What is the best type of terrain? There’s no universal answer to this question. It depends on many factors including space, cost, time and aesthetics.
For many wargamers, particularly those who wargame at home, the first ‘space’ consideration is how large a playing area do you want to create? Isandlwana by Team Zulu, was most definitely a large game and was created to display the forces involved in this 1879 battle on a one-to-one basis! Fortunately, apart from the famous hill lending its name to the battle, the terrain is relatively multi-use and can be conveniently folded away (Figure 46).
Figure 46: Isandlwana. (Team Zulu)
The second consideration is how much space is available for storing the terrain safely when not in use? And there’s another space consideration that is often ignored in the enthusiasm to get started: transportation. A good friend of mine constructed a truly impressive medieval fortress on a baseboard a little over 120cm x 60cm, with the towers of the keep over 30cm high once you included the height of the motte. Everything was fine until it came to fitting it into the boot of his relatively small car. It still looked fantastic, but it wouldn’t fit in until the rear seats were removed; so when designing your terrain and scenery, try to plan for every eventuality, just in case.
‘Cost’ is also a factor. How much money are you willing to spend on your terrain? Making your own terrain will usually be cheaper than buying readymade, but there is still a cost, so it’s worth planning out and budgeting what you think you’ll need. Always allow a margin though, because invariably you’ll miss something off the list. I do it all the time.
As for ‘time’: do you have the spare time available to make your own terrain, or perhaps more importantly, the time to finish it? There’s little more soul destroying than starting a project and being unable to complete it, irrespective of the reason.
Finally: ‘aesthetics’. This is a classic grey area. I know it’s stating the obvious, but wargaming is a game. Just how important to you are the aesthetics of that game? Are you determined to create a replica of a specific battlefield even though that may limit its use for other conflicts? Or, at the opposite extreme, do you just want a surface upon which to deploy your troops that is more attractive than the dining room table?
To help you consider the options, the following table summarises the most important advantages and disadvantages of the most popular types of terrain.
Terrain type |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Terrain cloth |
Convenient to transport and store. Light. |
Can look bland and uninteresting unless dyed and/or dressed up with scatter material. |
Terrain tiles |
A lot of terrain options available: easy to create different terrain to suit geographic locations. Light. |
Built-in roads and rivers limit set-up options. Some commercially available tiles use easy to damage foam. |
Hex tiles |
A wide range of terrain options including hills, rivers and trenches. Durable and relatively easy to store. |
The formalised hex design can be off putting, and it makes estimating ranges very easy. |
Sculpted terrain |
Gives the opportunity to accurately recreate specific battlefields. |
Can be expensive and time consuming to create, and may offer limited playability for other periods and scenarios. |
My main consideration, once I’ve finalised the general details and costing of a project, is future-proofing. I want the terrain I make today to match the terrain I make in ten years time, which means creating a series of standards.
Whatever terrain you decide to make, it’s a good idea to start a notebook detailing everything to do when creating terrain, such as the materials and paints used. By all means open a file on your computer in which to keep this information. Call me a latter day Luddite, but I never trust solely to digital means to store important information, and I always keep a hard copy.
TERRAIN CLOTH STANDARDS
Given that a basic terrain cloth onto which roads or rivers are laid is the most generic of terrain systems and probably one of the cheapest, future-proofing is easy: just buy as many basic cloths or throws as you think you’ll need, even though you may not use them immediately. My throws were approximately 240cm x 200cm and cost just £15 each. I bought three and my terrain cloth future-proofing was solved as I can never envisage needing a maximum playing area bigger than 600cm x 240cm. Bearing in mind that soon after my purchase a colleague from our local wargame club went to buy some more throws from the same store and was told they’d sold out and wouldn’t be getting any more in, it was a useful lesson … if you can afford it, buy it when you see it because when you want it, it will probably be gone!
Figure 47: Andy Duff’s French cavalry prepare to advance over a terrain cloth.
The terrain for A Close Run Thing by Andy Duff (Figure 47), comprised a basic cloth over which was scattered a mix of materials including gravel, fine shingle and small pebbles, to which hedges and trees were added, in fact everything needed to create a very effective battlefield.
TERRAIN TILES AND CUSTOM TERRAIN
There is likely to be slightly more record keeping when it comes to terrain tiles and custom terrain simply because there are far more options. Start by noting down the supplier of the basic high density foam material and any references or code numbers.
The next technique or materials that need to be recorded relate to the texturing of the surface. For example, if making grassy, temperate terrain, I first cover the surface with PVA glue followed by a sprinkling of sand. Although a variation in texture is fine, I prefer not to see such a variation running obviously along the edge of a terrain panel. Fortunately sand is not particularly expensive. I bought a large sack of it, and after several years of use, the sack is still a little over half full.
After the sand coating I paint the surface using a sequence of Dulux® colours – which have the advantages of being far more economical than using model paints – and they have a precise naming and referencing system, either of which can be quoted and the exact colour can be recreated … now that really is future-proofing.
Figure 48: These 15mm Essex Miniatures ‘Death or Glory boys’ are having a bit of trouble with this terrain designed for larger scale figures.
For my temperate terrain panels I apply a dark brown undercoat followed by a drybrush of mid brown, finished off with a very light drybrush of pale yellow. To simulate grass I use autumn static grass because the green is less lurid than many of the summer static grass products available.
If you are making an arid desert-like terrain, you might want to include some gravel or similar material on the surface to make the terrain appear more rugged. Bear in mind that the larger the grains the more difficult it will be for figures, vehicles or even buildings to stand flat on the terrain (Figure 48). In my experience it’s best to use a material that is coarse enough to be drybrushed but still fine enough to place figures or buildings on easily. You can always add loose gravel or lichen to add more interest to the terrain. As with the temperate terrain panels, keep a note of the paints used so that you can create and match in more panels if required at a later date.