"Getting good at the felt/woodland scenics table" Topic

Some Pics: link

I can't see a thing. :/

oops!

link

Hmm. Still nothing. Getting "Sorry, that page was not found."

Oh my that is nice! 6mm?

Very nice indeed, any instructions on how its done anywhere?

I hope this link works :
link

I will post a description of how when I get time- it takes about 4 hours for this 12x5 table- a little more the first couple times you try- and less the next for me as I am learning some 'technique'

Looks great!

Wow! Best table I've seen. Well done.

Ahn! Very pretty! How about a tutorial?

Very impressive.

Is that for 6mm, maybe 10mm?

I can see something like this for WWI Aircraft games as well. Look forward to you posting how you did this.

I believe it's for 6mm Napoleonics as Robert has photos of them in his other albums.

So – do you think some of that terrain could be pre-glued together for taking on the road? I'd like to cut the set-up time from 4 hours to 30-45 minutes for running games at conventions (you usually have an hour to set it up and I'd still need to get the minis on the table too…)

Here's another request for a " How to"!

+1 on the how to!

I love how the village buildings are clustered closely together. Very realistic. Too many people have their towns spread out too far

That terrain looks great!

Excellent! Add me to the tutorial list :)

Tutorial it is- I will write it up in the next 2 days.

Regarding shortend setup time: This system was set up as a way to reproduce terrain from any map during a campaign- though it doesnt really look it, it is all reusable, and almost 'modular'. If you wanted to do a one-off battle with a quick setup time, you could spray adhesive tack everything to a peice of thin green dyed muslin ahead of time, cover it with a thin plastic drop cloth, and roll it up- unroll, smooth, remove plastic and then drape it over the modular hexagonal terrain underneath. You might have a problem reusing the woodland scenics foliage due to the tack- but that, and the felt (excepting the Hotz flocked fields) is cheap.

Wow looks great, look forward to the tutorial.

That's the best-looking table I've seen. Wonderful work.

Fantastic Robert. Just wish we were on the same continent so I could pop rund for a game!

New Link is Here:
link

Sorry I didn't get to the tutorial today. However, the first step is buying enough Hotz Mats for about 60 sq feet of coverage for the plowed field sections….same with felt from a craft store- flock it with woodland scenics or other brand grass for solid field sections. Water is done with narrow cut grey-green felt. Roads are wargamers flexible terrain custom cut, and edges flocked. Building from any good manufacturer of 6mm or 1/300, painted with a drybrush/wash style. Groundcover is woodland scenics foliage, flattened, spray with flat laquer, cut into .5 and .25 strips. larger foliage a mix of grades of WS foliage clusters. Cultivated trees are K&B

Found some pics I didn't know were on my phone- some show the per-foliage stage, wich gives an idea of how it comes together with the woodland scenics stuff
link

Super nice. The furrow effect is pretty awesome. Better than the setup I'd done too. Those hotz matz look pretty good. The website doesn't seem to have them in stock though….

That's very impressive!

I have taken this table down, because a new one needs to be generated. I will do a pictoscribe of the step by step process of setting up the new one. I will post it here, if Bill has some room over in the "here's how you do it section".
old link: link

My intent is to show how to translate a map into a tabletop in under 2 hours. I do think quality deserves a couple hours.

wow… some of the pictures just look as if there ware actual aerial photographs..

really nice work !!!!

Francisco

Inspiring work!

Yeah

That's actually awesome, makes my battlemat with carpet on it look like a battle mat with carpet on it

Ferg

Scary good

Thanks Guys- It's not hard to do-but it does require an investment in terrain- money for the stuff, and time… In order to make any configuration that might be needed in a campaign…well it's been two thousand dollars for terrain-…in 1985 dollars.

When Eric Hotz came out with his field mats, the last piece fell into place…for a few hundred more. Eventually, after 30 years of visualizing what I wanted, I had the ability to create it quickly.

I also have a lot of leftover terain, as I need far less of the geo-hex systems than I did before the field mats. I also bought K & M trees when they were affordable. I have like 300 of them- just shudder to think what that costs now. But the cheaper foliage clusters from woodland scenics are better for the majoprity of woods. I only us a few K&M now to represent cultivated trees and orchards.

Now, I think, after aquiring the buildings, stone fence pieces, bridges, geohex, terrain Guy mats, Hotz Mats, a few K&M's,craft felt, flocking,and the woodland scenics stuff one could efficently buy what you need to do this essentially modular system that looks like unique art for a thousand dollars in todays money. That and a hundred hours work on the buildings if you use the same black prime dry brush method I did… That is substantially less time and money than I have spent to arrive at this system- so, good news for anyone interested in trying it out!

Again, when you have the stuff its super easy to do- I've discovered some tricks with the woodland scenics stuff that totally brings it to life, and its simple and quick.

So, I want to get around to a How-To one of these days….

That is such a good example of what can be done with a tabletop. The geography and the land form looks realistic rather than just being something randomly generated. I really must try to do better with my own set ups.

TY,
It really stems from the need to make the landforms drive deployment, as of course it would have. I think it is not well done by most wargamers- not at all out of a lack of understanding, but of necessarily having to ignore how terrain drives battles right down to the battalon/battery/squadron level, due to the sheer investment of time and money it takes to accumulate the terrain. A fold of ground can (and does) make a huge difference often enough. It is a real investment to represent that. One other guy who does a good job of this is Nigel Marsh, with his 'teddy-bear fur' terrain. My set-up is really for Adler 6mm only. For those of you who play larger than 6mm, Nigel's method is the way to go- though it is not modular, and therefore not suited for the variables of campaign battles. In larger scales, that gets to be even more of an investment- or not- I was plopping hills on a billard ball table top decades ago and enjoying it !