"Making woods" Topic

Context

Some time ago I started building better looking scenics then the family made contruction paper stuff. More specifically, I made trees out of wire and green moss.

From there, the question was how to base them?

Now I play 15mm and 28 mm miniatures wargames, some FOW for 15mm, The Silver Bayonet (I favor the canadian theather of operations) and a homebrewed fantasy black powder game (Muskets and Unicorns the name) for 28mm, though I'm slowly gearing up for Muskets and tomahawks.

The problem

With Canada in mind, I opted for ample forest cover…so I based the trees on semi-modular 3/8" plywood. Didn't think it fully through as far as height was concerned. Now its, you know, acceptable for 28mm, but in 15mm it kind of wrecks the illusion. The basing is nearly as high as the infantry figures.

So I got thinking about alternatives, with modularity always in mind.

Now for basing the trees, I'm sold on using the same basing material as I use for everything when there's noting provided in the box: 0.03" thick metal straps I scrounge at work and cut to the desired length. Thats settled, but how to delimit the woodland itself?

The question

Now as alternatives to the plywood, I know about felt and tuss far I've been quite pleased with my use of cheap rubber mats with calking for all my scenic needs…but I'm not sure which way to go.

So I'm looking for insight, preferences, comparisons and, more importantly, alternatives I havn't considered.

All comments will be helpfull.

I use cardboard, specifically left over board from spiral sketchbooks (I tear out the pages). You can buy sheets of board from hobby and art supply stores in various thickness's.

Much depends on your place to game (do you need portable terrain or not, and if set up time is at a premium)?

Woods or forest – wanting the expanse of forest, then it's the edges that are important, and the interiors there for looks – but lots of interior tree models can get in the way of movement.

What can be done – "populate" forest area – maybe aiming at spreading out what tree models you can collect (or make) to denote forest area – but have a method you're using to mark the all-important outlines of the forest. These outlines don't need to be trees, they can be bushes, thicket foliage, etc.

For outlines – you could consider some of the chunky Woodland scenic materials, or artificial plants found at craft stores – stuff that gives you some durability to use, but can be lined up in groupings to trace your forest lines out. These wouldn't be 'platformed', but in more individual or linear groups ('connecting the dots' for the purpose of outline tracing).

I try to mount as little of my terrain as possible – trees and bushes (houses) don't sprout out of wide, flat platforms, but right out of the landscape surface itself (that could/should just be your board covering if possible).

Anyway, you may have your terrain techniques well along here, but for quantity and outlining, you might be able to secure some complimentary scenic component that does much of the board coverage, marks woods edges, and allows you to populate the forest interiors as you can (for looks with larger/signature tree model sets).

Now having said all this ^, I do use individual trees to outline wood lots in 28mm scale (using the same connect-the-dots function as for bush edging). The trees magnetically attached to pre-glued washers underneath my mats – pop on – pop off – but stable for gaming. This though for limited woods areas, not for lots of forested terrain-scapes.

Butchbird – here with my own homebrew ACW version of Muskets & Tomahawks V.1 (best set ever IMO).

I heard of people using old CDs for basing trees. I pick up a bunch and it's on the pending pile.

Our club generally use a piece of suitably colored cloth to delimit the area then cover it in trees and clump foliage.

Hmm. The basic trade-off is that mats/felt depicting the woodland area are fastest, but anything depicting the perimeter--I use bits of green pipe-cleaner, mostly--is more flexible and precise. Neither one is so expensive or takes up so much storage space you can't do both.

My gut feeling is that 28mm trees should be individually based and 15mm should be in clumps. (I mostly go straight from 28mm to 6mm these days, so it is only a feeling.) But especially in the early Canadian north the basing or the trees should blend with your area mat/gaming board. If I were starting over, it would be dead leaf color in the larger scales, and much darker looking down at smaller-scale wooded areas.

I use plywood for some and one of our group members has very nice printed tress on wide hexagon bases that work very well for 28 mm

I have used what used to be called "Angel Hair" a fibrous florists material as a base, very thin and drapes well (unpainted). See first picture in this thread:-

TMP link

The trees you see are Flats from the Paperboys site. The Original STL's are for figures around 28mm but scaled down for this 1/144 scale board. En masse they look good, you soon do not see the 2D nature with the right number and from table viewing height. Easily moved for gaming purposes and store flat as a bonus. It really depends on your take of game vs visuals.