"Loose 6mm Terrain?" Topic

I've been thinking about using 'loose' terrain for my 6mm games and I wanted to know if anyone else has done this.

When I say 'loose' terrain I mean something like this:

Where you don't build terrain pieces as such, you just lay the foliage, roads, and fields right down onto the table, then remove them all once you've finished the game.

removing the clump foliage after a game would be easy but how would you suggest removing fields/flock roads?

One of the reasons I'm looking into using this methos is that I have little to no room left for terrain, and I'd like to be able to accurately re-create areas of the world to make my games more realistic.

Thanks in advance!

Do you mean as an alternative method to laying out bits or card and felt for forests etc?

We used to use your 'loose' method for our cross fire games, thinking about it we use it for all our games no matter the period

Where you don't build terrain pieces as such, you just lay the foliage, roads, and fields right down onto the table, then remove them all once you've finished the game.

Yeah, I've done that, though not so much these days. Many rules work better when areas of woodland etc. are clearly delineated on the table top. I use irregular shapes of felt for this. They take up very little storage space.

removing the clump foliage after a game would be easy but how would you suggest removing fields/flock roads?

If your table is covered with a cloth then just tip the stuff off.

One of the reasons I'm looking into using this methos is that I have little to no room left for terrain, and I'd like to be able to accurately re-create areas of the world to make my games more realistic.

That's a lot harder than it sounds. And also depends what you mean by "accurately".

Here's a way I make terrain for quick set up.

Take a piece of cloth like the scraps from the off cuts bin. Place a large piece of plastic, like a trash bag, down and put the cloth on it and paint it with house paint that's dark green or brown. There's no need to go to the edges. Once dry turn it over and paint the other side and then flock it. Once that is dry cut it into squares with cheap scissors. You can glue clumps to it for hedges. Vary the colors of flock and paint and when placed on the table can be easily draped on hills. Putting plain pieces with the right colors can simulate built up areas or what ever. Dark green cut into blobs rather than rectangles can be woods.

I pour roads, trails and foot paths for most of my games. When I am done I fold into the center police out the larger chunks and use the rest for ground clutter. Some I can recycle to use for trails again but most just goes into scatter for broken or rough terrain or to outline wooded areas. I have friends who use a small shop vac and pick up roads first then woods and then general cover and put it all back in the mix. When a bunch gets too mixed with other colours they add more of the base colour.

VR
James Mattes

You might consider using chalk pastels on a ground cloth, for roads and rivers and such. Then you can define boundaries with the chalk (which washes out of the cloth) and fill in with loose terrain materials as needed.

Doug

I've been using the method Doug mentions for years. It seems pretty versatile and certainly looks pretty close to what the scenery appears at least as far as a quick table set can be without making permament boards. I also run games at shops and that means that time is limited for setting up and taking down. This week I am doing a Normandy microarmor game at a shop and then the following weekend a couple of 15mm games at my house. I work full time and have a pretty solid relationship so my gaming time is somewhat limited also.

This set I made a while back showing how I set up games:
link
Plenty of examples here:
link

And you can pm me if you have specific questions.
Mark

Yep, all the time, since I no longer have room for foam terrain boards either.

I do roads out of felt or masking tape, very easy to conform to the terrain.

We always use lose terrain as if you want constant varying terrain its the only way. For hils we use flocked HexonII hex terrain. Card roads with a radiused end so that you can place and get a curve on the corner. Forrests/woods we mark with Angel Hair (google it). It cheap, fibrous, brown and drapes well and is very thin. This means you can overlap bits to get largers wooded areas.

For Rivers we use blue (but brown would be better) thin translucent plastic (File sleves) cut in shapes the right width, again with a radius at both ends so you can get a smooth joint. This allows you to accurately re-produce a map as required. We use 1/144 but the ground scale is close to somw 6mm games.

We always use lose terrain

I don't think I've ever lost any terrain …

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll think I'll go with the method of just pouring roads on, using clump foliage for forests and just folding the basecloth and pouring the flcok back into a box or something. Some great examples posted here and some pretty cool ideas! Cheers for the help.