Saturday, May 28, 2011

Quick Hill Terrain From Wal-Mart

20mm Jacklex Guides Cavalry
I was running some errands at our local "big box" store with two kids in tow...not thinking about gaming at all, when my "inner gamer" pokes me and says," wait!...now there is something I can use!" It turned out that I found some simulated stone garden pavers made of some sort of recycled rubber material that make great hills for my colonials. Here is what they look like:
The material seems like compressed rubber "grains" and is very tough and dense. They come in different sizes and colors are irregular in shape and the surface undulates slightly so they look pretty convincing on the table. I got mine for 4 bucks each on sale, but I think they are normally 6 each. So not dirt cheap but you don't have to paint them and they are indestructable. The only drawback is that they are a bit heavier than a plywood hill might be. But that is no real problem unless you have a lot of convention traveling to do.
Here is one with a rock outcrop made of styrofoam stacked on top...and a few Jacklex 20mm Pathans. I got both a couple of grey ones and couple of brown ones for variation. They are about an inch thick.
...if I use the cork table you see in the background or the desert flip side of "the green mile"...the rubber hills would blend in just great.
Here is a small NW Frontier game running with the hills in use. The British assault a Pathan tower guarding a pass.
Ral-Partha Ghurkas in the lead followed by 20mm Jacklex Highlanders...the figure height difference is not significant to my eye so I'm happy to use both lines together.
The RHA gun shelling the heights...

6 comments:

Brigadier Dundas said...

Nice work done on those lancers. Your table looks great; very "old school" with a touch of The Sword and the Flame.

Don

littlejohn said...

@ Brig. Dundas,

I'm definitely a TSATF fan for colonials...the best the new with a classic feel!

tradgardmastare said...

Excellent looking game and the hills are indeed effective.
best wishes
Alan

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

I saw some of those rocks in a garden center here and thought aha! terrin, but couldn't think where they would fit in to what I was doing. They look just right with Pathans crawling over them.

I like the Pathans and especially the Lancers. The Brigadier Dundas has it right, old school meets TSATF, all you need is some kitty litter scattered about!

Great stuff.

Mosstrooper said...

Nice looking game !

Peter Douglas said...

Those work nicely indeed- good thinking outside of the box. I'll keep an eye open the next time I'm at our local MallWart (which is less local now that they moved it to a big box site). Those look like they'll make isles from the Dodecanese for my WW2 naval games.

Cheers

PD