Orchard rip off

In preparation for game 2 of my 29 Let's Go Campaign I felt I wanted to have a better representation of orchards. There are a number of Orchards represented on the 29 Let's Go campaign maps so I thought why not start there. Especially as the fantastic Tactical Painter has already paved the way with his take on orchards (they appear in his Storming the Citadel Campaign) or plantations. So I am copying him.

I've cut out a number of plywood bases (just what scraps I had to hand), shaped roughly then sanded them down. Onto these I have glued willow sticks. I got these from a roll intended to be used as garden or flower bed edging. It cost £1 and I've barely dented the supply!

After that they get some caulk/mastic to blend into the base and create a little variation on the ground. Then a daubing of PVA and scattering of dried used coffee. I had some coffee grounds left over from a while ago when I was collecting and drying them for use as a basing material, I've decided now that sharp sand is just way easier to deal with. These are base coated in black emulsion.

 I found my initial hot glue job to get the willow sticks to adhere to the plywood was not quite sufficient and some felt wobbly. I went over all of them, adding wire as outriggers to the worst offenders but largely just a lot more hot glue and in a way as to give an impression of roots. They got painted up and a wee dry brush and I am much happier with them.

Next I glue on various bits of polyfibre out an old obliging pillow, again using hot glue. They get sprayed black to cover up the whiteness.

Once they have dried the polyfibre gets a spray of adhesive and a coating of foliage. At this stage they got used in the game as I had not got round to the final floor covering, and I think for the purpose they did well! There were certainly more distracting items of terrain on the board, namely some impromptu hedging and roads. Sigh. Still annoyed with myself over that one.

Finally some flock is added to the bases. And there we have it, some orchards! Some of the flock on the trees has fallen off, despite spraying PVA/water mix over them. Not sure how to combat it, I've tried a spray varnish which helps but never removes the problem entirely. As it stands I think they currently look alright as the darker patches act to break up the colour and add some depth to the foliage.

Terrain Upgrades and Improvements - Farm Fields

More on the terrain preparation front for 29 Let's Go. This time I'm tackling some fields, specifically plowed or farm types.

The starting point are the mats you get for the car foot-well area. I used them pretty much straight from the packet for the first game but with a few cut up to provide the smaller shapes.

I don't think I need to do much to improve them, mainly a good base-coat and some dry-brushing of brown shades. As they are rather dark anyway I'll start with a burnt umber first layer.

While they were still wet I went over them in different areas with a second shade of brown (Forest brown, a cheap tester pot).

Once that had dried overnight I went over it with a mix of burnt umber and sandy beige to pick out some detail.

And I must say the pictures don't manage to show it at all. Needless to say they look a bit more varied than they appear!

I ended on a final highlight of "Fresh Barley" which just about shows up in the picture. If nothing else you have a fine series of photos of vaguely brown car mats. Well worth the effort of scrolling down this page!

I've been swithering back and forth about adding greenery to these. I came to the decision that I will leave them as is and make a few bits of scatter that can be placed in corners and on edges to represent those areas of the field the farmer can't get in to plow.

I cut up the MDF frame from some terrain sabot type bases, four sprues in total and gave me a good number of cornery type pieces to work with. I bevelled the edges with a stanley knife and sanded them down a little. I squeezed a dollop of caulk onto each base and them smeared it round, placed any rocks and bushes on the base then left it to dry.

Once dry it was a black base coat and brown for ground, grey for rocks. Followed by dry brushing and highlights.

Finally flock, I wanted to add some longer grass or shrubs for a more unkempt appearance but I don't have anything that suits, so I have ordered a box of tufts which will get added on at some point .

Roads Part Deux

Spurred on by some lovely comments from the Too Fat Lardies Forum I've been sneaking some progress on the roads after work each day this week. Picking up where I left off with the roads base-coated in  cheap black emulsion. Next up was trying to get them looking like dirt tracks.

I started with an craft acrylic tube of paint, Burnt Umber, easily obtained from your local cheapo shop. The one thing I have taken to heart is that terrain need not be expensive to look decent. Leftovers and pound shops are the order of the day.

This left them looking rather darker than I had anticipated so I moved onto my next shade, a delightful Forest Brown from a tester pot. This brought the colour up to a lighter brown which was the effect I was striving for.

Then a blend of the remnants of the Burnt umber that was left in a wee pot, a good dollop of beige, the exact colour is obscured by paint now, and a few dabs of Forest Brown for good measure. This was dry brushed onto the roads to highlight the texture a bit more.

 It always amazes me what a little bit of contrast can do for the appearance of terrain. They are beginning to look quite serviceable. Some close ups to show that.

Those were taken whilst the last coat was still wet, so I will check back and see how it turns out. I may well add a further highlight of the pure beige colour just to finish them off.

