo (CL), Furious (CV), Submarine Flotilla, Edinburgh (CA), Belfast (CA), Operation Lucid Fireships.
Air Force: Hurricane, Whitley, Hampden, Blenheim Fighter, Battle, Operation Banquet bombers, (plus maybe Short Sunderland, Avro Anson, Hudson, Beaufort)
Other Counters: Gas!

Germany:
Army: Jager symbol, Rocket Artillery, Artillery Command 106, Corps HQs, Army HQs, Army Group HQs, Marine battalion
Navy: Scharnhorst (BC), Graf Spee (CR), Graf Zeppelin (CV)
Air Force: Do 17, Fieseler 156 Storch, He 115, (plus maybe DFS 230, He 123, Do 18, Fw 200 Condor)
Reinforcements and Replacements also include withdrawals and sinkings and the above

Italy
Navy: Atlantic Submarine Group
Air Force: SM 79, G.50
Reinforcements and Replacements include the above

Changes
German
DD counters of variable strength, some better than British DDs
Some Army units having slower movement points e.g. no motorisation of follow-up infantry divisions
Invasion fleets- Prahms and transports have better defence
Jager rules for the two Jager divisions
Seilbomben
Artillry Command 106 - bombarding ships from the north
Landings by Storch

British
DD counters of variable strength
Army counters having different movement points – transport was not at 100% and was unevenly distributed
Reinforcements and Replacements also include withdrawals and sinkings (e.g. sent to Dakar)
Operation Banquet, operation Lucid

general:
Map: shows fortification/stop lines and some escarpments
Weather: can use “historical” weather
More variants and a 1941 scenario
possibly some mine warfare - having to lay, defend, and maintain the minefields
Gas!

2

Thus spake FMAlanbrooke via messages:

Hi, I have mostly finished the initial (digitising everything) stage of
creating a Vassal module of the 1st edn of Britain Stands Alone. I
have also added more counters, variants and scenarios (and a few
corrections). However I have not made a Vassal module before so if
anyone is interested in assisting with this project, please let me know.
I hope I have not picked something too complex! One concern I have is
that My game files are about 97 Mb uncompressed at the moment, and the
modules on the web site rarely exceed 20 Mb. Some is due to duplication
and discards but I am hoping that getting Vassal to generate the
counters instead of using my scanned ones will reduce the file size???

If you want smaller files from scans, the key is to clean up your scans.

Say you have a piece with a visually uniform green background. A scan of
hat will not have a uniform color for a variety of factors, such as
sensor noise, scanning technique, and variations in the printing and
paper which your eyes smooth out. What you want to be a large area of
one shade of green—highly compressible—ends up as a large area of
many slightly different shadest of green—not very compressible—and
you end up with much larger files as a result.

–
J.

3

Hi, have you already finnished it? I can’t find them on vassal
Looking forward to it very much:)

4

No, I have scanned all the images, written all the extra rules, and put it all on Boardgame Geek. The partially made module and complete set of image files can be made available for download if anybody wants to finish it off.

1 Like
5

I’m very appreciated for your work and attention, but I can’t find the half-done module and the complete set of image, may you show me a link?

Another thing is that: is the following account yours on BGG?

Christopher Webber

(Games | Profile | vakarr | BoardGameGeek)
I tried to make the map chips which upload by him to a compete one, but the map lose a little part on the left…

6

Yes, I’ll email you the link