Having always been a wargamer with no money, I have always found making my own terrain to be most rewarding. In the process, I can frequently do a better job than the commercial stuff & get much more satisfaction knowing how to think outside the box to achieve great results
Good show again, dude. And a subject which takes up a lot of my hobby time. I 'wargame on a shoestring' so that means scratchbuilding terrain. It's not just a necessity tho', researching and then trying to recreate an actual historical battlefield in 6mm is almost as much fun as gaming itself. At 6mm scale I think that the terrain is even more important than the miniatures, after all, the landscape is what people see first on a good 6mm table. My favourite piece, a four foot by one foot piece representing the Chickahominy River with broken banks, flooded fields, raised earth causeways and improvised log bridges, all 100% scratchbuilt is probably the most noteworthy. Unless you include the 3x3' table i built for the Battle of Gaines Mill. It has contoured hills, two rivers, three creeks, three swamps, the entire road network of the battlefield, numerous patches of dense woodland, a couple of villages and various outlying farms as well as the titular mill itself...all built in to the table. That was a big project but I think the result was worth the effort. I even took the whole kit and kaboodle by train to the club at Sheffield and back! And this was built by someone with the DIY skills of the average frog! If I can do it ,anyone can .😊
|It sounds like you are quite an accomplished terrain maker. But you are right, terrain is even more important when you are playing 6mm battles. The landscape becomes as important as the armies themselves.
@@MiniatureAdventuresTV I don't know about being accomplished, I have very poor DIY skills and have only really been building anything bigger than a shaped hill for less than a year, but I like to think that I can find solutions to problems with materials others discard and have the time and determination to attack a project head on. Improvisation is the key. Terrain based on worn out clothes, decorated with builders rubble on top of filler and flock both made from sawdust. None of it designed or mass produced to do the job, all of it cheap or free.
Great video and talking point. My signature piece of home-made terrain (so far) is a backyard garden I made for 15mm ACW gaming, using some on-sale HO scale vegetation. It's base is a the ridged elastic fabric from a sock, which gives the plowed look, glued onto a rigid base, given a border with modeling paste, painted and drybrushed brown, and then 'planted' with some flock for low vegetables, plus the HO cucumbers, turnips, and most visibly, sunflowers. My mates all roll their eyes when the sunflower garden shows up on the table, they feel I'm showing off (I am).
What perfect timing, I just finished the last figures that were on the table and will be spending the majority of August making terrain. As others have said its more relaxing and probably the most creative side of the hobby. I like making do with what I've already got rather than buying stuff specifically. My battlefields sorely need some better terrain anyway.
I would add that for historical games, having the correct period terrain, or historically accurate terrain, and good color selection, is a factor to consider. My stand out crafted terrain piece is a large desert ruin. North Africa. I also have historically accurate terrain for WW2. Pegasus Bridge, Grande Cafe, Deadman's Corner, Primosole Bridge, Stalingrad Fountain, Stalingrad Water Tower, etc. Thank you for sharing.
Hey Big Lee! Having interesting terrain to fight over is a great help to get "immersed" in the game. I remember, as a VERY young wargamer, just having a book for a hill, some newspaper for a river, a bit of lichen for a forest, AND a dedicated table to play on were the long coveted goal! Forty + years later, the campaigns I waged back then are just as vivid in my mind as the ones I did last month. Matchsticks, with the heads cut off, provided the raw material for snake rail fences, cabins, walls, and forts. I still have some of them. Meltzer's Fort has continued to resist Indian raids and provide shelter for the local settlers! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (Much to the dismay of Chief Running Turtle!) Thanks for the book recommendation! Baron von Meltzer thinks that it is time that he goes up the ladder of Nobility by a rung or two!
All the terrain apart from most of our buildings and trees are home made. The most effective things I have made are huts for a 15mm Vietnam game and late medieval early Tudor buildings for English civil war - both at 15mm scale.
Agreed! Making scratch-built terrain and buildings is highly rewarding and satisfying. Yet I must admit that making trees is not something I enjoy. These, I purchase ready made and mount to pre-made bases, which I then treat with various terrain materials to suggest some forest limited underbrush. In reply to your question, In Summer 2017, I built a town center based on various old buildings still standing in various former Hanseatic towns along the Baltic coast from Lubeck to Tallin. They were featured in the 2018 Wargamer's Annual. Some pretty challenging geometry there with the roofs and spires, but it all looks pretty good. Stylized, yes, but they provide the right 18th century vibe I was after for my fictitious Grand Duchy of Stollen. Currently mulling over -- "planning" sounds too well thought out -- an 18" or 24" bridge that will work a few of those structures for yet another refight of Young and Lawford's Sittangbad. On a different note, you videos have become a part of my Sunday morning routine. Very nice to watch/listen to with that first mug of coffee.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my rambling! I did try to make some trees using the Woodland Scenic armatures and clump foliage, but they were bald after just a few games. Now I buy cheap trees off of ebay and 're-foliage' them using WWS Basing glue.
