Having now built an empty canvas so to speak, I first turn to terrain. The terrain will need to be modular, attractive, cheap, portable and rugged, in case it gets tossed around a bit.

WOODS

My initial thought is there are two ways to make woods. First, based woods: cut a base and cover it in flock to represent woods. These are very fast, cheap and speedy to set up and tear down. However you then have to either (a) set your troops on top of the woods or (b) provide pieces that lift off to make room for the troops. They also are not terribly flexible. ou are limited as to the shapes and sizes of woods you can represent on the table. Second you can do individual trees with a base or marker to define the edge of the woods. These take more time and are not as speedy to set up tear down. Trees are also more fragile and harder to store.

My first attempt is to make some based woods. I’m thinking of a base with a removable section for the troops. For the base I take a plastic lid from an empty ricotta cheese tub and cut an irregular shape. I paint this dark green. It takes two coats to get good color over the white plastic.

Once the paint has dried I outline a 30x60 mm area. This will be where the troops are placed when they occupy the woods. Now I spread white glue all over the base taking care not to get any inside the 30x60 clearing. I have a bag of mixed flock (I buy three colors and mix them together) so I pick out bits and press them down, making sure to leave a clean edge at the 30x60. Now I cut another piece of lid into a 30x60 rectangle and repeat the process. Here are the two pieces cut and painted, waiting for the paint to dry.

Here are the same two pieces with the flock glued in place:

Once the white glue has dried they will get a heavy spray of cheap hair spray (the $1 kind that makes your hair as hard as an eggshell). That should hold all the flock nicely in place.

Do a test fit of the removable center and trim off any flock that blocks the center piece fro dropping easily into place.

Repeat for as many pieces of woods as you need.

But I know I’ll want a more flexible system....so on to idea number two.

[Battlefield In A Box] [Terrain: Part 1] [Terrain Part 2: Woods] [Terrain Part 3: The Hills] [Terrain Part 4: Towns] [Terrain Part 5: Rivers & Streams] [Terrain Part 6: Rivers II] [Final Touches] [Post Mortem]