"Trees suitable for French Indian Wars" Topic

In the New Year, I hope to embark on the above as my latest project: I blame seeing The Last of the Mohicans yet again on TV the other night!

A question for my brothers in the former Thirteen Colonies: what type of trees should I be getting for my table?

I do not want to fall foul of the usual stereotype trap such as "Vietnam is full of palm trees". From the film, there appears to be a preponderance of fir/pine but then I think about all the deciduous trees which display so well in the Fall (autumn to we Brits).

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Alan

In the north east of the US its pines and broad leaf maples, sycamore, oaks, they can be mixed but trees spawn close to them so lots of the same isn't out of the ordinary.
I lived in se England in the USAF years ago and thought it wasn't much different than Pennsylvania in landscape.

From the east coast to the Midwest there are a lot of decisuous trees. Oaks, maples, etc.

White and river birch along rivers and lakes.

There are also pine, but huge swaths of pine usually follow the harvesting of the former as they grow faster (for example, in my own Wisconsin, the forests had high concentrations of oak, maple, ash, etc but after they were logged, pine were planted to replace them)

however, there are pine stands, especially on the periphery of old growth forests)

Hope it helps

I don't know how in depth you want to dive but if you google something like "trees in the Adirondacks" you will find sites like this:
link
and tons of pictures. You can't go wrong with anything that looks like pine trees as they are all over the place.

The war on the frontier north of Albany took part around lake George, fort Edward and what is now called the Adirondack state park.

I use a mix of coniferous (pine-needle evergreen) and deciduous trees, with an emphasis on deciduous.

Some paintings that might help: Robert Griffing's paintings of the period at Lord Nelson's gallery.

A view of Pittsburgh when it was just Fort Pitt:

The shores of many inland waterways in the Northeast and Midwest:

Some up close views showing why William Penn's colony was named "Penn's Forested Land" (Pennsylvania):

Look at pictures of the Appalachian Trail and the pictures of the trees there. The ecosystem in each area is the same at that time. The further north your games are, the more pines there will be in general.

You know, someone ought to point out that chestnuts were a major feature of American woodlands at the time. Just because they aren't there now…

…wooden ones… :-)

(but some great info here … thanks to all!)

One other point I thought of this was the time of old growth forrests so some trees could be very tall.

Don't know how available they are in Albion but woodland scenics has many nice trees kits. Some are rather pricey but the value kits are pretty reasonable and there are bags suitable for 15mm or 28mm

link

When I put together my FIW collection I used spruce and pine trees by Grand Canyon Gems. They come in three sizes and are reasonably priced. You can see what they look like in a FIW setting at link

I have ordered before from Samtrees in China. The shipping is about $40 USD to the US, but if you order a bunch (or piggyback with friends) then the trees are so cheap that it works out to being more than worth it. Highly recommended! link

These trees are really good for 28mm since many are 130-180mm.

You may consider using great big trees from those colonial Virgin forests.

I took this at Braddock's Grave in September this year after reforestation:

flic.kr/p/Ms6QnC

flic.kr/p/LEL4cN

I use trees made for 1/32-1/30 scale figures.
Mark

Please do not rely on contemporary images for recreating your forests. Much of what exists today would not have existed then – over four centuries of change my European civilization (and others, of course). Also, the movie was shot in North Carolina and most of the action occurred much further north.

From my readings, I'd say stick with mostly old growth deciduous trees – though don't fear a sprinkling of evergreens though in the higher reaches.

Read Eckhart (sp) series for descriptions of the terrain.

As a forester from the NE USA, I can tell you that you would find a great variety conifers and broadleaf trees growing separately and intermixed. So feel free to mix and match. If you are interested in the topic, I'd recommend "Changes in the Land" by William Cronon. It is an excellent read focusing on pre-contact cultures and ecosystems, and how they changed with colonization in New England.

Many thanks and a Happy Christmas to all.

Ditto most of what has been said: mix and match conifer and deciduous (personally I would use more deciduous than conifer), trees were generally very large, and Griffing's paintings are a great guide for just about everything. Pay special attention to the bottom two paintings shown above (Bushy Run and Braddock's defeat) and note that the underbrush is sparse, almost park-like. This is a product not just of naturally caused wildfires, but mainly from fires set by the Woodland Indians themselves to clear out the underbrush. There were a great many clearings and cleared areas, many man-made. At the time of European contact buffalo found usable prairie terrain as far east as the Potomac! Woodland Indians, like other pre-contact peoples throughout South and North America, made enormous changes to the terrain and ecosystems. In addition to Cronon, for more information on the Americas before Columbus check out "1491" by Charles C. Mann. Fascinating stuff!

If you intend playing within forested areas look for trees where the branches allow figures to be placed under them. Or use cutout shapes to represent the trees.

This link shows some 1/72 (20mm) terrain, all hand made.
TMP link