Generic (“close enough”) terrain is good for most games, but if I commit to a recreating a specific battle I’m going to research the landscape and any architecture in detail. Looking ahead to possibly running a game at a con, I want to build several specific buildings that played a part in the battle, each with its own known history, most still standing today so I can reference old and modern photos. Those named structures are as much a part of the battle as the known participants and their uniforms.
That book sounds jolly interesting, I wonder if Nik of the Medieval Wargamer channel has it in his collection 🤔 I've had great fun building a number of different terrain items over the years. I built a lot of stuff for my 20mm ww2 collection and Dark Age 28mm, including buildings, hills, hedges, trees, and small scatter items. I do find you need a bit of space to create and store it all though, and have since sold the ww2 stuff. There is a lot to be said for the smaller scales and their reduced footprint 🙂
Definitely. I've just bought three early medieval armies for just over £100 and they will fit in a single A4 RUB box. All my existing 6mm terrain fits in a couple of larger boxes but overall the footprint of all of my 6mm stuff is pretty modest. My room is only 7x8 and I have a games table in there.
I've never been a great one for making terrain though I have tried simple homemade things. I'm soon going to attempt a ruined wizards tower which I've seen on YT. Since I've been doing fewer 'large' battle games (ancients) and moved to skirmish types there does need to be more terrain of whatever the game setting.
I find that with small scale or skirmish games there needs to be more terrain to make the table interesting. Commercial stuff (rather than DIY) is fine but often requires deep pockets.
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Having always been a wargamer with no money, I have always found making my own terrain to be most rewarding. In the process, I can frequently do a better job than the commercial stuff & get much more satisfaction knowing how to think outside the box to achieve great results
I find working on terrain quite relaxing. Unlike the figures you can't really get it wrong- within reason.
That's just how I feel. It's a very relaxing diversion from miniatures.
I agree wholeheartedly. Terrain is relatively simple to make, creative and enhances the game tremendously.
I'm not above buying commercially made stuff, but often you can do it cheaper yourself.
Good show again, dude. And a subject which takes up a lot of my hobby time. I 'wargame on a shoestring' so that means scratchbuilding terrain. It's not just a necessity tho', researching and then trying to recreate an actual historical battlefield in 6mm is almost as much fun as gaming itself. At 6mm scale I think that the terrain is even more important than the miniatures, after all, the landscape is what people see first on a good 6mm table. My favourite piece, a four foot by one foot piece representing the Chickahominy River with broken banks, flooded fields, raised earth causeways and improvised log bridges, all 100% scratchbuilt is probably the most noteworthy. Unless you include the 3x3' table i built for the Battle of Gaines Mill. It has contoured hills, two rivers, three creeks, three swamps, the entire road network of the battlefield, numerous patches of dense woodland, a couple of villages and various outlying farms as well as the titular mill itself...all built in to the table. That was a big project but I think the result was worth the effort. I even took the whole kit and kaboodle by train to the club at Sheffield and back!
And this was built by someone with the DIY skills of the average frog! If I can do it ,anyone can .😊
|It sounds like you are quite an accomplished terrain maker. But you are right, terrain is even more important when you are playing 6mm battles. The landscape becomes as important as the armies themselves.
@@MiniatureAdventuresTV I don't know about being accomplished, I have very poor DIY skills and have only really been building anything bigger than a shaped hill for less than a year, but I like to think that I can find solutions to problems with materials others discard and have the time and determination to attack a project head on. Improvisation is the key. Terrain based on worn out clothes, decorated with builders rubble on top of filler and flock both made from sawdust. None of it designed or mass produced to do the job, all of it cheap or free.
Great video and talking point. My signature piece of home-made terrain (so far) is a backyard garden I made for 15mm ACW gaming, using some on-sale HO scale vegetation. It's base is a the ridged elastic fabric from a sock, which gives the plowed look, glued onto a rigid base, given a border with modeling paste, painted and drybrushed brown, and then 'planted' with some flock for low vegetables, plus the HO cucumbers, turnips, and most visibly, sunflowers. My mates all roll their eyes when the sunflower garden shows up on the table, they feel I'm showing off (I am).
And so you should. A bit of terrain like that can really bring a table to life.
What perfect timing, I just finished the last figures that were on the table and will be spending the majority of August making terrain. As others have said its more relaxing and probably the most creative side of the hobby. I like making do with what I've already got rather than buying stuff specifically. My battlefields sorely need some better terrain anyway.
