"The ultimate gaming piece Tree" Topic

I have been searching for the last 30 years for the ultimate gaming piece tree and have yet to find it.
Now modelers probably have no problems in defining the ultimate gaming piece tree as it's is a model tree regardless of the cost in storage apace, but even then there may be compromises made.
When you are primarily a gamer other requirements like storage space become equally if not more important than appearance. Even then there are some interesting decisions to be made.
Let's start with a baseline I can cope with, m the sycamore tree very common in my neck of the woods and are around in large numbers and relatively mature.

A mature sycamore tree can grow to be 75–100 feet tall and wide, and can reach heights of up to 175 feet in ideal conditions. I have deliberately excluded extremes as not overly representative. The spread of a sycamore tree can be similar to or greater than its height.
So to put it in useful parametric terms, roughly 12.5 man heights to 16.6 man heights with a similar spread, for a not uncommon tree.
Now to me that size of model is far too large to be practical on a wargames table. It takes up too much space and is too tall to maneouvre models between. My current maximum tree size is 70mm (at 1/144 scale) so about 6 man heights and to be honest that is really too big and the bulk of the trees are about 5 man heights, this is what I consider is close to optimum. My generic trees have a spread of about 3 man heights again for practical maneouvring and stability reasons, a long way off scale! This is the same issue as with buildings, visually they look overlarge beyond a certain size. A Leopard 2 tank looks OK on the table a Mann Truck, much larger, looks well out of kilter with the terrain.
So interestingly my ideal wargame tree is not very close "Real@ from the start.
How does you optimum wargame tree vary from the real thing in these very basic terms?
Now in terms of construction there are, as far as I can see 3 categories:-
1) Full 3D a "tree like" shape, these vary from Bottle Brush, types to ones with sophisticated tailor made armatures, and foliage varying in equal standards. While this style could be said to have the most representative presentation it has to me an unreasonable demand on storage space.
2) 2 D trees just flats painted/coloured appropriately and positioned at various angles to generate an appearance of trees. This is my last but 1 iteration. It is great for storage space but to optimize storage volume that they need to be 2 part items, tree and base stored separately. This slows placement, can be an issue for 3D printing regarding matching piece sizes.
It does have the advantage over item 1 as it's easy to replace the standard base with a sloping base on an ad hoc basis. Not seen this done with standard 3D trees.

3) Finally my last iteration, these were bought PDF's from :-
link
These are cruciform trees I saw at Hammerhead Newark UK in Autumn last year.
Many, many years ago we did do cruciform trees that were very crude and did we did a wargtame show, the highlight for me was when one visitor played hell will us. He had passes our Forrest board 3 times, there were a LOT of trees, before realizing that they were not real trees. He was most offended, while I had to try to not smile as to me that was the point. Anyway that was a long time ago, in lesser numbers with my lack of artistry they were less impressive so were finally abandoned.
The link trees are pre-printed saving much time and effort and scale quite reasonably to 1/144 in most cases. The jury is still out on these, simply they have great advantages but the 2 D trees also have advantages like interchangeable bases.

Finally I should declare my bias. My Co-author Paul is firmly in the Bottle Brush tree brigade, but too me they take up far too much storage space for me to consider them a viable option.
What are your opinions on size and construction of trees?

Depends.

Earlier periods – concealment, barrier to movement, protection – these are the concerns.

- Piece of cardboard with rattle-canned cotton-wool on top, held up with cocktail sticks so can put troops underneath. Occasional hole to look through canopy.

After a thorough round-shotting you'll be left with stumps and wreckage so – no more concealment, complete barrier to movement.

- Piece of cardboard with many cocktail sticks poking up.

ICE Warfare period – Concealment and weapons usage are the concerns.

- Piece of cardboard with rattle-canned cotton-wool on top, held up with cocktail sticks so can put toys underneath. Occasional hole to look through canopy.

Hedgerows – nice tree models here.

- Most realistic tree models allow the attacker at least +1 on spotting and artillery accuracy. In fact the more realistic the tree then the more it ought attract attention and enemy fires.

