"Gaming mat for Peninsula games" Topic

Can anyone recommend a terrain mat that would suits battle in the Peninsula? I am looking for something not as dry and arid as the standard "desert" mats, but not as luscious as the typical European ones either.

Make one. Painting fabric is easy (the home decorating store will usually provide a nice beige for a base-look in the remnant section) twenty minutes with a can of brown/green/olive spray paint in sections as you desire and you have what you need for often less than 20 bucks.

Why should it be so much more desert type than elsewhere? Be sure that if you hve quite a number of villges, the locls are not Apaches.
Think griculture, fruit trees, terassed cultivations.
It can also be barren, look at the historical maps, but don't fall for the 60s westerns.
The base map either same as elsewhere, less woods etc. or more browninsh but with more mobile stuff to put on it.

I've heard good things about War Sigil: link

Spain is pretty arid. I've been to Salamanca in summer and the place looked exactly like a desert. Apart from the odd tree, the whole was a dusty yellow.

Cigar Box Mats has a number of good options.

Scrubland for green, but not lush.

Dry Lands and Aridland, as advertised.

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Olicana is right. Salamanca in the summer is dry yellow grass as far as the eye can see. Vitoria is rather greener – it's closer to the river – as is Albuera, a bit. We know the field of Talavera caught fire in place so that must have been pretty dry too.

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The Fuentes picture shows the contrast between summer and wetter times of the year.

I understand "Rat Patrol" was filmed in southern Spain because the available sections of North Africa didn't look enough like an American's image of the Western Desert. ("Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion" filmed a season or so in Italy instead of Algeria, come to that.)

But jcFrog is right. At some point, you have to ask yourself what the villages subsist on and what the horses are eating.

To second 22ndFoot. It does depend on the time of year. Even Seville looks a lot like a warm mid summer England in March. By May / June, except where there is good irrigation, all of the ground cover (e.g. grass) looks pretty bleached out and arid, with only bushes and trees giving colour. Consequently, hills have quite a bit of colour because of the 'evergreen' shrubbery (vines, olive groves, etc.) which one finds on the slopes.

Horses would eat grain and hay, the latter is most often yellow grass (see haystacks). The people ate what they could get – early 19th C. rural Spain was dirt poor – and the lack of 'agricultural bounty' even prevented the French (who were arch-foragers) from supplying themselves off the land for much of the time.

I have a 6'x4' "Ocean 1" sea mat from Frontline Gaming. It is a good quality mat and comes with a carrying case.

Here are their "Tundra" mats that might suit for the Peninsula.
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Maybe that helped.

God bless,
John T.

totally agree with Aethalflaeda.. I made one for , well, a bit more than 20, but the satisfaction was great. Check out some google pics of Spanish countryside, and off you go..

I think Tiny Wargames "Dusty Grass" is a pretty good option.
If I could post a link or a picture I would, but have a look at their website. Very good quality and good service.

tinywargames.co.uk

Cigar Box "mixed ground" is a very versatile mat. We just used it at Cold Wars for a peninsular game.