Have fun!
Another great video Lee! I followed your dense wood tutorial and it worked well...if I can do it anyone can 🍺
Thank you. I was just getting together the materials to start filming a video tutorial when I read this. Hopefully sometime next week.
I would add that for historical games, having the correct period terrain, or historically accurate terrain, and good color selection, is a factor to consider.
My stand out crafted terrain piece is a large desert ruin. North Africa.
I also have historically accurate terrain for WW2. Pegasus Bridge, Grande Cafe, Deadman's Corner, Primosole Bridge, Stalingrad Fountain, Stalingrad Water Tower, etc.
Thank you for sharing.
You're welcome. Sounds like there is a lot of overlap in our periods of interest.
Hey Big Lee!
Having interesting terrain to fight over is a great help to get "immersed" in the game. I remember, as a VERY young wargamer, just having a book for a hill, some newspaper for a river, a bit of lichen for a forest, AND a dedicated table to play on were the long coveted goal! Forty + years later, the campaigns I waged back then are just as vivid in my mind as the ones I did last month.
Matchsticks, with the heads cut off, provided the raw material for snake rail fences, cabins, walls, and forts. I still have some of them. Meltzer's Fort has continued to resist Indian raids and provide shelter for the local settlers! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! (Much to the dismay of Chief Running Turtle!)
Thanks for the book recommendation! Baron von Meltzer thinks that it is time that he goes up the ladder of Nobility by a rung or two!
|Like you I recall games I played 30 or forty years ago with fond memories, even if the miniatures and terrain were not up to my current standard.
All the terrain apart from most of our buildings and trees are home made. The most effective things I have made are huts for a 15mm Vietnam game and late medieval early Tudor buildings for English civil war - both at 15mm scale.
I do occasionally buy pre-made terrain, but only if its not too expensive or would be too difficult for me to make...I know my limits!
Agreed! Making scratch-built terrain and buildings is highly rewarding and satisfying. Yet I must admit that making trees is not something I enjoy. These, I purchase ready made and mount to pre-made bases, which I then treat with various terrain materials to suggest some forest limited underbrush. In reply to your question, In Summer 2017, I built a town center based on various old buildings still standing in various former Hanseatic towns along the Baltic coast from Lubeck to Tallin. They were featured in the 2018 Wargamer's Annual. Some pretty challenging geometry there with the roofs and spires, but it all looks pretty good. Stylized, yes, but they provide the right 18th century vibe I was after for my fictitious Grand Duchy of Stollen. Currently mulling over -- "planning" sounds too well thought out -- an 18" or 24" bridge that will work a few of those structures for yet another refight of Young and Lawford's Sittangbad. On a different note, you videos have become a part of my Sunday morning routine. Very nice to watch/listen to with that first mug of coffee.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my rambling!
I did try to make some trees using the Woodland Scenic armatures and clump foliage, but they were bald after just a few games. Now I buy cheap trees off of ebay and 're-foliage' them using WWS Basing glue.
Generic (“close enough”) terrain is good for most games, but if I commit to a recreating a specific battle I’m going to research the landscape and any architecture in detail. Looking ahead to possibly running a game at a con, I want to build several specific buildings that played a part in the battle, each with its own known history, most still standing today so I can reference old and modern photos. Those named structures are as much a part of the battle as the known participants and their uniforms.
Absolutely they're part of the story of the battle and need to be included in some way.
That book sounds jolly interesting, I wonder if Nik of the Medieval Wargamer channel has it in his collection 🤔
I've had great fun building a number of different terrain items over the years. I built a lot of stuff for my 20mm ww2 collection and Dark Age 28mm, including buildings, hills, hedges, trees, and small scatter items. I do find you need a bit of space to create and store it all though, and have since sold the ww2 stuff. There is a lot to be said for the smaller scales and their reduced footprint 🙂
Definitely. I've just bought three early medieval armies for just over £100 and they will fit in a single A4 RUB box. All my existing 6mm terrain fits in a couple of larger boxes but overall the footprint of all of my 6mm stuff is pretty modest. My room is only 7x8 and I have a games table in there.
I've never been a great one for making terrain though I have tried simple homemade things. I'm soon going to attempt a ruined wizards tower which I've seen on YT. Since I've been doing fewer 'large' battle games (ancients) and moved to skirmish types there does need to be more terrain of whatever the game setting.
I find that with small scale or skirmish games there needs to be more terrain to make the table interesting. Commercial stuff (rather than DIY) is fine but often requires deep pockets.
Ah.. terrain, my Achilles heel. My best build was a small bog. But I hardly dare to approach building terrain. 🫣
You know the old saying, Practice makes perfect 😉