Wargames Scenery
For the Common Man

Covering the Table

by Howard Whitehouse

In my quarter century in this hobby, I have played wargames on dining room tables, floors, club and convention hall tables, fabulous custom built things at the homes of the fortunate few, and once in the rockery of someone's garden. This last one aside, a covering for the playing surface has been required, I can think of three ways of doing this:

A) THE CLOTH. Often decried by sophisticates who have seen too many vivid green sheets of felt, the old green (or tan) cloth has a lot to offer. It folds away easily, weighs very little, doesn't cost too much --- pity it usually looks so dreadful! Ah, but it needn't. I quite often get commissions to make ground cloths that serve as terrain pieces in their own right. First off, get a good piece of cloth. An old army blanket may serve as a basis - I had a U.S. Marines item for years - or a piece from a fabric shop, I know, you've never been to a fabric shop. Take the risk.

What you want is a fairly heavy cotton or wool - avoid polyester - twill weave in a colour a touch darker and duller than you want to end up with. Olive green, khaki, something in that area. I recommend something about the weight of a pair of chino trousers, which - if you look on the back side - tends to be a bit furry. Use this side. Fabric usually comes in widths of 48" or 60", so you may need two widths to cover a wide table. Pricing is by the yard. These shops are usually staffed by helpful women who will guide you by the hand, and won't act as if you are deranged when you explain what you want, OK, so take it home and lay it out on the lawn or driveway on a day it isn't too wet or windy. There's two ways you can go, and I often do one over the other.

Use a variety of spray paints to create a mottled pattern by successive mists of colour, heavy in places, light in others. Greens, browns, tans, yellows, whatever works.

Use spray adhesive to cover sections of the cloth, then sprinkle flocking over it. This takes longer, but gives a wonderful effect, especially when the flocking contains different shades. The drawback can be that every time you open the cloth, some flock comes off - but you can easily touch it up the same way,

Once you've done either or both of these, go back a randomly squirt globs of white glue every 4-8 " over the cloth. I have a collection of plastic containers of the W. S. coarse turf and ballast (tiny stones) which I use, one colour at a time, to 'plant' small bushes and rocky patches over the cloth. You aren't trying to put significant areas of rough ground on the cloth, just a few weeds and scruffy bits to indicate that it isn't a manicured lawn. This works especially well with desert terrain, I have made American West cloths that looked wonderful in themselves (he says, modestly) for a part of the world where there might be no other item of terrain on the table.

White glue won't hold down heavier stones or bushes, but you can throw some of them onto the cloth, then simply wrap them up inside the cloth at the end of the game, and spread them out again next time.

Some people like to put hills etc on top of the cloth - I do - but I have seen nice layouts with items put underneath to shape the contours. If you have a set of green hills you could put them under a desert or snowscape cloth. Try it and see if it works for you,

B) THE BOARD

By which I simply mean a wooden - or possibly Styrofoam - board used on top of the table surface, or on top of sawhorses. I have several of these, simple slabs of 1/2" chipboard, about 4 feet square - the lumber yard sells it in standard 4' x 8' sheets - which I painted glossy green/blue on one side for naval battles and flocked green on the other for land actions, using the techniques we've already discussed. When I lived in a cramped apartment, my board was stored flat under the bed between games to avoid warping, I know people who've done similar things with hardboard supported by wooden strips as a frame, with a certain kind of door (don't ask me!) and - ingeniously - with 1" blue foam cut in sections and hinged with tape on the rear side.

MODULAR SCENERY

Meaning the various systems, both home-made and commercial, of geometric tile terrain. Unless you are an engineer with a superb woodshop (and hello, Brent Oman of Denver, Colorado!) do not even think about hexagons. Squares and rectangles are for me, and even then my rule is always to get someone with a really big power saw to do the cutting! This is because the edges have to be exactly, I mean exactly straight. 'Close' won't do, unless you want 1/4" gaps between the tiles. My own set consists primarily of 1' squares, with some 2' and some long 1' x 2' pieces for rivers and such - you can mix them up as long as it all fits. Here's how to do it.

1) Draw up a plan of what you'll need. This is important as otherwise you'll find you are always one tile short of the table size, or two stream sections from crossing the table. Keep it simple. My first plan had rivers, roads, coastline, hills and woods on it. This would have meant making, storing, and then keeping track of hundreds of tiles. Ridiculous. What I really wanted, essentially, was a terrain where the waterways were lower than the land. Everything else could go on top separately. So I drew up a plan for twenty tiles, to make a 5' x 4' board, usually smaller, for 6mm Romans against Gauls. Since it worked out well, I added to it later.

2) Buy some sheets of hardboard, 1/4" for the solid ground pieces, and 1/8" for rivers etc. I was able to get 2'x 4' sheets from a local Home Depot, much more convenient that the usual 4'x 8'. My friend Kenneth Mavitty kindly cut them all into 12" squares, though I could have had this done at the store. Accuracy of cutting is important. Gently sand the edges.

3) Set the 14" squares aside as being ready for painting. I paired the 1/8" pieces, one for the lower level, one for the upper, surface level. On the surface I drew the line of the stream, 1" wide, which enters and leaves the square exactly at the centre of the side. This is important. The midpoint of the stream is 6" into the 12" edge, so measure 5 1/2" and 6 1/2" for the banks. The stream can be wider or narrower, and wind about as much as you like, inside the square, but has to emerge 1" wide at the precise middle of the edge, That way all the river sections fit. Make sense?

4) Using the jigsaw at a 45 degree angle, cut out the stream. Save the middle section, we'll come back to that. Let's look at the two outer sections. These will be the stream banks and beyond. Place them on the lower square, and draw the stream on it. Number the pieces 1A, 1B and 1C- this will be important if you have a lot of stream! - and put the upper parts aside.

5) Paint the stream bed on the lower half. We've discussed painting water earlier. While you are waiting for the paint and/or varnish to dry, paint the top half brown and sprinkle on the flocking. At least, paint the inside edges of the banks.

6) Glue the stream pieces together - aren't you glad you numbered them? - making sure that everything lines up exactly. Let them dry well. You may want to weigh them down to ensure everything is precisely flat.

7) Paint the 1/4" pieces brown and flock them in the way we've established. You can add small stones and low bushes if you like, but avoid this if you are going to do what I'm about to suggest.

8) Optionally, use both sides of the tile, either as A) scenery of another colour, B) the reverse of the water pieces as more flat scenery.

Now you have a basic modular terrain system. It does not feature every possible kind of scenery, but is very flexible. Moreover, my 20 tiles fit stacked on top of one another in a cardboard box for easy carrying and storage. All other items - hills, woods, buildings etc, are placed on top, The one other terrain feature that you might sensibly consider putting onto the tile itself is a road system. Which leads us neatly onto that subject.

More Scenery for the Common Man

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© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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