# Scenery solutions



## Azzaphox (Jul 13, 2012)

Questions for you - 

I find woods somewhat tricky for scenery - if the wood looks at all wood-like then it is nigh on impossible to take a unit though it. The trees are best fixed down otherwise they fall over. Whilst you can have a large green base to indicate extent, it still means you can't take units through the middle very well. What do other people do?

Also similar for hills - if the hill is to have much of a change of level, the models either fall over or get displaced from formation. You can have the hill in shallow tiers, which doesnt look great and means ranks get split up.
I guess you could have a slope, but chances are most models will fall over.
How do people cope with this?


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## Zetronus (May 9, 2012)

Insofar as dense forest terrain - 

I have seen small tiles of dense trees arranges in a circular fashion, inside is the flat table - the tiles represent the edge of the dense terrain (into and out of).

Hills are a problem, but some suggest when creating hills is to include a fine metal mesh just beneath the top layer and install base magnets on the models.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Azzaphox said:


> I find woods somewhat tricky for scenery - if the wood looks at all wood-like then it is nigh on impossible to take a unit though it. The trees are best fixed down otherwise they fall over. Whilst you can have a large green base to indicate extent, it still means you can't take units through the middle very well. What do other people do?


Mount each of the trees on a individual base then place them on an area base to indicate extent. This lets you move trees out of the way to place around the unit.



Azzaphox said:


> Also similar for hills - if the hill is to have much of a change of level, the models either fall over or get displaced from formation. You can have the hill in shallow tiers, which doesnt look great and means ranks get split up.
> I guess you could have a slope, but chances are most models will fall over.
> How do people cope with this?


I play with sloped hills and I place my models on movement trays. if the tray will not balance then I shuffle until it does and follow the rules on models which will not balance.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

I used some plastic trees that were premade with wide bases (evergreens) and outline where the trees go so that they can be pick up and put back down but block line of sight to single models. For normal trees, with leaves and stuff, put a heavy washer or flat ruberized magnetic material on the bottom of the base to give it some weight and keep it from falling over. You can obtain "magnetically receptive" paper or rubber sheets quite inexpensively and glue that to the bottom of the forest floor before painting and laying down terrain on the forest floor and magnetize the bottoms of the tree bases with flat magnets. Alternatively, you can obtain sheets of magnetized material to apply to the forest floor and glue tin sheets to the bottoms of the bases for the trees. That works well if the magnetic materials and receptive material have a strong enough attraction. 

I make hills out of insulation foam that is about 1" thick and cut out shapes (usually oblong or kidney shape up to 12" long and 4" wide) with each level of the hill smaller that the previous level. With three levels, my hills can block line of sight to infantry, most cav and most monstrous infantry. I seal the foam with a mix and paint on sealant (kind of plaster of paris by Foam Coat in the US). This creates a harder crust on the outside of the foam and looks more realistic (can even mix sand in the mix). Then I paint (acrylic paint at a hobby/paint store) the hills with brown on the sides and green on the levels and, after the paint dries, apply a mix of gravels and static grasses. Finally, I seal the paint and terrain with a matte sealant for acrylic paints. In order to allow ease of movement over the hills, I save some scrap foam sections (2" by 3" to 4")and cut and glue them to create small flat props one and two levels high to allow you to prop up and balance units/models on the levels as they cross the hills. 

When I play with more realistic hills with slopes and stuff, we often take a few models out of the movement tray and place then on the hill to mark the front corners and back of the unit to avoid the tray tipping over or sliding off the hill.


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## Deathypoo (Jun 27, 2011)

I use pieces of green felt as a cheap boundary that takes 30 seconds to cut out, and place multi-tree bases anywhere within it. The tree bases can move around or completely out if necessary.

I've never been satisfied with any of the above hill solutions, but have yet to find one better :/


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## KarnalBloodfist (Jan 30, 2010)

One thing for hills - magnetize your troops and their movement trays. This way they won't fall over on sloped hills and they won't wobble around so much when you're trying to prop the back or front end up for tiered hills.

As for trees, we do what Mr. Hobbit said - we use a few trees to outline a "section" of forest and our trees are model railroad trees that are either on large washers or on 40-60mm round bases. When our troops move into the area and we have to move trees, we have a bit of masking tape to denote the center of the base and can return the tree back to its position after the troops are no longer in the way.


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