As a miniatures wargamer for more than a decade, one of the bigger challenges I have faced is finding a good system of miniature terrain.

There are many competing factors that need to be balanced: cost, production time, storage requirements, appearance, flexibility, durability, setup time, and functionality. An important element of the miniature terrain is the woods, forests, and stands of trees that provide desperately needed cover for my tiny combatants, and help transform what would otherwise look like an architect's rendering of a golf course into a picture of a past, current, or future battlefield. Recently a question was asked on an Internet newgroup about what type of forest terrain is preferable to use. There is not a clear-cut winner, so I'll examine the characteristics of the choices and list my personal observations.

There are two basic approaches to making miniature forest terrain that are commonly in use. For simplicity I'll call one 'pre-fab' forest, and one 'ad-lib' forest. Pre-fab forest is the case where several trees have been permanently mounted together on some base covering a sizeable area. Often, undergrowth, rocks, and other enhancements to the visual appearance are modeled on the base with the trees. Ad-lib forest is the case where felt (or paper or some kind of cloth) cut to the desired shape of the forest is laid on the table to represent the extent of the forest, and then stand-alone trees are set on the felt to improve the appearance.

Ad-lib forest's strengths are its low cost, ease of production, flexibility, low storage space requirements, durability, and functionality with miniatures in a game. Felt (or cloth or paper) is cheap, and a little can go a long way. Only a moderate number of trees are needed because they can be placed on any of the felt pieces as needed and then picked up for re-use on different felt in the next game, and they can be made or bought from model railroad terrain suppliers. Once the initial supply of trees is ready, production involves only scissors and felt, and an idea of what the forest patches you need should be shaped like. For reproducing historical battles, accuracy is easy because all one needs to do is cut more felt in the appropriate shapes--no new trees are needed. Storage is simple and requires little space, as the relatively low number of trees needed (just enough to do a single heavily forested table) can be stored in a space of their own, and the felt can be stacked flat. The felt is pretty durable, and stand-alone trees are reasonably sturdy. Nicely, damage to a tree can be remedied by fixing or replacing the lone injured tree, and damage to felt doesn't require anything but to cut another felt piece. In the game, having the forest defined by the felt, and the trees merely for appearance, means that the trees can be moved as needed to allow miniatures to move in and through the forest.

Ad-lib's weaknesses are its less sophisticated appearance and somewhat longer setup time. Let's face it, one of the big reasons we game with miniatures is how it looks, and the atmosphere that appearance creates. Otherwise, we might as well be using cardboard counters on paper maps for our gaming. Ad-lib forests look better than the cardboard and maps, but still can look fairly unnatural and contrived, which may detract from the atmosphere of the game. Setting up ad-lib forest on a heavily forested map can be a time-consuming operation, as a lot of individual trees may need to be 'planted' on the felt, and time must be spent persuading the trees to stand up properly on forested hill slopes and uneven ground.

Pre-fab forest's weaknesses are many: higher cost, complex production, lack of flexibility, large storage space requirements, lesser durability, and limiting functionality in the game. Modeling a forest, including soil, undergrowth, rocks, bushes, and trees, can require an extensive and expensive selection of materials to be done well. Assembling all the materials into realistic-looking miniature wooded vignettes takes practice, skill, and patience, and you can expect a visible quality improvement as work progresses from the first few forest elements produced to the later ones (which can look a little odd when they're side-by-side on the table). Because the trees are permanently mounted on the base material, the shape of a given piece of forest represented by the trees is fixed, so if you need a piece shaped differently than ones you've already made (perhaps to recreate a specific critical terrain element for a particular historical battle), you'll need to make or buy more trees and spend the time to construct a new forest piece.

As a result, after making enough unique forest pieces to do a single heavily wooded table, your collection may continue to grow as different game scenarios require other custom forest pieces. As the number of forest pieces grows, storage space requirements get large--I currently find myself with roughly enough trees to cover the table twice, as opposed to the once required by ad-lib. Damage to pre-fab forest can be costly. Depending on the damage and the assembly techniques used, the entire forest piece may need to be discarded and a new one made, consuming several trees, associated modeling materials, and significant time. Finally, with permanently mounted trees, placement and movement of miniatures on the table is restricted by the physical presence of the tree models. In other words, the trees can get in the way. Especially if bases for the minatures are large, this can result in unnatural constraints on unit location and movement, particularly if the model scale is large and the game ground scale is small (such as with 1:285 miniatures and 1" = 50 meters).

Pre-fab forest's great advantage is its appearance, and it can have reduced setup time as compared to ad-lib. With pre-fab forest, a gamer has the option to model the woods with as much detail and realism as desired. As people who are fortunate enough to have made the investment or to know someone who has into this type of gaming terrain will attest, the appearance can be spectacular, and the impact on the gaming atmosphere remarkable. If sufficient numbers of trees are based together, the time required to set up a large forested area can be low, as one can 'plant' many trees by placing a single forest piece.

In conclusion, I'd say if you want to sacrifice some appearance for savings in time, money, and storage space, use the ad-lib forest. If appearance is paramount and you can afford the time and money--and can sacrifice some flexibility and accuracy on reproducing historical terrain--well crafted pre-mounted forests will give a nicer look to the table and atmosphere to the game. Personally, I'm currently a user of GHQ's 4" hexagon system (pre-fab forests). But because of the limitations of the pre-fab system, after looking long and hard at the alternatives, I'm thinking of having two separate terrain systems--keeping my nicely modeled hex-based system for the once-in-a-while big display-type battles, and using a felt-based ad-lib system for regular quick evening games.