"trying to decide on 6mm Terrain approach..." Topic

Consider Cigar Box mats. They are a very high quality product. I have seen them in person, and played on them and like them a great deal.

As to woods, rocky outcroppings, farms,etc, in 6mm scale, consider basing them on old CD's or DVD's. You can get quite a few from the Dollar Store, or WalMart, etc, for a small amount of money. You can easily paint and terrain them and they won't warp on you. I've become quite fond of them.

Plowed fields, etc, are easily made from corduroy fabric. Either find a color you like, or use any colr and spray paint it, add some flocking, etc. At that scale,sprayed and flocked pipe cleaners are great for making hedges and/or small streams, too.

Good luck.

Try a nice heavy cloth, and then place books etc under it with a layer of carpet underlay to soften the hard edges.

Queen Catherine take a look at this photo collection of one of our very own TMPers War Artisan. This is the approach I am going to use for my 6mm battles.
link
Also the fine folks who do Altar of Freedom have some very good suggestions and tutorials on making decent 6mm terrain.
link

Hello Queen Catherine
I like well-defined scenarios. I am fortunate to have the place and I have created a great game table (400x200 cm). I create bases on which to create the villages, the farms and forests.
always load my creations on my site. You use this translator you are on the right and browse, you can find everything.
Below you find two examples.
Hello
MarcoEnrico

Rivers and roads
link

Aspern and Essling
link

Queen Catherine
My advice is to go with whatever gives you the most flexibility. Cigar Box mats are lovely, but many of them seem to me to too limiting. A plain cloth is much more flexible.

By the way, if you are doing ACW, get a lot of trees.

It is up to you, but I suggest that you think further on the size of your sabot bases. The beauty of 6mm is that you can represent tactics and grand tactics by giving units room to move. If you make your 6mm units cover as much ground as 25mm units, you are back with the same crowded battlefield. For example, we do Grand Armee at 4/5s scale, so a brigade is on a 60mm x 60mm base. That allows us to do even the biggest battles.

Good luck.

Also check out this site. Guy from Auckland Wargaming Club who does excellent 6mm gaming in multiple periods.

6mm.wargaming.info

Cheers,
Ben

Queen Catherine here is the thread where they talk about the mat used in my earlier post.
TMP link
The specific link where they show how they made that particular mat.
link

Bit of an essay about how to deal with hilly terrain here:
link

Chris

Hello Queen Catherine!

Ah you strike at the heart of 6mm gaming. Big army battles for Europe and the ACW. At first glance it does not seem difficult, but the road ahead is full of pitfalls. So let me throw this out for you to consider.

You actually have to start with the figures and basing. Baccus6mm has nailed this right out of the gate. They use a base that is 60mm x 30mm for all infantry (24 figs), cavalry (9 figs), limbers, caissons, wagons, etc. and a sister base 30mm x 30mm for guns and their artillery crews, and commanders. Just two bases for your entire collection. What could be simpler. They even sell their figures to match so you don't have any extra figures left over or need to order more figures to flush out a unit.

The 60x30 base is slightly bigger than your 40x20 but it makes both the infantry and cavalry look more like a unit just due to its size. You can also fit all of your equipment on it. It's a little easier to handle and the extra size gives you a little more room to enhance the mini diorama effect. This is critical to help make your figures stand out more. 6mm needs all the help it can get from contrast and a slightly larger base does this.

If you use the 60x30 base you will also probably never need or even want to use sabots. Sabots in themselves are a little awkward to handle. They raise the figures up slightly and look odd in valleys, on ridges and around buildings, etc. The 60x30 base can be used as anything you want. We use them as battalions, regiments, brigades and even as part battalions for some very small actions. Good-bye sabots.

As you have seen the cloth, terrain mat or teddy bear fur look great, are easy to buy or create. Use lay down roads, rivers, streams and fields as they are very easy to make or buy. Simply use books, tightly wrapped towels, plastic containers, etc. under your mat to create hills. The tree method from AoF is about as easy and effective as it can get. Mount your buildings on the same 60x30 bases or its other sister base 60x60 so that your figures maintain their height relationship and you can use the same footprint for a unit to occupy the space. This system gives you an easy and good looking table that can be changed in minutes.

All of this will work with almost all rule sets as is, or with some minor rule adjustments.

As you move forward I'm sure you will have other questions and if you think I can help you please contact me at glennrpearce@hotmail.com

Hope you can use some of this.

Best regards,

Glenn

I think your idea of getting a mat with terrain printed on it is good from the point of view that you will have enough work to do to get your two armies painted up and it will help you to actually get a game going before your motivation drops.

For the longer term, I think just adding more 3D aspects to your mat would be a good thing.

Also, if your table is big, your idea of big groups of bases is fine. If you are on a small table then to give the game room to breathe (which is what 6mm does), then smaller groupings or just individual bases as entire commands might work better.

One thought on smaller figures. I mostly do 10mm now and I've noticed that much more emphasis on terrain improves the overall feel of the game.

The effects as shown in Bashytubits post from War Artisan actually not overly difficult to achieve with a little bit of effort and are with the effort.

Thanks to Bashytubts for remembering my earlier efforts on making a terrain cloth.

Hi QC:

Although I sold it along with my 6mm moderns, I still really like my 6mm terrain setup. It was made of felt, poppoms, towels hotglued to styrofoam terraces, and clear plastic water texture painted green:

One or more of these ideas may work for you in conjunction with the others. I really like the look and durability of nicely printed mats, but have yet to see them paired with good terrain accents in real life. Could be really good.

Love the wood effects.