- if the singular tree is on a hill and someone is silly enough to park underneath it then the enemy should get +2.

With so many different tree species, and so many different environments… Oak will grow very differently when isolated than when in the middle of a forest. I'm not often looking for 1:1 scale so I'll take what I can get, and normally we'll under sise for my chosen "scale".

If you go with printed trees, be sure to blacken the edges with a marker, or the edges will be very obvious. I also recommend printing on 110# cardstock as a minimum, or chipboard as the best opton, still blackening the edges. Cheers!

We clearly have different designations for card. I use 300 grm/sq meter. not sure wat 110# cards stock even represents, the folly's of a common language . Chipboard is not an option it would not fold flat. Me I cover the edges in grey as its a neutral colour and so shows up least, but I agree the edges need to be covered as they do with my 2D printed trees.

Looks like we all go for significantly undersize trees for practicality.

That is the sort of thing I would use for a photo backdrop but not on the table unless I was traveling for the game.

I print out such items and glue them using stick glue, usually the re-positional kind on either old breakfast cereal boxes or foam core board from the dollar store.

Bunkermeister

Looks like those cruciform trees are a very good solution for you UshCha--certainly the most tabletop tree for the storage space. In fact I believe they were mentioned the last time when you were pushing your 2D trees.

My own storage is not so tight. A closet 8' long holds all the 28mm stuff, and a plastic tub 2'x18"x12" seems to hold more trees than a 6x8 table requires. And at 2mm and 6mm, everything goes in a closet half that size.

robert piepenbrink Sorry about the repartition, just put it down to me recovering. 6mm has its advantages, 1 tub for trees, wow that is great.

Must admit I was expecting far more rplys from very tree model oriented folk. Most of you are far more on the prectical approach potentially at the cost of artistry.

Must admit I was expecting far more rplys from very tree model oriented folk. Most of you are far more on the prectical approach potentially at the cost of artistry.

I will always land on the more practical side. I've played miniatures war games since around 1992. The people I've played with, will field superbly painted figures, but terrain often is made using colored felt (brown felt for roads, green felt for forests, blue felt for rivers/lakes/oceans), with painted foam insulation hills (no texturing, just paint over the foam's smooth surfaces). It is rare that their terrain is as artistic as their figures are painted.

Me, I'm more middle of the road on all counts. I prefer something more detailed than felt, but I'll use it, if I have nothing else (I usually do). However, for forests, I need a clear demarcation as to when/where it starts and ends, as the movement rates for figures traveling through it, is directly impacted by the forest's boundaries, and that is more important within the game, than the artistic qualities of the trees.

I will play with any type of terrain, in other folk's games. For my games, I prefer a little more than felt, but not much more, for practical reasons.

I prefer to use fully painted, miniature Goats to mark troops whose Morale has declined to Shaken/Unsteady; I use fully painted, miniature Chickens, to mark Routing Units, on the tabletop. The Goats and the Chickens work better, for me, than yellow/red pom pons, or balls, or tent cards. They are less visually intrusive. Not everyone enjoys the animals, however, as they are more subtle than yellow/red markers of some sort.

All of my gaming friends are more practical, than visually artistic/realistic in their approach to gaming -- outside of painting their miniatures. That is the one thing that they stand head and shoulders above me on. I'm OK with that: sitting on the tabletop, my figures look very similar to their figures; only when you hold the figures 4-6 inches from your orbits, will you really see the differences in painting. LOL! Cheers!

"Must admit I was expecting far more replies from very tree model oriented folk. Most of you are far more on the prectical approach potentially at the cost of artistry."

Nah. Pretty much all miniature warfare involves compromises, and we each make different ones based on our interests and resources. We all know that minimizing storage space ranks higher for you than for most and in that context, cruciform trees are a good call--a bit of a decline in appearance for a massive saving in space. It's a pity none of us have such a solution to your house problem, but the shift from "urban area" to knowing a casting's position within a house is a killer.