Saturday, July 12, 2014

Trees and the Battlefield

Trees are another one of those things that is kind of a staple on the battlefield.  I suppose you will find some locals that they don't make an appearance or some alien environment that doesn't know what trees are, but in general they are there and they make a great way to break up open terrain.

So what do we use to represent trees on the tabletop?  We have all been at our local big box store the day after Christmas buying up the leftover supply of Christmas village trees.  And these are a great basic supply, but it kind of gets old fighting around the same old Douglas Furs.  I wanted a little more variety without spending a ton of cash so I went to the trusty eBay to find something that would work.

I found a supplier of model railroad trees out of China.  They have lots of trees of various shapes, sizes and colors.  I chose two styles to get a taste.  I will be getting more very soon.  The only downside is that these aren't the most sturdy trees ever.  These will not hold up to rough usage that can be expected from the group down at your local game shop.  But for my private usage, these will do just fine.

The trees are made to be pushed into foam on a train table.  I want to mount them for gaming.  So, I just split the wires on the bottom and folded them back so they would sit on a washer.  I super-glued the tree to the washer and then used JB weld to cover the bases and make sure the tree was attached securely.
Base split so I have surface area to glue to a washer.

Trees glued to washers

JB Weld applied

Base painted and glue applied ready for flock.
After the JB Weld dried, I painted the bases green and then applied some flock using wood glue.  I like the result and will be basing up a bunch of these trees and getting some other colors to add more diversity to my forest.

These will work for 6mm all the way up to 28mm depending on the size of trees you get.  Remember that small trees can work for 28mm and large trees can work for 6mm.  So a mix of sizes can work with all your games.
Trees with 15mm WWII German soldier.

Trees with Epic 40K Marines
I am one step closer to a table full of great terrain.

What do you use for trees?  Do you like lots of trees or just a few?

3 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    These are great - do you think they could work for Dystopian wars?

    Rob

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  2. Nice work! I'm liking the way you split the wire strands and used JB weld to anchor them to the base.

    Care to share the manufacturer of these trees? I could actually use some of the larger ones for my model railroad.

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  3. I think these would work fine for Dystopian Wars. I would just go with the smaller trees. Maybe 5 or 7cm trees.

    The vendor's name on eBay is cnmodelnt. You can search by vendor and find his store. These are 5cm and 9cm. There are several styles and sizes in the store.

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