Western Desert terrain

No games played this weekend with most of my free time taken up with painting some desert terrain and a few more WW2 units. The first challenge was to create some hills to fit into the hex grid. I decided to make all the hills at once so when painting I would get a consistent look.

Newly painted units

British tanks

To begin a hill I cut out the MDF base and two cardboard circles to make the hill. These were stuck together and covered in masking tape. After which the hill was covered in PVA glue and flock sprinkled over to create texture for the later painting.

Cardboard used to give form to the hill and a base of MDF cut to fit the hex grid.

The hill is constructed.

Beginning to cover the hill with masking tape.

Fully covered in masking tape

Glue to seal the hill and flock is added for texture

Once the glue was dry the hills were painted using stippling effects and washes to match as best possible the battle mat colours.

The finished hill

All the hills completed

In addition to the hills I wanted to create some terrain to represent a wadi or depression. These are always problematic to show on a tabletop. In the end I opted to use brown felt which I painted to represent the sides of a wadi. Taking inspiration from how terrain is represented on boardgames.

A unit taking cover in a wadi. 

Close up of the wadi.