"hills under ground cloth" Topic

I know basic easy terrain is often described as putting books or something else under a heavy cloth. How well does that work in practice? I'm wondering about slopes, firmness, how well figures stay up, etc?

Is it that this works if you have a heavy enough cloth?

Do you need whatever is underneath to be sloped?

Does soft (cushion foam) vs hard (books) make a difference?

I usually use Geo-Hex. Love the stuff, but it always seemed that this basic approach has merit, and I haven't tried it.

thanks
andy

I use 1" sheet styrofoam slope with a "hot wire" cutter.

Since I game with 6mm and 15mm mounds created are high enough and I don't have trouble with figures standing up on the slope.

For the love of God, just make some awesome, painted and flocked hills from foam!

Seriously. Life is too short to be using some jive turkey thesaurus under felt set up!

(I admit, it works fine. But it's like riding a Japanese motorcycle. Feels great until somebody sees you doing it!)

This is why I do it:

link

The trees look so much better without bases, can be put anywhere you like, including on slopes, and the concept works for sunken roads, rivers, raised roads (with ditches along them), and all kinds of scenic items that would normally require custom made boards. Plus it is all movable, easily stored, and adaptable. I'll never go back to terrain boards or hills that I have to flock or even trees with bases ever again.

This is why:

I had a winter battle years ago so I used a large mostly white painting tarp over books and things. The one thing I thought after the fact is double stick tape to hold down spots that need it so as not to pop up. I like trees without bases as well.

Using Styrofoam under cloth is also more modular for different seasons (i.e. Winter/Summer). I like Keith's technique.

Ok I went through this whole terrain cloth versus terrain boards over and over again.

See it all here:
link

Basically what I did was put down sections of shapes of foam or board or books. Then over those I put thick fabric. Then over all the board I placed a spray painted suede cloth.

You can also put down teddy bear stuffing around the edges of the books and foam to fill out the hollows once the cloth is down.

Then place down your scenic items like in the photo you posted and pin in your trees and such.

When using 6mm figures (i do as well) use larger basing so they dont fall over when marching up or down the hills. Particularly when you accidently knock one of the hollows around the hills.

I have 6mm and 15mm. I use carpet foam the 1/2 and 3/8 in foam. Place a stiff cloth over the foam and then a felt terrain sheet over that.

Terry

What Smokey said.
And how often do you see me agreeing with him?

I used to use my collection of flocked hills… now they all go under the ground cloth. Hills on top seldom look like natural terrain slopes and make it more difficult to match elevations to scenario maps and such. Now I put them underneath, which lets me mix and match shapes, fill in the spaces, etc to create any hill shape (or elevation, such as a table that slopes from one edge to the other). I smooth everything out by layering on 2 or 3 ground cloths (I have 2-3 colors of green, blue for ocean, black for space, tan for desert, etc) then put the color appropriate for the days game on top.

I use the same method as BCantwell. Tried both methods and, frankly, the 'foam-hills-on-top-of-the-board' thing looked like crap. Now I use them under a light canvas cloth dyed a neutral brown/tan and add any roads, streams, fields, etc. with chalk pastels. Trees (with a long pin in the trunk) are added by pushing the pin through the canvas into the foam. Once done with the game, I throw the cloth in the washer to remove the markings and I'm ready for the next game. Got the idea from a gamer on the net who does some beautiful rolling terrain.

One way to get improved 'firmness' of the slopes is to have a heavy underlay beneath the final ground cloth. One way of doing this is described here:

link

Carpet underlay or those felt blankets that movers wrap around furniture, then your base cloth over that.

I've recently seen the light and moved to the "hills-under-cloth" camp, myself. I have a bunch of foam hex blanks (8") that I had cut by a commercial foam shop (which is the only way to go for foam hexes, by the way, so long as you need a LOT of them), and can cut those into geomorphic pieces to make whatever hill shapes I want. Putting them under the cloth means I need not make (or store, or transport) a desert set, and a winter set, and a spring set, and a Barsoom set, etc. I can paint a cloth with whatever colors I like and drop it over the top.

I am going one further, even, and not doing roads and rivers and such either. Instead, I am using chalk pastels to draw in such features (and to do outlines for underneath others – e.g. the outline of a building or a BUA or whatnot – so that they can be moved as needed and put back where they were). It looks quite good, and I'm willing to sacrifice the even better look of sculpted features for the versatility and the ease of not having to make 47 different road junction hexes (in each of however many shades). Best of all, you can simply chuck the sheet in the washer and PRESTO! the roads are gone.

Doug

My carefully sculpted and flocked hills are intended for desert/mud use, so when I want to do grassy battles they go underneath by green cloth.

I gave up using books sometime around 1975 and made foam hills to go under the cloth instead.

I still have the same cloth.

I don't need to make foam / flocked hills. I have a large Geo-hex system. But I hear people talking about such a simple thing, and I could imagine it looking very realistic. I was looking from an airplane window recently and thinking how the hills looked like a rumpled heavy cloth.

I've just always wondered about whether there were hollow spots that were unstable. I'll read over the above, and maybe give it a try sometime. My ground cloth is pretty heavy already.

thanks
andy

Andy: it's all about how you do your contours. If you cut them at a pretty shallow angle and sand them smooth, you really won't run into many problems with hollow spots or the cloth not laying right.

I've been able to make a cloth lay nicely over hills, raised roadbeds, and even raised fields that make nice gulleys and ditches when the cloth is laid down with no problems.

I guess that the heavy felt/carpet overlay is primarily designed just for that purpose, so that gaps are nonetheless strong enough to support the miniatures or buildings on top.

Tim: I only use an underlay for my snow tables. This is so the pink and blue foam don't show through the white felt and to give a more subtle undulation you would find in a snowy landscape.

Though most of my tables are 4'x 6' and 6'x 8' and my hills aren't huge.

I imagine it would be more difficult to cover larger, steeper, and taller hills smoothly.

Oh forgot, I use plush felt in a tan or caramel brown, over sprayed with a green floral spray. The floral spray blends well because it is slightly translucent and fades.

The felt has a taller plush than regular felt, but isn't as tall as teddy bear fur. Plus it's cheaper.