Wargames Scenery / Terrain – Trees and Woods

photo credit: MatthewJCarter

After hills, trees and woods are probably the next most common and useful item to have as scenery on your wargames battlefield. Perfect for hiding behind, blocking line of sight or ambushes from the woods (Wood Elves anyone?) they are all round useful

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Another post on my main blog – this time looking at trees and woods as wargames scenery and how you can make your own. Alternatively you can buy ready made woods or perhaps buy the trees to make your own woods with. Either of the latter approaches make for ideal short cuts if you want to get some woods done quickly and don’t have the time to make your own from scratch. I made some trees myself from scratch (actually using vine tomato vines), but have also made woods from ready made trees on the grounds that it is much quicker to do and ready made trees are not that expensive, especially if you buy somewhere like eBay.

Wargames Scenery / Terrain – Buildings

photo credit: shoe the Linux Librarian

Whatever gaming system you play, at some point you are going to want a building or two as terrain for your battlefield. Buildings provide cover, protect units, direct the enemy into traps, can be garrisoned with your troops and generally add to the atmosphere of a game. The bleak future world of Warhammer 40K looks great with bunkers, bastions and ruined buldings in general. Bulidings add greatly to Warhammer fantasy battlefields too

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My latest post over on www.wargamessceneryworld.com discusses that most useful of addition to any wargames battlefield in the way of terrain – buildings. You can make your own, build them from kits – plastic or cast plaster / resin- or even buy them ready made (and painted too, if you like). It all depends on how much of your own effort you’d like to put in. Whichever way you do it, getting a building or two to enhance your wargames scenery will be well worth it I’d say. It brings narrative games / campaigns to life to have some realistic buildings on the battlefield.

Wayland Games Offering Free Warlord Games Sprue

 

 
Wayland Games in the UK have a free offer on at the moment, where in exchange for your name and address they will send you a free (random) Warlord Games miniatures sprue. Warlord offer a range of nicely detailed miniatures covering a variety of periods including Ancient Britons, Celts, Romans, 17th century (30 years war) and Napoleonics. If you had ever wanted to try their miniatures or are thinking of trying a new period, this is a great opportunity to see what Warlord Games do for free. Free is always a good price! Apparently they have ‘thousands upon thousands’ of sprues to give away – all you have to do is sign up here and agree to receive the Wayland Games and Warlord Games newsletters, which seems a small price to pay. Go get your free Warlord Games sprue! I know I will be.

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Like it says above – Wayland games and Warlord Games are offering a free sprue of wargames miniatures just for signing up to their respective mailing lists here. Got to be worth a look for free!

Wargames Scenery – Ruined Buildings

One of the most evocative types of wargames terrain you can have is the ruined building. Whether it is a ruined French house in a WW2 setting, a collapsed watch tower from Lord of The Rings, a burnt out half timbered Empire inn from Warhammer or the blasted remnants of a Warhammer 40K Imperial bastion, there is nothing that works so well on a miniature battlefield as a ruin.

via wargamessceneryworld.com

Next post in my series of “why don’t you buy off the shelf wargames scenery rather than making it yourself” posts. This seems to be occupying my mind a lot lately – I think because although I love making scenery, I have been finding it difficult to find the time to actually build it myself at the moment, life has a habit of getting in the way! I started building a Dwarf Brewery several weeks ago – and it remained as just the main stone building for ages. Last week the big brewing vat / kettle was done and added on. This weekend i was going to continue with the rest of the brewery and add finishing touches before painting it. What have I done? Nothing at all. Didn’t even get to play a game with my son though we planned too.
That, in a nutshell is why i have been thinking more about buying ready made scenery for our Warhammer games. I love playing with plenty of scenery, as I like storytelling with the game and scenery aids that tremendously. Its a trade off as always – cash for time!

Wargames Scenery – Walls, Hedges, Fences and Barriers

Walls, fences, barriers – all useful (vital?) items of wargames scenery / terrain for provide your troops cover on the battlefield, whether you are playing warhammer, warhammer 40K or any other system – the look of the barrier may change, but its purpose will be the same. Short sections of wall, hedge or fence are useful bits of terrain to have in the terrain box.

