"Painting an Afghan/NWF rocky hill" Topic

Posted some info on painting another woodchip hill on my blog. If interested, please check it out here:

link

Looks really good. thanks for the link.

Yes, very nice indeed. Great mix of textures, very realistic.

Very nice.
The thing I noticed when I was in NW frontier Provence in '03 was the amount of scrub. You can happily put a couple of shrubs and a Pine tree in.

That looks good, a big improvement on the standard textured layer hills. I might rip you off shamelessly.

The thing I noticed when I was in NW frontier Provence in '03 was the amount of scrub. You can happily put a couple of shrubs and a Pine tree in.

While I haven't been there myself I have read that the valleys can be quite fertile – the tribal ownership of them one of the reasons for violent fractiousness in the area.

Consider your wonderful idea stolen. Way up there on the 'Why didn't I think of that?' scale. Thank you.
Oh, and I will, of course, give you credit.

@Buff, Goose, and Alex,

Thanks very much for the positive feedback!

@deflatermouse,

First off, very happy you are back from the frontier, safe and sound! Second, you are of course totally correct about the terrain on the frontier including lots of scrub, as well as pine woods in some areas.

My problem is I am an obsessive-compulsive control freak when it comes to terrain, and I want to be able to adjust from one particular spot to another.

Since my same hills could be needed as the heights outside Kandahar (which are very bare) for the battle of Baba Wali, as well as the heights outside Kabul (which have scrub, and a few pines) for the battle of Charasiab, or the mountains at the Battle of Peiwar Kotal, which were heavily covered in pine trees… I build them all bare and worry about adding scrub and/or trees, one battle/game at a time.

The downside of this is that, at least in my experience, a permanantly made piece of custom terrain always looks better than a more versatile, multi-use piece. Because of this I have almost succumbed to affixing pine trees onto these rocky woodchip hills of mine, since I know they would look so good… but I also know I'd be kind of scr#wed the next time I wanted to play a game with bare rocky hills instead of wooded ones.

These are the dilemmas that haunt me in the darkness!

Just to show I'm all in favor of pine trees on the frontier:

…as well as scrub:

…and even fruit trees:

@Rrobbyrobot -- please feel free to steal away! I love it when another gamer gets an idea to build something based on something I did. It makes doing the blog worthwhile. If at all possible, please do us all a favor and post some pics when you are done!

Looks really good, MadGuru !!

OCD is a very handy trait. Much mal-aligned.
One thing I was taken by was the amount of apples availabe everywhere, yet damn if I ever saw an apple tree.

I too try to use my hills in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan & Afghanistan.

Are your pines temp. emplaced by hidden holes?

Yup! The "holes" are a happy byproduct of construction, small gaps between the assembled woodchips. They work okay holding un-based pine trees, though again, if I threw caution to the wind and glued a bunch of them on permanently, it would look more impressive, as there would be more of them, and at varied heights. One of the unexpected side-benefits of the construction is the trees don't take up much if any usable space for figures, since the figures can't stand directly atop the rocky woodchips anyway. I'm thinking about experimenting with some temporary wax putty to see if it can hold the pine trees in place securely enough for use during a game, and if it can be removed afterwards without doing any damage or leaving unsightly residue behind on the hills.

Deflatermouse, do you play all moderns on that terrain of yours, or 19th Century too?

Chick -- thanks for the compliment!