"Making your battlefield terrain look better - at LOW COST!" Topic

Please have a look at my latest blog entry. I think it might be of interest to many of you. The very low cost, hand-made fields and gardens add to the overall impression of the terrain layout, yet they were produced for pennies.

link

Some Elmer's glue, thin plastic cardstock, and coffee grounds, spices, or flocking, and voila, cheap fields!

Outstanding stuff Scott!

Thanks for sharing this with us!

mjc

Very nice looking terrain. I love the re-use of stuff that would normally go to the curb. I have to try that coffee ground idea, and I have dozens of those fake cc that I saved for just this sort of thing.

That is very nice. You put out an impressive table. How are the oranics holding up to travel and time? And is there any odor associated with this technique?

Agree. it all looks very nice. Well done and good tips.

I save used tea and mix it with commercial ground foam and flock for bases & scenery; it makes great leaf litter and such!

Coffee grounds also make great dirt. I need to score a fresh supply off coffee-drinking friends, but I've got terrain pieces from 6+ years ago with coffee grounds on them that're still fine.

Very cool!

mmitchell,

I left the terrain pieces sitting in a well-ventilated spot (my screened-in back patio) for a couple of days and the odors quickly went awsy. Now, even when boxed for long periods of time, there is no smell.

Have a look through your kitchen spice rack or the local supermarket and get creative. There are all kinds of interesting textures, shapes, and colors!

I've seen your terrain in person, and I think it's definately an eye grabber. But I have to go with it being "not particularly accurate". It's not that you didn't create an extrodinary piece of scenery, I'm just wondering why you can do so much and still leave your roads 1 inch wide? Can't you narrow your roads and create a grassland in between the fences? Just an idea.

Very nice looking. Do you have problems with the Elmer's Glue puckering up, or beading, on the surface of the smooth plastic? I wonder if priming the plastic would allow a better surface for the Elmer's to bond with. Cheers!

What are you using for the underlying surface: felt, carpet or something else? You have superb looking terrain.

BTW, when I clicked on the link to Battlefieldterrain my workplace censors blocked it citing the category of "weapons" -- I have to laugh at that.

"But I have to go with it being "not particularly accurate"."

I, too, was distracted by the Granny Smith apples. Everyone knows that variety wasn't found in that region in the 1860's. He should throw the whole thing out.

moonhippie3,

The 1" wide roads are an artifact of the days when I used 1" square stands for all my ACW figures (for Johnny Reb 2 and Fire & Fury). I have since rebased my Civil War stands to mainly 3/4" wide for JR3, although I still use the roads for my 15mm AWI and other periods where I have 1" bases.

I actually made some 3/4" roads a couple of years ago, but I don't have enough of them to completely fill most scenarios and I took a lot of time off from gaming and terrain making to focus on my latest passion, writing books.

Der Alte Fritz,

The underlying base terrain is a GeoHex base mat that was included a few years ago when I bought and sold a large multi-box collection of that terrain system. I resold the hexes after a year or so (didn't like them as much as I thought I would) and kept the mat. I have since acquired a second mat so that I can do larger layouts.

moonhippie3,

I have been tempted several times to simply sprinkle brown or tan flocking directly onto the gaming table like so many other gamemasters do. It certainly looks better, and it can be as thin or wide as needed by the figure scale and gaming rules. However, I am usually so pressed for time and it takes me so long to set up these games that I opted for a time-saving and simpler approach. I cut plastic cardstock into 1" widths (or 3/4"), apply brown paint, sprinkle on tan Woodland Scenics flocking, and then set aside to dry.

When the "road" is dry, I go over it with a very, very dull Sharpie to create the illusion of ruts and wagon wheel marks that from a 2-foot distance looks OK.

They were also much easier for my kids to use when they set up games back when I was heavily into monthly wargaming in the 1990s when I lived near Cleveland, Ohio. They often played wargames with their high school and church youth group buddies. These ready-to-play roads were better for them, and for me as I transported the layout to various gaming venues.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions!!!

A vey impressive result.

Here is my little "How-To" on the same basic topic.
Turning old coffe grounds into terrain:
link

and on bigger fields:
link

How to game on a bugget!

DyeHard
The 15mm VSF Page:
15mmvsf.bagofmice.com/index.html

Thanks DyeHard for the links. I have bookmarked you for future reference.

You will note in my photos that I also use the Christmas tree wreath approach for making miniature cornfields. They look great from a distance, and are hard to distinguish from the commercial ones I purchased.

Love the VSF stuff Dyehard

Thanks for the tip on the coffee grounds… i am now ODing on caffeine :-P

But it is all for a good cause as i am looking forward to making some fields with the dried grounds.

I have always loved the "diorama/model train layout" approach to wargames terrain. Your tables are as good as any I have ever seen!

One problem I have encountered is to discipline gamers (including myself of course) to avoid the clutter of dice, tapes, rules sheets and books, and so forth, all over the terrain, and of course no sodas, beer, coffee. pizza, Chili (yikes) and stuff. You have to be a little adamant with some people, but in the end if you are going to go this far with your terrain appearance( I do) you have to protect and value it as much as the castings!! Good stuff as always!

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.