I suppose that the first question must be, ‘What’s the difference between terrain tiles and custom or sculpted terrain?’ I think that there are several answers:
• Custom or sculpted terrain has as much as possible integrated into the terrain.
• Roads, rivers, hills, even walls, are all built in.
• Custom terrain is still usually based around panels but generally they are larger than what many wargamers consider to be the standard: 60cm x 60cm.
Probably the most significant difference however, is that terrain cloths and tiles are intended to be as multi-purpose as possible, with the most important features of your chosen battle being added as individual components. By contrast, custom terrain is usually designed and built for a specific battle that may seriously limit the subsequent usefulness of the terrain. It is for this reason that many custom terrain set-ups are created as demonstration or participation games for wargame shows.
A particularly impressive example of this type of terrain was Corunna 1809 created by the Essex Gamesters (Robert Browning and Ron Ringrose), which was more like a military museum exhibit than a wargame table (Figures 75–76). But what wargamer worth his salt wouldn’t relish the opportunity to take part in a game on terrain that combines both land and sea battles to the same scale and on the same terrain set up?
Just how much scenery is built as a part of the basic terrain varies, but it’s usual for roads, rivers and even walls to be integrated. Sometimes custom terrain may have limited uses for other battles because it’s just too specific, but its reusability can depend on how the terrain was initially designed. For example, Gelderland 1945 created by the Sussex Massif features flooded terrain with a few isolated areas of relatively high ground and several partially submerged houses with the roofs poking above the water level (Figure 77). This is not the sort of custom terrain which on first glance could easily be used in other scenarios perhaps, but since the base making up the flooded terrain is separate from the islands, it could be used for other primarily water themed games, perhaps a brown water Vietnam naval game in the Mekong Delta … and the buildings can stand in for almost any Northern European Second World War game.
Figure 76: British troops await the French attack outside Corunna.
PROJECT 1: A Harbour and Canals
This special project is one that I undertook for the Minehead Wargames Club (Figure 78). Originally it was intended for use with buildings, figures and a game system, produced by a well-known wargame manufacturer, but since they advised that they would sue me if I featured photographs of any of their products or named any of their games in this book, some details have been changed! This actually worked out better all round because the terrain proved to be usable across a much broader historical period, from early medieval to the Second World War and – of course – fantasy.
MATERIALS
• 0.5cm thick high density foam
• Textured vinyl wallpaper
• Balsa and cocktail sticks
• Map pins
• Wet-and-dry paper
• Thick card
CONSTRUCTION
As with any large project, the first step was planning, and so I drew up a layout that I felt would offer some challenging gameplay within the relatively limited area allocated to the game (Figure 79). The red lines show the 60cm squares, the dark blue the water and the area in the bottom right corner represents a section of the harbour.
Figure 79: The plan for the harbour.
One lesson I learned early in my terrain-making life was to check if the customer intended to use a particular set of rules because these can influence some aspects of the terrain. For example, if the rules specify that a figure can jump down or climb up a certain distance without any movement penalty, then that needs to be borne in mind when planning the model. Similarly the distance that a figure can safely jump can influence the width of any gaps: in this case the width of the canals.
The construction technique was the same for each of the four terrain pieces, so I’ll only show the construction process for one of the terrain modules.
I started by cutting out a series of high density foam strips 4.5cm high, which with the 0.5cm panel that would be placed on top, would result in a canal and harbour wall that was 5cm high. Supports were added to the wall sections to keep them perpendicular during gluing, to make the box section sturdier and also provide additional support for the upper panel (Figure 80).
I use anything I can when trying to make a right angle. In this case, as well as the ubiquitous Lego bricks, I used a couple of right angle bracing pieces, and then glued this first wall section to a 60cm x 60cm piece of high density foam (Figure 81).
I then glued one adjacent wall to the first one (Figure 82). I frequently use pins to hold the components in place while the glue is setting. The remaining walls were then glued into position to create what was in effect, an open-topped box (Figure 83).
Figure 80: The walls need inner supports.
Figure 82: The second wall glued in place.
Figure 84: Modules with textured wallpaper.
I’m never mean when it comes to using glue, at least where it doesn’t show. To complete this box section, I cut a piece of high density foam to form a lid. Using this as a template, I next cut a piece of textured wallpaper to the same size, and then pinned and glued the lid in place.
