The "HOW TO" of Making FAST Roads!

Just a few pics illustrating how I made the felt roads. FAST AND SIMPLE! One hour... and you have enough for most battles.

Dark Brown felt pieces cut to shape.

Use felt if you can. Cut to size and shape desired. Lay out flat and paint on the texture using a SPONGE (I use the little grey packing sponges that Flames of War models come in). Use strokes on the felt making lines down each road. Start with brown paints working up to a tan or even khaki/buttermilk (experiment here).

Texture with shades of brown and earth tones using a
sponge - pulling the paint (DON'T LEAVE GLOBS). Use a
BLACK sharpie, ink, or wash to make tracks. Blend final paint
over tracks.

 Pull the paint to spread it out; you don't want GLOBBS. You are after an earthy look. Before applying the final layer of painting, take a fabric pen, or sharpie (BLACK) and make wheel tracks. Simple really, no need to be exact here. I make quick 3-4" strokes down the road running it's length. Again... experiment. You want it to look like many wheeled vehicles pass through leaving deep tracks.

Flock! I used a mix of green flock, sand, and oregano.
Use watered down white glue. DO NOT OVER USE GLUE! or you
will stiffin the felt. Space your glue out.

 Now, apply the final paint with your sponge. Be sure to run over the black marker lines to kind of fade /blend it in (you don't really want STRONG lines showing here - doesn't look natural. Let dry a few mins at least. Now apply watered down white glue with a brush in various spots (again stretching the glue out. Flock these areas with whatever you have (I used a mix of green flock and oregano, along with a bit of sand). You can also apply pure sand as well to make it look more "dirty". Let dry.

I roll over the flock to to press it on to the felt.

The important thing to remember here is don't over use the glue, or apply THICK amounts of paint. Otherwise you will stiffn the felt and it wont be bendable and conform properly to other terrain (or lay flat for that matter). Use glue in a spotty fashion (no long lines stretching more than an inch). Space your glue areas.

One final tip: Use India Ink, or any BLACK or dark brown ink/wash in addition/instead of the marker mentioned above. Works wonders! :)

Same idea with the field. Cut, texture with paint, apply marker lines, apply final paint (not always desired with fields), apply flock. Hay fields just texture with yellow and straw paints, and apply static grass (straw colored - or highlight a yellow/straw color once glued to felt surface). Oh... don't water you glue down when applying the static grass; pure white glue.

 

Dirt Roads FINISHED!

Finally finished off another batch of felt roads. Took about an hour to make a ton of these pieces (just enough for most battles anyway). Nice dirt roads for any period!

Pretty sweet! You can see the train tracks (upper left) and
the barbed wire/barricades (upper right) pieces just finished
as well

The plain felt I used to make these little gems.

 

Another Terrain Update... and more!

The upgrading of my terrain collection continues! This week I have been basing some HO/20mm scale rail road tracks for use in my games. Good enough for my 15mm collection of minis for the time being (although... see below for more on 20mm/HO scale). These are raised tracks so they are realistic as well. I managed to base them on card and added some texturing as would be appropriate. They are coming along nice. Hope to have these done in time for some gaming later next week.

Some based rail road tracks for use in my 15/20mm battles.

Speaking of 20mm scale, I have decided to get back into collecting 20mm miniatures as well! I have been debating this for some time now as the quality and availability of this scale is soo much better these days. In particular are the ranges provided by Eureka (AB Miniatures). Their 20mm WWII line is amazing! I am hoping these guys will fit well with the PSC tanks and vehicles (which I also really like). Not a big fan of the PSC infantry (they look too damn stiff, imo). But yeah... these AB miniatures are just so damn tempting. I think as far as scale the AB minis are just a titch smaller than the PSC inf. Heh... but even then it is minor.




20mm AB Miniatures! Just look at that detail!

                                       Eureka's 20mm WWII Web Site




More AB 20mm. These guys look awesome and the
price is perfect; not too damn expensive.

I'll gave more updates on this as I collect the models. Should be fun. I imagine they will be perfect for Squad/platoon sized games; I don't want to have to play company level games on a HUGE table, so yeah. Of course that won't change my devotion to the ultimate scale: 15mm! :)

Hmmm... some of my brother's High Elves some
how found their way on my table!

A Recent Battle in the Fields...

Had a fun lil game of BG today. Small action involving only a couple squads and some tanks. Took a few shots of the action from the German side. Was pretty fun. Germans had a victory by putting the Americans over their BR by a single point! Kinda reminds me of our last campaign game where I lost the battle and the campaign by one BR as well. Guess this is payback.

Fun game once again.

Terrain Update!

Lots been going on here at the Forge. Some of that involves some much needed updating of my own gaming terrain. After last weeks BG Overlord campaign I discovered it was time to upgrade my terrain collection. So be it...

Some Germans make their way through a newly-made light forest.

Here are some pics of what I have done over the past few days. Of course I also did some road and fields, which I will showcase in my upcoming BG BatRep (see later post).

I am also working on some foxhole and mine field markers (mostly for use with BG rules).

Here are some pics of the most recent terrain pieces I have upgraded (or made from scratch).




Some new trees laid out on wood base recently textured
with a forest floor. 

The texturing on these bases are awesome!

The felt forest floor with trees, rocks, 
twigs, lichen and troops added!

Felt pieces for forest floor. I added all
kinds of texture to them, including
some paint.