"Looking for river/stream options" Topic

I've been progressively upgrading my terrain over the last several months and now that I've got my new forests taken care of, I want to relate my blue felt water features.

Here are my criteria:

Modular so I can represent both straight and meandering water courses
Lays Flat
Banks not too pronounced so it will 'blend in' with my ground cloth
Not hideously expensive. I"m going to eventually need 10-12 ft of it.
Doesn't need to be pre-painted. I'm going to make it match my cloth in any event

So, what my best choices?

I am a huge fan of the river sets from Battlefield Terrain Concepts. Ready painted. I probably have 20' in various widths. He makes straights, curves, Y, T intersections etc. Big variety including "ends" as well as transitions from one width to another. Lays flat, not too thick, comes finished with a small green "berm" style bank.

I see the resin stuff and hate how thick it is. Rivers are below the ground, not above it. BTC rivers are just 1mm or so thick.

Not sure what "expensive" is to you, but I would say spend the money – you'll use them every game forever…

I recommend you take a look at Wargamer's Terrain. The river sections are made up on a fabric backer so they are only about 1/16 inch thick and flexible. They have low thin banks decorated with grass, rocks, stumps, etc and I find they blend in very well with the table top. Price is not too bad.

I'll second Wargamer's Terrain, very nice and they do flat.

I agree with Rufus.

What's more Joe at Wargamers Terrain will do his best to get the color of water you want. To be honest, I think the color now on his website (ar at least when I was last there) is way too blue. Mine are a bluish, greenish, brownish color.

Tom

wizardkraft.net/Terrain

I like this stuff a lot. You need to make sure he has things in stock and ready to ship to you. So, send him an email first. Comes in various sizes but I think it does not come unpainted. He might have changed that though. I have not had dealings with the company in a number of years though. There are some topics on TMP about the product and the fact that at times it has taken a long time for people to get their product if they just place an order without checking on stock.

Jeff

I also recommend Wargamer's Terrain out of Massachusetts. The terrain is fantastic, and flexible. Joe is also a great guy and a pleasure to do business with.

Have you considered making your own, using paint-able bathroom/kitchen caulking? The base can be MDF, or any hard surface; you could also make it flexible by using inexpensive fabric of your choice, as a base to adhere the caulking to. There are articles on "how to", here on TMP, as well as the Internet. Cheers!

Some more links for your convenience:
Wargamer's Terrain products
Battlefield Terrain Concepts

I didn't know about Wargamer's Terrain. Those water features are among the nicest I've ever seen. They're so realistic I want to pull my kayak into them and go paddling. I like that you can also order custom sizes and arrangements. The prices are very high, but honestly look worth it. As Extra Crispy noted, this is the kind of thing that will get used a lot, over and over and over.

- Ix

As far as homemade stuff goes, also consider using acetate. Acetate is cheap, easy to find at office supply stores, flexible, and reflective like water. You can make dozens of feet for pennies, and store it and carry it in a folder or portfolio because it's so thin and flat. I typed up a long description in this old thread. Sadly, I still have no pictures to show.

You can see plenty of examples in the Fire and Fury books, which is where I got the idea. Here are some pictures of actual Rich Hasenauer games with his own acetate rivers:

Mine are also very plain like this, though I prefer to decorate the banks a little bit more to blend the rivers into the terrain better, but that adds setup time. With some crafting time, acetate could be made to look way fancier.

- Ix

Another vote for Joe Linares and Wargamer's Terrain here. We must have swapped about 20 emails when I ordered as Joe made sure he was doing what I wanted him to. He's a real gent and provides great service and a top-notch product. It's worth the price.

I like armorcast, but the banks do stick up a little.

I like the old Scenic Effects rivers/roads, now owned/produced by Monday Knight Productions.

link

In my opinion, the streams from Battlefield Terrain Concepts are the best looking and most versatile.

I should probably also mention Fat Frank's terrain sold through eBay. If you contact him, he will do custom work to your specifications and his prices are pretty awesome.

I find his rivers too blue so I don't have any, but in the photos they appear to be constructed similarly to his roads, and those are roughly 1-2mm thick. I can get a more exact measurement if requested.

- Ix

Going by my own collection I too would highly recommend the Rivers by Battlefield Terrain Concepts! If all you need is about 12 feet a single River Set along with what few Transition Pieces you might desire would be just the ticket for your needs!

If Rick of the former Scenic Express is still in trade, hard to beat his products. I bought stuff from him in San Jose area in September 2014 at Pacificon.

Rick Schuldt ran a business named Scenic Effects, which went under and sold its product lines to Monday Knight Productions, as already mentioned above. The latex products were pretty nice looking when Rick made them; he has an artist's touch, and you can still see his lovely results in all the games he sets up for conventions. A lot of gamers around here (including me) still use Scenic Effects items all the time.

Monday Knight casts the ex-Scenic Effects latex items from the same molds, but in plain colors (dark brown, medium brown, tan, and blue), and they all require quite a bit of painting and dressing up to look realistic. In my opinion there are better options for the price and/or amount of work.

Monday Knight also sells a lot of the other old Scenic Effects items (buildings, etc.), but I don't have any and don't know about them. They look pretty nice in pictures.

Scenic Express is a different business that sells terrain modeling stuff, esp. model railroading items, but none of it aimed specifically at gaming, and only by accident is any of it ready to put on a gaming table right out of the box. Having said that, they have a HUGE variety and some really cool stuff, and I think anyone making terrain should shop Scenic Exress for ideas and materials.

- Ix

A minor clarification about Fat Frank's roads: I measured some of mine last night and they are less than 1mm thick through the roadbed, but about 1-2mm high (and in some spots higher) through the berms along the edges where the grass is glued down. The extra height is of course the static grass sticking up along the edges.

I fully expect his rivers to be almost exactly the same construction with different colors.

- Ix

Have you considered vinyl tiles

very simple to make and look great

That is totally cheating to put a backdrop in there….

Those tiles actually look pretty nice. I like the way they reflect light.

- Ix

I like 'Last valley' stuff

I have long struggled with river, and roads for that matter, and this video provides a view of my latest attempt at creating flexible river and road terrain. youtu.be/rNnQOYaynwo
Embedded rivers and roads still look better, but lack flexibility.