Once the glue had set thoroughly, I glued the textured wallpaper to the lid (Figure 84). The remaining boxes for this particular terrain piece were then assembled and glued in place following the same process.
It’s important that you give the wallpaper a thorough and even coating of glue to avoid air bubbles. If you do have problems with air bubbles, make a small cut in the bubble, carefully squeeze some PVA glue into the hole and press the paper down firmly. Don’t worry about any partially visible cuts because you can always conceal them with a strategically placed barrel or some rubble.
Next stage is the water, which I created by painting on Smooth Ripple textured paint, then stippling it to break up the surface (Figure 85).
The textured paint was left to dry thoroughly. There are several other ways to simulate water, one of which is to paint the surface in the appropriate colour, and then give it several coats of gloss varnish. When the varnish is completely dry, brush on PVA glue and then stipple it to create waves or ripples. You’ll probably have to repeat this latter step, because PVA tends to level itself out. PVA dries almost transparent so that the gloss varnish and the paint are visible through it. Always run tests though when using high density foam because solvents or even varnish can react badly with it, and you really don’t want to put your painstakingly created terrain at risk.
Figure 85: Water given the rippled texture paint treatment.
Figure 86: Quay walls with textured wallpaper.
Figure 87: Slabs edging the quayside.
Once the textured paint had dried, I cut 5cm wide strips of textured wallpaper and glued them to the side walls (Figure 86). My reason for adding these after applying the textured paint was to avoid obscuring the cobbled effect if I was a bit over-enthusiastic with the texturing.
To break up the cobbled surface I added some stone edging made from small pieces of sandpaper. My idea was that the texture of the sandpaper would, when painted and drybrushed, result in a gritty stone slab effect (Figure 87). Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly really since sandpaper isn’t supposed to get wet, when I painted the sandpaper square it lifted off all the grit, leaving the paper backing. Next time I’ll use wet and dry paper: that doesn’t fall apart when it gets wet. The clue was in the name really!
I started painting the cobbled surface black, then drybrushed it grey, which was followed with successively lighter coats of grey to pick out the cobble details (Figure 88). I decided that I wanted a dark look to my water: the sort of water in which you wouldn’t willingly choose to take a dip in, but stopped short of the making it look like a sewage outflow. I painted it with a mix of black and dark blue (Figure 89).
With all these waterways and canals, inevitably I was going to need a few bridges. I decided on several options: stone ones with and without parapets and some timber ones too. When constructing bridges you need to bear in mind the widest width of anything that you might want to be able to pass over the bridge.
Figure 88: Stonework undercoated in black and after initial grey drybrush.
Figure 89: The painted water.
I was very careful when constructing my modules to ensure that the waterways were all the same width so that my bridges could fit almost anywhere for maximum set-up options. The construction of suitable wooden bridges is covered in Chapter Sixteen, but for a bit of variety I also made a couple of simple stone bridges.
From high density foam, I cut out two bridge sides to fit the width of my waterways incorporating a curved arch. I could have papered them with textured wallpaper, but decided instead to engrave some random stonework onto the outer surfaces using an old ballpoint pen (Figure 90).
The road surface of this bridge was to be flush with the cobbled quayside, so I deducted the thickness of my high density foam from the total height of the bridge to give me the height of its inner supports; the width was determined by the width of a coach that needed to be able to pass over the bridge without its wheels hanging over the edges. I incorporated four supports for the road, one at each end and one either side of the arch (Figure 91). The basic roadway was cut from 0.5cm high density foam and glued in position (Figure 92). Textured wallpaper was then glued in place to form the roadway (Figure 93).
Figure 91: The bridge showing the inner supports.
Figure 93: Textured wallpaper added to create cobbled surface.
Figure 95: A bridge in place.
To complete this bridge I cut a length of thin card to form an inner arch. For a bit of variation you can create a bridge with a parapet (Figure 94): it’s just a case of making the sides higher and allowing for an overlap of the side walls onto the quayside.
As mentioned at the start of this section, I also made some wooden bridges to go with this terrain project, and the construction for these is explained Chapter Sixteen. Both the stone and wooden bridges followed a similar painting sequence. The models were first painted in grey (I used Dulux Flint), and then they were given a drybrush treatment with successively lighter coats until the required effect was achieved (Figure 95).
