Making Terrain: Trees

- By Paul Goldstone

Getting trees should be a priority for beginning wargamers - trees, after all, are about the most common form of terrain there is! You can buy very nice looking model railroad trees from hobby stores, but these are way too expensive and too fragile for wargaming. For wargaming, you have four options.

First, make your own trees. Get some foam from an old mattress or couch and rip it up into rough shapes roughly 5cm high. Then get green paint, and immerse the clumps of foam in the green paint (very messy), and impale the foam on flat headed nails. You can really mass produce trees this way, but most people will be put off by the work and mess. I've seen one gamer who soaked the foam a dark green, and then, once dry, brushed on PVA and put lighter green flock over it.

Second, buy a packet of pine trees from Mack's Tracks. These go for about $70 for 50 pine trees. Make sure you buy the trees with plastic bases on them! The problem is that many of the trees are too small and they are tend to bend and shed flock. The pine trees also look "North American", and pines look silly unless they are in a dense forest.

Third, and easiest solution for wargaming trees, is go to Games Workshop and buy a couple of packets of their trees. At $45 for a bag of eight trees, these are pretty expensive, but the trees are good looking, quite large and very robust.

Fourth, get in touch with MilSims Australia (www.milsims.com.au). They sell packets of 25 K&M trees for about A$73. K&M trees are the same trees as GW, and represent better value, but most gamers will probably prefer to just buy direct from GW.

The best way of making your trees look good and not get lost, is to base them three or four trees on a base of thick cardboard or MDF. If you have two packs of GW trees, that will give you enough for four woods. Superglue the trees on the base with enough room to place figures. Then brush on PVA on the base and add flock or sand and paint green/drybrush yellow. Remember to paint the underside of the base as well - it will help stop the base from warping (as paint or glue dries it contracts - this tension on cardboard or MDF causes it to warp - by painting the underside, you create equal tension and prevent it from warping). A coat of spray varnish will help prevent the trees from losing their foliage.