OK guys, let’s get motivated and start cranking out some narrative wargame terrain for our Battletech games- after all those painted miniature mechs need something to hide behind and jump over.
For this tutorial we are going to be looking at terrain that I define as “club terrain”. Club terrain is the type of terrain that you bring to play at the gaming club or store- it needs to be portable, easy to make, cheap (in price) and able to take the gaming abuse of being played on and packed up over and over again without breaking, yet if it does break it’s not a huge loss.
The big components of this project are going to be cardboard, sand, and white glue- Elmer’s, hobby paste, etc.
Step one is to cut out the bases to mount your terrain- this makes it modular to arrange for various games, and makes it easy to store in a box. Many players like to make their gaming bases square, while I prefer to make the edges more roundish since it has a more organic look.
Once you have your bases cut out, take some tape and tape the edges all around- this helps make the cardboard stronger against warping when you glue and paint it, and it also seals off the cardboard cross section so visually it looks better.
(You can also use particle board of foam board to make your terrain bases, but it adds extra weight to each piece which you have to transport, and unless you have a free source, it costs money- while cardboard is free.)
Once everything is all taped off, spread out a thin layer of glue over the cardboard and sprinkle some sand over it to give it texture.
“Sand” should be free- find it, make it, add some smaller crushed rocks, and different textured sand to help give it a rugged look.
Once that is dry it’s time to start building up the terrain on it.
For this tutorial we are going to look at a woodland set- trees, rocks, and some small building ruins. When building a terrain piece to simulate rocks, you don’t actually want to use real rocks- the scale is often off, and it adds weight to the piece- again not only in transporting the set around, but also the heavier each piece is, the more stress on the glue holding it down, or if it falls over the more stress points for it to break.
Fortunately, tree bark when painted in a rocky earth color looks perfectly like real rocks and is easy to scale to Battletech size. Big pieces, small pieces, and everything in-between- you can use lots of smaller pieces to build up bigger sized rocks- think a rock range over just a few boulders.
To dress up the rocks and give some additional cover you can add some trees- not for this part I did cheat a bit by using some small scale trees that I had left over from another project. I was going to make them out of twisted wire and foam (read FREE) and we will look at that tutorial to follow.
Having your “rocks” made out of bark means you can just slow drill a hole in each piece to anchor the trees in- over gluing them to real rocks and trying to make that stick.
For the buildings, we make them out of more cardboard, cutting down the edges and then gluing them to the base. Once they are mounted take some glue and run a small amount over the cardboard cross section that is exposed and rub some sand into it to hide the cardboard cross section and make it look like a building when painted over cardboard.
Another nice finishing touch is to bend in a twisted paper clip or two to give the illusion of exposed rebar. Add some more building “junk” to finish it off and we are ready to paint- when I was scrounging around for sand and bark I found a piece from a broken hose nozzle which you can see in the second ruined building- consider it some sort of lost tech.
Now our last step is painting- prime everything black either with an airbrush or a cheap can of black spray paint- two coats nice and quick. From there drybrush the textured ground dark grey and then an even lighter drybrush of light grey to help make it “pop”. For the rocks and buildings use a drybrush of off white, let it sit and dry for a few minutes and you are all set.
Ready for more Battletech discussion? Continue the terrain discussion HERE on the FORUM:
http://www.errantmechwarriorforum.com/index.php?topic=2.0
http://www.errantmechwarriorforum.com/index.php?topic=2.0