Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

I finally started working on my Forest Terrain this morning. I decided to take pics as I go. I wanted to make a Forest that I could move full regiments through easily, so I finally came up with something that I think will work nicely.

Step 1:
Get everything you need together:
1 Thin sheet of insulation
Several small trees (Mine are from those little Christmas village sets)
Sharpie marker
X-acto Knife
School Glue
Paint/Flock for basing.

Step 2:
Cut out the base of your Forest (The same way you would when making a gaming hill.) Take the time to slope the edges of your base. (Pictured are two bases, this guide will follow the creation of the smaller forest)


Step 3:
Set your trees on your base so they are where you will want them. Then take the time to trace their outline before removing them.


Step 4:
Cut out the spaces the trees go in along the lines you just drew. Save these plugs, you will need them! I numbered mine to make sure they could go back into the same spaces.


Step 5:
Carefully cut a thin strip off the top of each plug, making sure its even all the way across.


Step 6:
Slip each of the plugs back into the holes they came out of so that they bottom of your forest is flat but there are shallow dips where the trees belong on the top. Glue them back in place and allow time to dry. Do not glue the trees in place!


Step 7:
Paint or flock your forest any way you like. Make sure to at least paint inside the dips too. Now you have simple peice of terrain that is game friendly. When units move through a space that a tree occupies you can simply remove the tree from the base until the unit has left that space!
Assembled

Painted

Flocked


Here are a couple of pics of the finished product.



TOTAL WORK TIME: 20Minutes (This includes the time it took to take pics, place units, etc.)

I hope people find this useful. Thoughts & comments are welcome.

Before you start devising nifty tricks (although I am very curious), here's what I have always done:
- Mount your trees on a large round base
- get two identical (wooden) boards the size of your forest. In one of 'em drill holes the size of the large round bases.
- glue both boards to eachother, sand and paint everything.
- You can now place your trees in the slotabases in the boards, creating a nice full forest, but by removing them making it usefull for units to move through!

Looking forward to your pics!

Thats kind of what I'm doing, only I'm only using the styrophome (1" thick). I'm drawing out where the trees go, then I am cutting out the hole. Once I have that out, I shave about 1/16 inch off the top and clue it back in so there is a little dip in the terrain that I can set the base of the tree into. So far I've only done one tree so I can see how it looks, but once it dries I'm going to set down and do all of them. I figure this way I can just remove the trees as units move through the space and set them back in once the unit moves.

I updated the first post with step by step instructions of my forest. Pics included. I hope at least a few people find it useful.

nice going there, mate!

Glad you like it. I'm really happy with how they are coming along, I'm going to put a green base coat on them in a minute then try flocking them when thats dry.

Its actually a pretty cheap project too. I picked up a package with over 20 pre-built trees for about $10 (Several sizes) and the insulation was free (They just did a bunch of construction at work so I dug it out of the garbage.) I figure I have enough stuff to make two large and two small chunks of forrest with a couple of trees left over.

If a person wanted to put a little more money into the project they could glue some metal washers into the low spots and some magnets to the bottom of trees to help hold them in place. But they seem to stay put pretty well as-is.

I updated my original post with some more pics. I might go back and either flock the bases of the trees or add a small patch of snow somewhere on the main base, but for now I'm considering it done. The trees fit snugly into the holes I cut for them so they dont tip or get knocked over easily. But at the same time they slide easily out of their homes. Considering how well this project turned out I will most likely use this method for similar projects in the future.

Thoughts & comments are welcome!

Looks amazing. Maybe add some scattered rocks and the like to add some flavour. I'd do the tree-bases the same way as the entire hill though, but since you're using snowed trees, add snow to the hill as well. Perhaps you should've used snow-flock ONLY instead of this green grass flock?.
Here's a painting pointer for snow terrain: Sand your piece of scenery first, then undercoat it in black, then drybrush subsequently Shadow Grey, Fortress Grey, and finally very lightly with white. THEN glue on your snow flock, leaving some logical open patches where the rocky underground shows. in those places, add some static grass (really a small bit).

Looking forward to your other projects!

I added a couple of patches of snow to the forest by dumping a little white paint on a couple of spots then sprinkling a little snow flock onto that. It turned out pretty good. I'll try to post a pic of it later.

To be honest, I would have been much happier if I could have found some trees without snow on them. I wanted terrain that was fairly generic so I could use it in almost any setup. By using the earth tone flock I as trying to make the most of the situation. I thought about using a little static grass, but decided against it. I figured the static grass would get crushed by the first movement tray I placed on it.

I have several other terrain projects planned, but they will probably be far and few between. Since this post has gone over fairly well (Lots of hits) I plan to post pics of all my future projects like I did with this one. At present I have plans to make the following terrain:

Large Graveyard (WIP)
Large Hill (WIP)
2 X Small Hill
Dwarven Mine
Wheat Field
Verious Walls/Fences
River w/ford & bridge
Cobblestone Road

@dims,
I've been wondering how this forest terrain compairs to yours. From your description it sounds like this is pretty much the same thing, only different materials.

Well, if I'm going to finish a unit of troops this week, I really need to get back to them. I have a 3/4 painted Regiment of Spider Riders and a 1/3 painted regiment of Black Orcs that both need my attention. I'm hoping to finish the Spider Riders today and get pics up some time late today, but no promises.

It's not really MY scenery, but I've done some work on such forests before for my gaming club. Anyhow, I'll try to get some pics of them later this week, and show u!

I'll be looking forard to it!

I use standalone trees weighted down with a coin for a base.

You can just pick them up and move them out the way. I reckon it's the easiest way to create a wood. I base a board with the same sort of flock and use that to represent the wooded area.

Looks rather nice, man!

Good approach on this... you're giving me an inspiration on this... Hmm...