As it turns out they had gone duller as I expected and so I ended up doing a pure beige highlight and then cracking on with some flock.

Cheap sawdust type, which I now feel is maybe not as grassy as I would like. I may try add some static grass (which I have never actually used) or some tufts to add a bit of different heights and textures. But for now I may well call them done, all that is left is a spray coating of PVA/water as I am told that really helps seal things on.

Terrain Upgrades and Improvements - Roads

I bought a copy of the Chain of Command (CoC) rules a while back and got round to setting up the first game for myself and a friend, we both enjoyed it and he agreed to trying out a campaign. As I already have some painted US and German troops from an initial foray into wargaming, with Bolt Action, I selected the 29 Let’s Go Pint sized campaign and purchased it a wee while ago. Both of us are rather new to wargaming and this was the first campaign game we ever played.

As we played I felt that my table really needed help. So I’ve decided I’ll be using this campaign as a driver to create more and better terrain. The more part isn’t too difficult as I’ve only been in this hobby for coming up 3 years so anything I make will tick the more box. I also want to try and create terrain as beautiful as that seen on the numerous blogs around this here tinterwebs, that are literally too many to name. As I lack much in the way of originality I tend to copy what the clever creative types have already done. I’ll try remember to point out who influenced what as I make it. First up is roads.

Roads
I want flexible roads as I intend to make some hills in the future for some height variation and then any roads would need to be flexible, so worth the time and effort to do it now. Looking online there are a number of suppliers of flexible latex-type roads but I fancy trying to make them myself.

Numerous online sources seem to revolve around the use of acrylic caulk and a base fabric or material, while a number also advocate the use of vinyl tiles. I tried making some from vinyl tiles, I got a few packets for £1 each from the local pound-store, cut into a variety of shapes, a bit of plaster/filler, glue and sand. They were passable but I didn’t like the lack of flexibility.

Next I tried making a latex road. I used one of the vinyl tile roads as a form to cast from. I made a mould from plaster of paris and then poured latex into it and left to dry. The plaster seemed to hold a good amount of the fine details and this was successfully imparted to the latex. The issue I have is needing to create a plaster moulds for each different type of road, and the length of time it takes for the latex to set. I would also have to buy in a good amount of liquid latex. I may try tackle this in the future but for now a quicker method is in order.

So I ended up on a third method. From various other projects around the home I have quite a bit of what I call linoleum left over: a dappled grey and a light brown one. It may be called vinyl or rubber but in any case it is soft and pliable unlike the vinyl adhesive tiles. I actually used it as a quick and simple road for the first game of CoC. It cuts to size and shape easily and I just had a long continuous stretch, more for speed than appearance.

From this picture you can see the roads I used for our first game, simply “made” from cutting out some leftover linoleum.

I really don’t like the look of it as-is. The colour is too light and there is no feeling of depth to it. However the flexibility made me think, I could use this as the base of my roads and add some texturing to the surface to improve the appearance.

The linoleum cuts so easily that creating the variety of shapes is a doddle. You can mark the underside in pencil and cut it out with a craft knife (I use a Stanley knife).

I've cut out a variety of road-type shapes that I think will be useful, all about 4in wide, some 3in for narrow tracks.

After that it is a case of liberal application of caulk. I used brown stuff as I figured if it chips or breaks then it won’t shine through white. There is no skill or ability in this bit, I used a caulk gun to squeeze liberal amounts onto the pieces and then used an off cut of the linoleum to smear it over the piece.

This in itself gave it some good texture I think, but I also ran various bits of scrap plastic over it to add some impressions of traffic.

On a few I dolloped a load of caulk up the middle and tried to manipulate it into a hump. Varying degrees of success and I will see how they turn out. I should be able to add this to other pieces without too much trouble if it ends up looking good.

Full disclosure, I used the dregs of a tube of caulk on four test pieces first and let them dry before cracking open a new tube and smashing out the rest. I've base coated all these test pieces black, the rest will get the same treatment once they have dried. With a bit of space it doesn’t actually take long to do the messy smearing. I managed about 24 pieces, maybe 14ft of roads, in an less than an hour (although spread over 3hr period as I was distracted by various other things, more on those in future perhaps).

The test pieces had actually curled up once dry which concerned me a little but a judicious bending the other way soon sorted them out. The linoleum really is a wonderfully forgiving material. I hope it takes the sand, PVA and flock so easily as well. If it does I may well be tempted to try create some flexible fields out of the stuff.

Hopefully you can make out the process from the pictures, there isn’t great light in the space I am working in, but I can be as messy as I like so there are some benefits, and plenty of room to spread out the pieces. Next step is to paint them up to a realistic brown dirt track colour, which may take a bit of tinkering to get it to look right.