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Post number two in my readymade terrain series. This time, we are looking at hedges, walls and fences – in other words, barriers. Perfect to hide behind and offering your troops varying degrees of cover, a number of walls etc. are very useful things to have around when setting up your gaming table for a battle.

Wargames Scenery – Hills

No wargames battlefield is complete without a hill or two, be it WW2, Napoleonic or Warhammer or Warhammer 40k. Hills provide somewhere for your ranged weapons or missile troops to sit to give them vantage over the battlefield, somewhere for units to hide behind.

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Ok, first little post in the readymade scenery series, covering that number one useful item of terrain to have on your battle field – the hill!. Don’t game without one. Or two. They are easy enough to make, but if you just want to get on and get that game of Warhammer underway, readymade is the way to go. Trade money for time in this case!

Wargames Scenery / Terrain – Readymade and kit form.

Not everyone  has the time or inclination to make all their own wargames scenery / terrain from scratch, and there is a whole industry out there that has grown up to support them, from the heavy weights such as Games Workshop to one man bands hand crafting or casting their own scenery to sell on eBay. Now, I enjoy making my scenery, but there are times when I think it would be great to have a such and such item of scenery for a particular Warhammer scenario I want to play, but it has to join the back of the queue of ideas to be made. This is when off the shelf scenery appeals!

Just musing over on my blog about buying rather than building your own wargames scenery / terrain. My son said to me the other day, ‘Why don’t you build less and play more’ – and he has a point. So, I thought I’d set up a new category to cover readymade scenery and terrain, and have brainstormed all the posts that should go in there. just got to write them now…

How to make simple buildings for wargames scenery

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Well, this post has been a long time coming – due to circumstances beyond my control I’ve had no chance to make anything wargames scenery related or blog about anything wargames scenery related either. I’ve just got this post up on my blog (http://www.wargamessceneryworld.com/projects/how-to-make-simple-buildings-for… covering simple building making techniques that you may find interesting or useful. It was born out of my desire to make some buildings cheaply and quickly for my son and I to use as terrain in our Warhammer games. He wanted an isolated Empire farmhouse for his Beastmen to attack. Hope you find something you can make use of in the article.

Article: Review – Wargaming on a Budget (Gaming Constrained by Money or …

Review – Wargaming on a Budget (Gaming Constrained by Money or …
http://www.thewarevent.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1198

Review – Wargaming on a Budget (Gaming Constrained by Money or Space)
It has long been said that experience is the best teacher, and this holds particularly true for this book by Iain Dickie. Iain was editor of Miniature Wargames Magazine for some 25 years, and in his new book he draws on his many years of experience in the hobby to provide one of the best step by step approaches to miniature wargaming that I have ever seen.
Many of us, especially those new to the hobby, have been daunted by the seemingly high cost of getting into this enjoying and rewarding past time. Iain simply tears down the walls on much of this cost, showing the newcomer and experienced gamer alike how to make the most of your hobby literally for pennies on the dollar for what you might spend if you do not own this book.

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This sounds like a great book – have a look at the full review for more details, but it does sound 
great, with plenty on building your own terrain and even ships! Wargaming can be an expensive hobby so anything that may help reduce the cost whilst not reducing the fun (or maybe even increasing it). If it at least encourages you to build one item of terrain rather than buy it at say, Games Workshop prices, it may well pay for itself. I think I will be buying a copy.

www.wargamessceneryworld.com

Article: Felix’s Gaming Pages Blog » Blog Archive » Moonscape

Felix’s Gaming Pages Blog » Blog Archive » Moonscape
http://www.ifelix.net/gamingblog/?p=3253

No battlefield would be complete without some fantastic terrain to bring your games to life and provide cover for your units. These Warhammer 40,000 Moonscapes are an excellent representation of the craters and ruined earth left by the devastating weaponry of the 41st millennium. Easily painted to match your gaming board they provide cover for advancing squads and can be used to represent the craters left by destroyed vehicles.

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Some vac formed craters that look as if they would work nicely in lots of different scenarios with a bit of careful painting. I’ve not tried bought craters before having made some with a hot wire cutter and some EPS foam (styrofoam). I have recently bought some simple vac formed buildings though which I will review when i’ve had a chance to build and paint them.

www.wargamessceneryworld.com