"Normandy Terrain board WIP" Topic

Hi All,

This is one of those projects that's lingered for a few years, but I did some final work on this terrain setup this past snowy/indoor weekend here, and have my "Normandy Tactical" terrain board now completed. Overall, it's not very big – 3ft. X 4ft., but the foliage is attached, with trees and the buildings being removable – "just add miniatures". :)

The scale is for 12mm figs and 1/144th scale vehicles, and I plan on using this to fight infantry actions at the company+ level, supported by AT Guns and limited armor in typical quantities for Normandy bocage fighting.

Getting a game played on this is now in the pipeline – maybe weeks or short months away I hope. I'll be sure to post an AAR here when we do. Here's the future battlefield -

Very nice!

Beautifully done. I really like how the vegetation has ‘overgrown' and narrows the lane in the top photo. Very natural looking. Hope to see pics of your game on this.

Beautiful work!

Very nice indeed!

DB

Looks good. Thanks for posting.

Is your base a vinyl mat?

We'll, I better get a game up and running on this then :) – Guys, thanks for all your kind words!

KevanG, yes, the base is a vinyl mat, which I glued to a 1/2" thick foam core sheet. The mats I get printed up usually aren't too shiny, but for this one I sprayed it with a flat-clear finish also (if it wasn't already board-mounted, I would expect the flat finish would probably flake off with my rolling up the mat for storage). I did also gloss-clear paint the small stream that runs down the length of the mat, to "pop" it out from the surrounding ground textures.

All the foliage pieces were then glued onto the vinyl mat surface.

It's interesting, but some of the pics here might make it appear that the ground could be gently rolling (especially 'down' towards the stream in the 1st photo above), but the mat is flat. I think the rolling effect comes from highlighting the field textures in their centers (area) to create a small contrast from the grass close to the surrounding hedges or woods sections – makes a nice illusion with these closeup shots.

Looks good to me. Nice job.

Very nice indeed

10mm-wargaming.com

Take care

Andy

Thanks Bill, and Andy – and always enjoy your website Sir!

Really nice work, very impressive!

This is the best use of a vinyl mat I have seen.

Very well done.

I wondered how you plugged the trees in!

Thanks again!

Here's a less intriguing/treeless view (as she sits up against the wall) -

Most of my trees for micro-scale to "N", to 15mm scale gaming are trunk-less, that is, I cut them flush to their bottom branches, and use them like that, as if their flat bottoms were bases. If the trees are too small to stand alone, they can be glued together in pairs, or in threes, triangularly arranged, and super-glued together by pressing their branches into each other – so now you've got sets of tree groups that along with singles, can be placed to fill up the woods areas on a map.

Stunning but that is way too much work for lazy old me !

I thought I'd posted a comment but I can't see it. So that's a seriously good looking set up,I've got to admire your dedication I love the idea of larger scale set ups but my butterfly mind can't concentrate on something for that long. Very nicely done. It certainly looks impressive.

Oh behave! ;)

Maybe I'll use the board here for "Paratrooper"-inspired fighting.

(just got in on the Indiegogo funding campaign for Paratrooper the film – never done that, but gettin' a T-shirt anyway)

Actually, was able to tour Normandy and Holland with my dad back in 1973, who was a 82nd Airborne Division combat veteran of both operations.

Beautiful set up. Looking forward to the AAR