I decided that my canals and harbour section would benefit from having some bollards at which ships could be moored. I could have bought them, but I decided to make my own using map pins from my local stationers and some thick card. I cut off all but a short stub of the pin, and glued the pin to a square of card. The resulting item was then sprayed black, and there you have some freestanding bollards (Figure 96).
Of course there are countless other details you can add to give your terrain more interest without making it period or geographically specific. A few upright timbers made from balsa with metal rings added became mooring posts (Figure 97).
To add a bit of variation to the walls, I carefully cut an arch out from one wall section prior to assembly to represent a culvert or possibly a sewer. Pieces of thin card were cut and glued around the arch and cocktail sticks added to represent the bars (Figure 98).
Figure 96: Bollards and yet more bollards.
Figure 97: Simple mooring posts.
Figure 98: The culvert opening.
This terrain project proved extremely popular and was used in many historical and fantasy games with equal success, and I suspect that it will have a long and useful life … which is the best one can expect from one’s terrain.
PROJECT 2: First World War Terrain for Wings of Glory
When Wings of Glory was released it was a little like Christmas and birthday both rolled into one. I’ve always been fascinated by First World War aircraft, and I vividly remember the ceiling of my childhood bedroom being crisscrossed with nylon fishing line from which were hung various 1/72nd aircraft. Everything was fine until Airfix released their Handley Page 0/400; a magnificent model, but far too heavy for my delicate tracery of fine nylon filament. It was not a great day when I returned home from school to find my squadrons and jastas had plummeted earthwards. Even the ones that had taken a relatively soft landing on my bed were in bits; as was I.
But I digress. Wings of Glory with its easy to understand, but necessarily abstracted, rules together with the assembled and ready painted aircraft reignited my interest in the knights of the air, but I quickly realised that a plain green cloth wasn’t exactly enhancing my gaming experience and I decided to create some suitable terrain (Figure 99).
Figure 99: The Red Baron about to bounce an unsuspecting RE8..
• High density foam panels
• Clump foliage
CONSTRUCTION
Unsurprisingly, when viewed from the air, everything on the ground appears smaller. The Wings of Glory First World War models are 1/144th scale, but to enable me to source some useful ground-based items I decided to assume a ground scale of 1/300th, which would make available many excellent models and figures if required, such as those manufactured by Heroics and Ros.
The first stage was to plan out my terrain. I decided to include a suggestion of the two trench frontlines, and then just add some of the area behind to allow space for airfields, towns and even artillery positions as the game expanded.
This project was primarily a painting one, as the only real sculpting was the cutting of the trenches because the terrain needs to be flat so that the bases of the aircraft won’t topple over.
The trench networks were cut using my trusty pyrography tool (Figure 100). The wire was bent to create a suitable profile. You need to experiment when setting the temperature. Too low and it won’t cut, but too hot and the foam will roll back away from the wire and you won’t get vertical edges to your trenches.
Figure 100: Cutting a trench.
With the trench network cut, the next step is to create the bomb craters that punctuated the desolate No Mans’ Land. To form the craters in the surface of the foam I used two readily available and – most importantly – cheap, tools: fingers, thumbs and for larger craters an elbow comes in useful … not exactly high tech, but it works (Figure 101)!
With the trenches and craters created, the next step was to paint the terrain. At this scale this is a relatively abstracted process. Usually I apply texture to my terrain surface, but ultimately I intended to use 1/300th scale troops, AFVs and vehicles on the terrain (Figures 102–103), and I decided that even subtle texture would, at this scale, be to coarse and I’d finish up with troops and vehicles at ungainly angles.
I gave all the panels a black undercoat, and then randomly drybrushed different colours over the panels until I was satisfied with the general appearance. I used mainly Dulux Exotic Spice 2, and Dulux Golden Umber 3, but it’s really a case of experimentation. Once the paint dried, I repainted the crater/shell holes with a thinned matt black. I left the panels overnight and carefully painted semi-gloss varnish into the craters to suggest water.
I also wanted to represent the area behind the lines, if only so that I could have some airfields. It was important to delineate the roads without causing problems for the Wings of Glory aircraft stands, so I selectively glued clump foliage along the edges of roads. I also sprinkled different colours of flock and scatter material onto the terrain to break up the areas.
Figure 101: Painted digit- and elbow-created terrain.
Figure 103: A pair of Old Bill buses on their way to collect more troops for the front line.