MR: Forgive me Father for I have sinned Priest: I'm listening MR: Well, I am a die-hard historical miniaiture wargamer, but recently I have srayed. Priest: Tell me more. MR You see, I have always been faithful to historical miniature manufacturers such as Old Uory, GHQ, and Richard Houston. but one day, I couldn't help myself, and well, I'm just going to say it...I purchased a product made by (gasp) Games Workshop. Priest: Son, in the eyes of the Lord, you are forgiven follower, in the eyes of your hisiorical gaming brethtern, well, hmm, how can I put this? Well, let's just say your bags have been packed, the locks have been changed, and your ticket has been punched. : Wait! I can explain! And I can explain Recently. I was in a lotal hobby store wading through the depths of fantasy and sci-fi crud to get to the tiny pool of historical goodies when I noticed a book. A book you say? Yes. A book. The title is How to Make Wargames Terrain and is published by (egad) Games Workshop. Now, normally, I would sooner spend money buying anthrax-laden rattlesnakes than to buy a GW product, but this rag really caught my eye. First off, it's a glossy work of about eighty pages in length. It has hundreds of color photos of different terrain. A typical section will show in color the various stages of completion for a particular project. I haven't built a lot of terrain for my little lead fellows to scrap over, so I would rate myself a relative novice in the earth building department, but this book answers the question I always ask when building terrain. "Am I doing this right?" Next, I really like the fact that most of the things that are constructed in the book are done so using common household items: Thin cardboard, like the kind cereal boxes are made from, and thick cardboard, like the kind all other boxes are made from, are the mainstay of most projects. One trip to Lowes or Home Depot and you can pick up most everything else you need, such as styrofoam, blue board, carpenter's wood glue, and some form of spackle or wood filler product. The last thing you will need is your favorite flocking material and some sand and small gravel to add texture to the wood filler product. The book does a great job of explaining and showing how to combine all of these materials into making beautiful terrain pieces. The book also tells you the tools you will need, which are on the order of an x-acto knife, a spatula, scissors, and brushes. Lastly, the book covers all the major types of terrain one might encounter on the miniature battlefield: hills, woods, fields, rivers, and marshes are all covered. Various types of buildings, bridges and fences are built step-by-step, and again mostly from cardboard. Several types of rocks and trees are made easy. The only criticism is there is nothing on how to build roads, either dirt or paved. In the depths of the Randles' R&D laboratory (aka the garage) I have been experimenting with various methods of producing cheap flexible dirt roads akin to Flex-terrain although nothing has achieved a passing grade on both the criteria I have laid out for myself, that being good looking and cheap (insert your own joke here about how those could also describe the perfect woman). Overall, this a really cool book. If you already are a big dog in the terrain building arena, then this book probably won't tell you much you already don't know. But if you are anything less than a master builder, then you will learn something. Fortunately the Internet and publications such as MWAN and our Dispatch are often full of good terrain making suggestions This book is a color illustrated compilation of these tips. To be sure, a lot of the photos in this book have things such as space Marines and undead monkey skeletons cluttering up otherwise beautiful terrain. For those pictures just squint your eyes and imagine the Orphan Brigode instead of battle trolls. Back to Dispatch Jan 2000 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com