"Road widths for 1/144 games." Topic

What road widths do you use for your games?

For us:-
50mm paved – typically no practical weight restrictions and definite 2 carriage ways.

35mm paved – Can be either unlimited or 44 ton restrictions. 2 Narrow carriage ways.

22 mm paved or not. Typically 44 or 15 ton restrictions.

15mm paved or not 5 to 10 tone limit, very narrow roads or some farm tracks.

I have 1" wide latex dirt roads (about 35-40mm including irregular verge) which I use for 15mm gaming. They look right under 1/144 vehicles, and only minimally distort the ground scale, so I have no reason to replace them.

I haven't picked anything out for metaled roads yet, but as I only plan to play in the WW2 Soviet Union or North Africa for the next couple years, I have time. Whater I get will almost certainly be the same width as the dirt roads, so they fit in/through/alongside/with other terrain bits – bridges, arches, wall openings, whatever.

I am still and always more of a grand tactical gamer than a skirmish gamer, so I may never want roads that are "wide enough" (for passing, traveling 2+ vehicles abreast, etc ). All of my 3D terrain bits are a compromise between looking right and fitting into the ground scale.

Tbh I usually just differentiate between paved and dirt roads for twentieth-century stuff, I might have an autobahn or major highway if doing 'modern' stuff aka 1980s Cold War.

I prefer my roads to be more in scale with the ground than the figures, so generally 12mm wide max, although I occasionally go up to 25mm. Yes, the bases overlap, but I prefer that to goofy great roads and bridges.

OOPS Double trouble on this thread. Just going to reply in this thread.

Interesting that we all like stuff nearer to the ground scale but by diffreing amounts. My bridges are not at all model scale they are too daft to 1/144 groundscales so I have Bridges that are very simplified and VERY short and too low an arch, but its all compromise.

I am pondereing putting a few Markers items for 3D printing.
Game specific markers Mode,and Gaze but also ones that amy have more generic uses, Suppression/Reaction markers, Hull down markers, Masking terrain markers, and perhaps Bridge markers.

Given you seem to be advocates of none real scale for some terrain features, what are your opinions on Barbed wire? As a kid with Plastic soldiers, I had a set with effectively a fence with hoops (in 2D) for pretend barbed wire. I made the equivlent in 3D printed; what do you use? Why, perhaps best is minimal storage rquirements and while real barbed wire can take up several meters of space you can't position figures on it, so its a bit limited with regard to fast play and marking blown gaps.

I have a canvas sheet I spray painted. To make roads or other features I use different colored pastel chalks. I can erase them when not needed.

Wolfhag

I made rolls of barbed wire out of florists wire wrapped around a pencil (so they are a bit crinkly) then mounted on thin bases so they don't roll around. 3" and 6" lengths, about 15' in total (enough to cover three successive lines of WW1 trenches on a 4' wide table with some extra for redoubts etc).

I just put markers on for gaps or remove whole sections if the barrage or massed armour has taken them out. As I generally do grand tactical games, I mark the wire up for its level of degradation (generally it has three levels of density).

This thread should be cross-posted to the 10mm WWII Message Board.

I used to use Fuse wire, rolled around thin pencil, paint brush or sprue for small scale. Yes, know most wire not in Coils, but staked… just representation.

I made rolls of barbed wire out of florists wire wrapped around a pencil (so they are a bit crinkly) then mounted on thin bases so they don't roll around.

Did you do anything to weather it?

I did the same thing about 20 years ago, and it looked great in 6mm scale. 1/144 figures are double size, but the barbs on the wire should still be nearly invisible at that scale, so plain wire should be okay.

There's also model railroading terrain:
link

I've seen some pretty nice wire arrangements in larger scales:
link
YouTube link
Has anyone else tried something this fancy in 1/144 scale (or 10mm)?

- Ix

YA, I made up a lot of 1/44th scale pieces for a Crossing The Wire – N. Africa scenario, and then also for using to mark minefields. (these were a combo of Army Painter wire, and photo-etched brass fence sections, the latter were RR accessories (rusted them up too).

Some 20mm sections also made – the foreground custom wire sections wound up using an electric drill, and the back bunker made with Army Painter wire coiled around a dowel (concertina-style).

The bunker piece above, and a platoon's worth of squad positions I made, were all retrofitted with these staked wire entanglements, to show they had 'obstacles' in front of them, so players could/should assume this when engaging the entrenchments while playing Bolt Action.

For larger scales, you can very carefully, 'nick' soft wire to give impression of barbs. Not woth bother in smaller scales!

Note. Some tank models have oversimplified Tracks… as did the 1970s GHQ vehicles. A few mins with a knife knicking in track links can make an enormormous improvement in representation… even if not accurate.

Interesting that we all like stuff nearer to the ground scale but by diffreing amounts.

In truth, my approach is a mess of varying scales:

• My roads and bridges are wide enough to fit one vehicle or base width (usually 1" or 40mm).
  
• My buildings tend to be slightly underscale (e.g. N scale buildings for 15mm).
  
• Most of my trees vary between 1.5x-2.5x figure heights, with some tall trees that stick out above that.
  
• Things that need look properly proportional to the figures (fences, walls, gates, etc.) are at figure scale, except "tall" walls and hedges might be only a tad taller than a figure.
  
• Medieval city walls have to be taller than buildings, but are obviously not going to be long enough unless I'm playing a skirmish game. Castles and fortresses tend to be scaled way down, so they look like a shrunken/chopped/channeled/sectioned version of the real thing while still occupying the right footprint.

All of these are my traditions for other scales (mostly 15mm, but also 6mm and 1/72). I haven't done any WWII gaming in 1/144 scale yet, so I haven't got any buildings and fortifications specific to that scale, and I expect to be repurposing my 15mm terrain for most of it. That makes a lot of the terrain items closer to or right at figure scale (e.g. trees and N scale buildings), but some is just outright unusable (e.g. 15mm scale fences) and I'll have to make duplicates in a new scale.

- Ix

You may need wider roads, if you are armoured recon up the road it's better up a 2 lane road, if you lose a vehicle the road is still passable, That is difficult to do on a road shown only marked as a single track, especially if hedged or fenced. How do you depict the difference and you have all the hassle of how to interpret what happens, slows the game so spoils the fun.

Hedges I now use articulated 3D printed. You need lots of hedges for many parts of Northern Europe in 1/144, not putting them in ruins the credibly of the game so ruins the fun. Articulated hedges can go round corners and bends so can be longer pieces and so can be laid much faster.

We find putting the houses on a foldable village base helps keep the buildings in the right place as even moving them a small amount changes fields of fire, again ruining the fun.

WARNING once you have got into 1/144 you will never
willingly go back. All the fun of 1/72 but none of the hassle. I play 1/72 with some friends as they are modelers but the game is more hassle for absolutely no improvement in game play.