Saturday, 11 April 2020

WW2 Western Desert terrain additions

This weekend I have taken the opportunity to tidy up my town, create some dunes which tanks can hide behind and suddenly appear, and create some palm trees which have no bearing on the game other than as an aesthetic.
Something resembling palm trees
I had been trying to figure out how to create a few 1/300 scale palm trees for a while without success. So this weekend I went through a container of stuff I had squirrel away for possible future use and found some plastic foliage. By cutting off the tips of the plastic foliage and trimming them up I found I had something that resembled a palm tree.
Before painting the trimmed trees are stuck into a MDF base.
An oasis perhaps? Or mirage?
I had a town hex, but positioning the units so they faced a hex side was proving problematic, so I cut away the buildings to make them free standing.

As much as I liked my hex based town it was not practical.
The building were cut away to be free standing.
The final terrain feature I wanted was some sand dunes to block line of sight and be terrain features tanks could lay in wait to surprise units getting too close.

A couple of Grants lay in wait.
On the campaign side I have played another game and hope to post it soon along with the rules as they stand.

19 comments:

  1. Excellent work.
    What material are you using for the hex board by the way?

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    1. The material is a painting drop-cloth I bought at the hardware store. It was then stained with paint and hexes drawn on later on. Info on making here https://gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.com/2018/12/western-desert-project-making-gaming-mat.html

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  2. Nice work! Palms look great as does the village. Having the dunes aligned along the hexside is a good idea.

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    1. Thank you. I am trying to get the balance between terrain being practical and the look.

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  3. Lovely stuff Peter. I particularly like the oasis!

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    1. Thank you, I am very happy with the way the trees came out.

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  4. Nicely done. I also had a problem making palm trees for my Sudan set-up. Yours look good.

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    1. Thanks. There were quite a few failures along the way before finding the right material.

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  5. Lovely work on all of those Peter. I'm really impressed with the homemade palm trees.

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    1. Once I found the right material they came together very quickly. Thanks.

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  6. Very nice additions Peter. Although I love building fixed in place, I've ended up having them removable in my BUA's for the reason you outlined above.

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    1. Thanks, practicalities sometimes win over looks.

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  7. I made scenic palms out of florist wire and paper, quick and easy - but that was 1:200 / 10mm so might get too fiddly in 1:300. I'd love to share them but I don't think you can post pictures in a blog comment - or at least don't know how to.
    Still regularly checking to see the next campaign update.

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    1. The use of wire sound like a clever idea. Something to try when the next lot are needed. Thanks.

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    2. To do the trees, I cut a long strip of paper with leaves projecting from one side at one end - the rest of the strip being just a thin ribbon. Then starting at the top with leaves pointing up I wrap it round the wire working top to bottom and gluing as I go. A slight overlap of the paper 'ribbon' creates a segmented palm tree trunk. The leaves are then folded over and painted - with some at the bottom hanging down and painted brown (dead leaves). The trunk is also painted and the loose wire end bent to make a stable stand which is glued onto a base which I then texture with PVA and sand.
      [don't know what happened to my last comment "I..." but you clearly read it.

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  8. All the new terrain looks good.

    Mind you I did like the town hex. I'm of the school that allows units in a town to fight all around without flanks so a hole in middle for the unit would work.

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    1. A very tempting rule approach, but alas the town has been subdivided.

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  9. Those look great, Peter, excellent work!

    V/R,
    Jack

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