Re: [Epic] Geohex Terrain

From: <e.to.?Kagi.Sh_at_...>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 98 19:41:10 -0400

Personally, I LIKE the geohex scenery, if only for it's flexibility in
terms of how many different layouts can be made from it. Hexes seem to
lend themselves best for this. It is an expensive proposition,though,
but with care it will last a very long time. That being said, I prefer
to make my own scenery boards, which is remarkably quite easy and very
inexpensive.
  
  A quick how to is as follows:

What I do is go to my local hardware store and get the 4x8 1" insulation
board. Make sure you look for the board that has the fiberglass coating
to it...which makes it very very hard (so hard, that when I cut a piece
of it I whacked a friend upside the head for the hell of it...long
story....and it didn't even dent the board...what it did to him..well
that's another story :) Anyway, if you get the 1" board it will be very
inflexible, so it will hold the flock a lot better. You can cut this
board into either 2x2 squares or 2x4 rectangles (like I did) which makes
it transportable. For flock, I use model railroad grass, either the
green or brown. Essentially this is simply sawdust. I also bought the
woodland scenics matte scenery fixative (glue) and liberally coat the
boards with that. Put on the flock and let dry. It may be necessary to
put two or three coats of flock to get a solid effect. After you get the
effect you want with the flock, spray another coat of the spray on top of
everything to hold it down to the board. Finally, paint it with a
uniform coat of green paint (or brown, or some other color). The paint I
use is sears interior latex, which I have them mix up especially (using
the citadel green as my color guide). The great thing about building
scenery like this is that they are quite durable and give you a nice
surface to play on. They can also be sculpted and cut into to make all
kinds of terrain effects.

List of materials:
4X8 1" insulation board $10.00
Woodland scenics glue $3.00
Model Railroad grass $3.00
Sears paint (1 gal) $12.00 (which you use about a quart of to paint the
boards...but it's nice to use the remainder to base your figures with).

I am working on a permanent 4x4 epic scale board using the 1" insulation
board as my basis. It has a manmade canal running through the middle (in
game terms). I placed about 20 permanent objectives on the board,
interspersed in random parts of the board. I used two sets of ruined
buildings placed on either side of the canal, and have 3 bridges spanning
the canal. I took the objective counters you can pick up through mail
order and resin cast a few of these to put in different places on the
board. I added fuel dumps and such on hills and a landing pad/heliport.
The board, when finished, should look a lot like Stalingrad or Berlin
during the war. I was unsure about playing on a 4x4 board, but I think
by adding so many potential objectives on it, the board should see a lot
of use. If I can get a digital camera sometime soon I'll post the picts
with this group.
Doug
Received on Mon Jul 20 1998 - 23:41:10 UTC