Building a better battlefield

For the recent ACW game I had to create a close approximation of an actual battlefield which I haven't needed to do before. American Civil War battlefields also have more terrain (yes I know that sounds stupid, but bear with me) than any previous battlefield set ups I have created which caused me to reconsider how I made terrain items. Previous DBA battlefields and those for my 2mm 17th Century games depict much smaller areas of ground than do those of the ACW and so you are looking at terrain features which are smaller than those I needed to make for the battlefield of 1st Manassas where the ground scale means that the six foot by four foot table is a scale six miles by four miles. Smaller armies need less space to deploy and historically tended to choose relatively open areas so other battlefields I have created needed less terrain features. That allowed me more freedom to create detailed terrain features and to try to make the table more diorama like. Don't get me wrong I could do that for the American battlefields of the 1860's but it would be time consuming. Which brings me back to the 'more terrain' comment. The battlefields of the ACW were more heavily wooded than those I have modelled before, the larger ground area includes more water ways and hills too, so more items need to be created and playability has to be considered.

In making the terrain for 1st Manassas I was under time (and cost) pressure as I had the game scheduled for only a couple or three weeks in the future.  I was going to need more and larger woods and hills and about nine linear feet of river.  No pressure then!  What I needed was something which looked reasonable, was quick to make, easy to play on and didn't cost the earth.  Ok so some pressure there maybe.  Here is what I came up with.

Hills

I wanted hills I could use in other games as well as with Altar of Freedom.  That meant step hills, the old tiered wedding cake approach. For AoF the contours seem to be about 25 feet apart, so with a ground scale of 25mm to 150 feet that equates to 5mm to 30 feet (and yes mixing metric and imperial units in the same calculation drives me nuts as well but needs must) so 5mm per 25 feet vertically is close enough for jazz.  I’m mixing metric and imperial because the building materials are in metric but US measurements are in Imperial, so as I said needs must and all that!  I already had polyurethane foam insulation sheets in 5mm thickness so in some (OK all) respects I knew the answer and was really only looking to show it was workable, 5mm contours it was going to be.  To make it an even better fudge for 2mm figures I usually work to a rule of thumb of 1mm equals six feet so five sixes are thirty…I’m happy with that.

The basic bare foam hill shapes

As a bonus the scenario map scales out to 1mm to 1cm on the table so establishing the rough size of terrain foot prints is straightforward.  For each hill I measured the size of a rectangle that the feature could sit within and set to with a pair of kitchen scissors.  The foam cuts well and only needs a light sanding to smooth the edges.  I gave the foam a coat of green house paint and then a couple of coats of acrylic spray paint after some further trimming to ensure everything sat properly on the table in relation to other terrain (more on that later).

Woods

My normal system is to make canopy woods by gluing chunks of foam foliage to a base.  For ACW battlefields there are a LOT of woods, and I didn’t have time to make that number of canopies.  So what to do?  Enter a grass effect carpet from the local Lidl store Mrs E bought me a couple of years ago.  I simply cut the shapes with the trusty kitchen scissors.  Again the carpet cut easily and as a bonus I could cut it in layers to sit on the steps of those hills which were wooded.  Again after a trial fit to the table and some judicious trimming it was job done.  In due course I can either add a scatter of trees or use the shapes as the bases for canopy woods.

The woods, a little flat but a nice colour

Rivers

I had a good head start here as I already had a lot of river sections made.  I only needed to create the tight bend in the North West section of Bull Run and to create a link piece to ensure the sections connected up.  My existing rivers are made in a couple of different ways.  The best system uses a rubber base and sand glued to the edges to create the banks.  A fast dry brush with a olive green over the sand gives a grass effect.  Confession time; I didn’t have time to paint the new sections but they didn’t look too bad.

Rivers and canopy woods under construction 

Buildings

These are a mixture of Brigade Models, Irregular Models and home made buildings from very old monopoly houses.  So old in fact that they are wooden!

Roads and minor streams

These were simply drawn on with chalk.  The playing surface is felt fabric sprayed with acrylic paint and it takes chalk well and it brushes off without too much trouble.  So that's fairly quick and cheap!

Finishing touches

My table is made from MDF sheets and they (of course) are cut in metric sizes, imperial would be too easy.  So the table is not exactly 6 x 4 feet but the map I scaled the terrain from was converted as if my table was exactly 6 x 4, or to put it another way the area terrain items were over sized.  Which is why everything was test fitted to the table.  The important point being that distances between features needed to be as close to the map as possible while still fitting everything on to the playing area.  Cue some more minor scissor action to reduce some footprints and hey presto there before me was a reasonable representation of the battlefield of 1st Manassas.

Test fitting - some adjustments were needed

The final version some smaller hills and woods and the river rerouted

The whole set up cost under £50 excluding the base board and tables and I already had all the materials  in the resources pile so that £50 was actually spent a couple of years ago rather than from this years wargaming budget.  It is great to play on, it is clear what each item is and it looks OK for 2mm use.  Plus I can tart it up as required and everything is reusable.