Forest Terrain Project

One of the things I've felt like my game table has been missing is a good set of trees. I've attempted to make some individual ones with varying results, but they seem to be unstable and tend to get knocked over during play. I decided to try out putting multiple trees on one large terrain stand, in an effort to keep them upright as well as quickly mobile as a unit.

This was my first attempt at making trees from wire, and I'm not especially pleased with the results. They seem too thin, and it's a bit difficult to hide some of the branches in the foilage. As such, these aren't quite finished...I still need to trim some of the excess wire, and paint some of it gray to match the trunks.

The forest was built on a 1/8" piece of hard board, with foam cuttings for elevation and rock. Rubble was done with kitty litter, and grass was a mixture of fine flock and static grass. I lightly sprayed a darker green on the tree foilage to break up the color.

Pictured are two of my son's (unfinished) Warriors of Minas Tirith.

I quickly discovered that clump foilage is a pain to deal with, as it tends to fall apart while you're working with it. I had enough branches formed from wire that I was able to kind of clamp large chunks in place until I could get the spray to dry and the foilage to harden.

A closeup of the boulder in the middle of the wood. I've found I really like making these with my hot wire foam cutter, and they're really easy to do!

More work to be done on this one, but I hope you enjoyed it!

Ranger322 out!

First scratch terrain piece...a rocky hill

This past week I got out my new hot wire foam cutter and decided to give terrain building a try. Here's the result of my first attempt...a four layer rocky hillside with dirt path. It's made of 1" pink foam board and kitty litter for rubble.

A couple of pictures with Legolas for scale...

All in all, I was very satisfied with the end result. There are some things I would do differently next time, but oh well...

Now I have a long list of foam terrain I want to build...so many ideas, so little time.

Ranger322 out!

LOTR River Village Battle

Well, it's been a while since we last got together to play some LOTR SBG, but this last Friday night we had a 'big boys' night! The kids were not in attendance, so it was just one of my older nephews, my friend Joel, and myself. Joel had been working on a Hirst Arts bridge and some Fat Dragon cardstock houses, so we decided to have a bridge battle. I threw together a quick posterboard river, lined it with some rocks, and away we went! My nephew and I pitted 24 rangers and 16 wood elves against a force of orcs, Haradrim warriors, and a Mordor troll.

The setup:

Our rangers and elves charge toward the bridge. We split off archers on the flanks...some rangers to the left and some elves to the right.

Somehow the orcs managed to beat us to the bridge and took first control...they split out archers on the flanks as well, some orcs and Haradrim warriors on each side.

The two armies met and fought for purchase on the bridge.

The orcs called in their Mordor troll, whose huge bulk and control zone spanned the width of the bridge. He actually killed two or three of his own men just to get to my front line of rangers!

Archers on each side began to take their toll. Our rangers and elves quickly turned their sights on the troll, but only managed to get in one wound before he engaged our front line. They continued to pick off orcs and Haradrim warriors crowding behind the troll.

At last, due to the backup provided by our spearmen, our rangers and elves were able to dispatch the troll...although he exacted a heavy toll before we were able to do so. We lost about a third of our force on the bridge.

With the troll out of the picture, and with continued archer support, our force charged across the bridge and crashed into what remained of the orcs. Thankfully, there was considerably less opposition at this point, as our Elven archers had cut down a good portion of their main force.

The last of the orcs died on the far side of the bridge under an onslaught of arrows, steel, and spears. Without their troll, they didn't stand a chance.

In the end, we had lost about a third of our force, but had soundly defeated the enemy.

Key lessons learned:

1. Using the backup rule in close quarters is highly effective.
2. Facing a troll in close quarters gets you killed.
3. Well placed archers with enough lucky rolls can win the battle.
4. Joel can build some really cool Hirst Arts stuff!

Until next time...Ranger322 out!