Lemax Collection Mill Stream

This steam was purchased at a DIY store after Christmas time. The set consists of two Mill Stream sets and one Mill Stream Fork set. The weeks following Christmas and Halloween are a great time to pick this stuff up for next to nothing. As the store I went to was already picked through, I had to bite it and get this stuff for only 70% off before it was gone. Click pictures for a larger view.

The Mill Stream set claims to come with 11(!) pieces. Six of those are little, snow- covered pine trees, two are end caps for the stream and only three are acually river pieces; two straights and one bend. The fork comes with 10 pieces; 6 trees, three caps and 1 fork piece. They are cast in a hard resin or plastic and are fairly heavy and durable. Each piece also has little felt pads on the bottom so they don't scratch or damage your gaming board (or whatever.) Each piece is about 1/2" thick and when all three sets are combined together they stretch just over 4 feet.

Unfortunatly it came with a snow finish. That had to go.

These shots are the pieces before painting. As you might be able to see, the banks of the river are big rocks and boulders covered in snow. There are also tree stumps and branches dotting the banks. The water portion is sculpted to look like moving water, painted and then coated with a clear coat of some kind. The coating is quite soft and sticky and picks up fingerprints easily.

All snow covered areas, tree stumps and branches were hand painted black. The rock and water areas were left as- is. The tree stumps and branches were drybrushed first with a dark brown, then a brown- grey mix and finally a light grey.

White glue was used to adhere the magic ground cover mix to all of the black painted areas. A mix of green course turf and brown fine turf were then applied sporradically on the pieces to break up the uniformity.

The project was simple enough and though it was a bit expensive than I would traditionally have spent on terrian (around $25), it is still cheaper than purchasing a river or stream specifically made for wargaming.

River Ford

Not one of my projects, but similar to one I've done.  Mine is not done yet, and this one is, so I'll post it so you can get an idea of what we're doing.

The local game store carries a selection of items from Pegasus Hobbies.  This particular piece is their Museum Models River Set.

You get about 4' of river.  It is painted plastic.  The water sculpting is a bit odd, but it still looks good and is a steal at $20.

We found that to enhance the look it helps to give the dirt colored banks a wash of Citadel Brown wash.  It gives the bank more depth, and dulls the glossy finish.  A bit of ground cover on the bank really enhances the look as well.

A ford was added to one of the short, straight sections to create a crossing for our Song of Blades and Heroes Campaing we will be running starting January.

My friend Brian simply coated a section of the river in white glue, then placed some stones randomly in the river.  The result is a quick and effective method.

The glue is still wet in these pictures, but it does dry clear and looks good.

Fields

The fields are based on foamcore with the edges masked off as usual. The walls are plaster casts from the Hirst Arts Castlemolds Fielstone Walls mold. They are simply glued into place with "Tacky" glue; a extra thick white glue.

Incredibly fine sand was glued to the foamcore to represent the soil. I picked this stuff up from my dad. It's normally mixed into stains and varnishes and gives some texture and grip to hardwood stairs. I'm not sure of the brand name. The entire piece was basecoated in black. The walls were drybrushed from dark grey to white and the soil was drybrushed from dark brown to tan.

The bushes are made from bump chenille. It was simply dipped in green dye (made from green paint and water) and immediatly rolled in flock. Once dry they make nice bushes or trees. These were not glued into place in order place units inside the walls.

The entire piece was coated in a thinned mix of white glue to strenghten it. The glue also gave the piece a satin sheen to it, so I have to get a matte spray to dull it down.

Rough Ground

Rough going represents terrain that is hard to move through and fight in, but does not block line of sight.

These templates are made of foamcore. On three of the pieces the edges were cut at an angle to make a smoother transition from terrain to tabletop. The largest piece was left with the edges squared. The edges were taped to protect the exposed foam. Smaller templates were made from thin cardboard as well with the edges masked off as usual.

Small stones were glued in piles on the foamcore templates with white glue. Large glass-type fragments (for fish aquariums) were glued onto the smaller templates in piles.

The rocks were painted black and drybrushed from dark grey to white, except for the large template. The large templates were based in a light brown.

Static grass was glued onto the templates; the larger templates recieving two applications.

The seperatly- based rock piles are placed on the templates to fill them out, but are easily moved around for the placement of troops.

Hedges and Fences

These hedges and fences were constructed after reading through the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook and seeing the linear obstacles rule. I figured it would be fun to have some of these in a game. They are basically difficult terrain that you can hide behind. Great for archers and handgunners. Click images for a larger view.

The hedges are made from Scotch-Brite scouring pads. The pads were simply cut with a scissor at a length of twice what I wanted the height of the hedge to be.

After the pads were cut I glued them in hald with white glue. I used a couple of clamps to hold the halves together while they dried.

While waiting for them to dry I made some bases. The bases are simply foamcore. The edges were cut at an angle to get rid of the sharp edges. Toothpicks were then driven into the top of the base. The base was then painted black.

Once the hedges were dry they were pressed down onto the toothpicks on the bases to hold them in place. They were fixed to the base with white glue.

The bases were finished with my favorite flock mix and the hedges were coated with course turf.

All in all they turned out OK, but the look sort of pathetic. I didn't need to use the scouring pads due to the heavy turf. I could've used blocks of foam and saved myself some cash. The course turf needs to be mixed with some other ground cover to give it some variance and a more natural look.

I had tried using the same ground cover on the hedge that I did on the base, but it looked stupid. All- in - all a great learning experience.

The fences are based the same as the hedges are. The fences themselves are constructed of craft sticks (toungue depressors.) I simply measured the height I wanted on the fences and broke the sticks at that length. The craft sticks were also split the long way to make the boards thinner and more man-sized looking. It gave them a hasty, unskilled contruction look.

I then layed out enough boards to cover the length I wanted the fence and then glued a piece of chopstick along the length to act as a rail. Two more chopstick pieces were added as posts. Once the setup was dry it was attached to the base with superglue. Once the glue was dry the fence rail and posts were whittled at with a razor blade to give them a rough look like the boards.

The fences were stained with a brown India Ink I recieved in a trade. It was very red once dried and I would never use it again. After the ink dried I drybrushed the fence from a dark brown to a light brown. The base was finished in my favorite ground cover mix.

I really like how the fences turned out. I would use a regular brown ink or even diluted brown paint next time to stain the fence, and maybe split more of the craft sticks to make the rail. the chopstick is too big.