Wargaming Hills

It’s ok, I’m not dead. Just resting. Life has been pretty busy the past couple of months. Things have taken longer than I thought to complete as a result, however I’ve got a few things near completion, pictures and posting about. In my last post I also promised an After Action Report. Well I can gladly report that that battle did take place, however it was a bit of a cop out on account of it being quite a one sided affair. As a result, at the time I decided not to post about it (two months ago). I downloaded the images for it today, however, and going through them I thought they all looked pretty cool. So at some point I will post the AAR as originally intended. Today, however: hills.

Wargaming Hills

I finally got around to finishing my grassy hills and ridges.

I made four hills and two ridges. Materials used are very simple: 5mm MDF for the bases (cut out with a jigsaw); XPS (from Bunnings, they sell it for about $12 a 1200x600x30mm – from memory – you can also get it in 50mm thick, but that costs more. I carved it up with a hot wire cutter); then the usual things, paint, PVA glue etc.

Carve out the XPS (hot wire cutter makes this easy, although you can use a knife). Glue it to your MDF board. Paint that with PVA and cover with sand. Seal the sand with watered down PVA. Paint brown. Paint lighter brown. Paint rock areas a dark grey. Dry brush the rocky areas with a lighter grey. Paint with PVA and apply flock. Seal with watered down PVA. Easy stuff.

As you can see from the above images of the ridges, they are low ridges/hills at 28mm scale. They’ll hide infantry that are completely behind them, but vehicles will still be visible. For 15mm scale, however, they will conceal vehicles and infantry.

And here is a bunch of random images of them up close and a couple of other angle shots. Our loyal defenders of the Fatherland are crossing over one the hills and it all looks very nice. Having now completed these, however, I have decided I would like another few that are higher so that they conceal vehicles at 28mm too. So at some point I intend to head to Bunnings to grab a sheet of 50mm thick XPS (and more MDF, and more PVA…). From that I will make two hills and one ridge.

Next Time

That’s all for now, just a quick post to show that I am alive and showcase the results of my hill making. Currently I am very close to finishing my 4pt Anglo-Dane force for SAGA. They look nice. I’ve also started on my next 20 Heer/Heer Grenadier infantry for Bolt Action (the first five models of which are in the images above). Terrainwise I am working on another 10 trees for 28mm use. They’ll be the next things to feature here, along with that AAR when I get around to it. For now, I shall try to contain all the ideas running around my head. Happy wargaming!