Terrain Evaluation Time: Trees and Water

Ringing in my fifth decade with my first case of strep throat, so that gives me plenty of time to contemplate wargaming. In this case, terrain! Like a lot of gamers, I've focused almost all of my time on the figures, and collected a hodge podge of terrain pieces over the decades. It's time to change that, and the first step was to evaluate the terrain I already have and compare it to the scales I'm planning to use for gaming. 

After digging in the basement, I found that I had more trees than I thought, a few water pieces, and one old GW hill. I also had a fair number of buildings in varying stages of completion and painting, but more on those another day. I've resolved, and have mostly stuck with, gaming in only three scales: 6mm (aka 1:300 or 1:285, depending on the line), 15mm (1:100ish), and 28mm or 30mm (1:56 to 1:60 or so).

First, a look at the trees. I have three types: old GW, a bag of HO (1:87) model railroad conifers, and some Frontline Gaming conifers (their "summer tree" set).

6mm Napoleonic Cavalry, a 3-story building, and some GHQ microarmor next to the HO scale trees.

15mm figures next to the HO trees and the GW trees (far left and right). A Plastic Soldier Company StuG G and some Battlefront infantry and truck.

15mm ancients with the HO and GW. Essex slingers and I believe Old Glory15s Gallic cavalry. The bases are 40mm wide.

15mm ancients in among the Frontline Gaming trees.

Same as above, but giving some vertical scale.

Privateer Press 30mm Hordes Grymkin figures next to the GW and HO trees. The three models in front are standard human-sized.

Grymkin in the FLG woods.

28mm Frostgrave and Gripping Beast Crusader figures among the FLG woods.

And next to the HO and GW trees.

I'm pleasantly surprised. I'd have thought the older trees, the GW and HO ones, were writeoffs, but they don't look half bad. The HO ones will probably work ok with 6mm as old growth forest giants, while the GW ones are... acceptable. They do look a bit much like toilet scrubbing brushes for my taste, but they'll do until they get replaced with better looking kit. I need to make some area bases for stands, copses, and groves. I'd also like to get some deciduous trees, and some stuff that'll do for dense brush - brambles and the like. And, of course, some orchard trees.

One quibble I have with most wargaming trees is that they're far too short, usually for reasons of playability and practicality. On average, I think they're between 5" and 10" - in 28mm, that theoretically puts them between 24' and 48'. A respectable Douglas fir easily doubles that, but then you're dealing with 20" tall trees on the table. It's one reason I've grown fonder of smaller scales like 15mm and 6mm; you can show more of that height. The 5" tree in 15mm appears to be a good 50' tall in scale. That's a point I'll come back to when I get to hills someday...

After the trees, I took stock of my water supply: Two sets of rivers and a swamp from Wizard Kraft, and streams and swamps from Gale Force 9's Battlefield in a Box line.

6mm on the banks of a Wizard Kraft 4" river, with the GF9 stream in the back.

15mm WW2 on the GF9 stream, with the GF9 swamp behind and the Wizard Kraft swamp to the fore.

15mm ancients.

30mm Hordes figures; again, the three short models are human-sized.

28mm Frostgrave and Gripping Beast.

By the look of it, either line will do will, but I'll probably go with the GF9 stuff for now, simply because it is more easily available (and, I suspect, will hold up to rougher handling at the FLGS). On the other hand, the lower profile of the Wizard Kraft stuff is a much better fit for the 6mm figures, and I think it looks better to boot. Either way, I need to pick up some more ponds, narrow streams, and crossing points.

Lastly, few random pieces:

GF9 "Rock Outcrops"

These are nice for some scatter obstruction, but they also seem a bit fantastic, in that I'm not sure what sort of terrain you could expect to see rock outcrops like these naturally appearing in. Maybe a rugged mountain pass? They're definitely not well-scaled for 6mm figures, but they'll do all right for my other scales.

One last note: All these were laid out on a Cigar Box battlemat, and I'm quite pleased with that piece of terrain. It drapes very nicely and doesn't scatter bits of flock all over the place...