ScrapYard Armory

Salvage is the lifeblood of any BattleTech force.  Going too long without an influx of scrap to pick through will make any commander sweat.  Having a few piles of broken down beat up ‘Mechs on the battlefield  adds to the BattleTech milieu.

I picked up some great looking terrain pieces at a HMGS event this year and just got around to painting them up.  These are from Acheson Creations.  The scaling is just about right for BattleTech games.  Just looking at the big ‘Mechs makes you think of the Archer or Longbow.

Each piece is made out of a type of hard plastic.  On each piece there were bubbles and pot mark imperfections from either the casting process or the material.  I spent some time with an exacto knife cleaning it up as best I could.  The plastic is very forgiving.  I can’t say that these are the most detailed terrain pieces I’ve seen but for debris markers or simple ambiance, they work fine.

Painting them was easy.  I didn’t feel the need to do a super fine detail job since they are supposed to look rusted and beat down.  After priming black, I dry brushed the ground with Beasty Brown, Plauge Brown, and Khaki.  The ‘Mechs started with Cold Grey, followed by Sombre Grey, and a diluted wash of Bloody Red, Brassy Brass, and Beasty Brown.  Add in a few clumps of static grass and they are ready for the next game.

The Price IS Right

And now the best part, the price.  Each of these cost just $0.50.  For two quarters a piece these are a steal.  Acheson Creations was at this past GenCon and is a familiar sight at HMGS events.  Another great reason to go to conventions and skip shipping charges and minimum orders.  Next opportunity should be Cold Wars 2010.  Mark your calendars and get your game on!

I love painting miniatures.  About the only thing I like more is photographing them after I’m done and sharing my work.  Up until now I’ve used a very limited assortment of backgrounds for my photographs.  I wanted to do something different and so last weekend, coupon in hand, I picked up a Mountain Diorama Kit at a local arts and crafts store.  It retails for $22 but came out to under $15 after a 40% off coupon.

I built the entire diorama in about a day including dry time.  I’ll take you through the steps as I go from a box full of scenery to some new pictures of some of my older ‘Mechs.

Unpacking and Making Rocks

The kit comes with everything you need for a diorama or so it says.  The first thing I added was a 20″x15″ poster board to make my base.  They sell a fancy base if you want, but I’m all about saving money on this project so I stuck with a simple poster board foundation.

The very first step is to make some rocks.  The kit comes with a rock mold and some casting plaster.  From my experience the water measurement listed is woefully inadequate.  Use your judgment and make sure your plaster will pour.  You want it to settle easily without making a total mess.  Mine ended up a little bit thick and the rocks eventually came out with small pot marks on the rock faces.

You should have plenty of plaster to make almost two full rock sets.  I was a bit conservative and only made one, but I ended up with plenty left over.  You will need some plaster for later but not a whole lot.

Building up the Mountain

Using my poster board as a base, I glued and taped the supplied back boards to form a solid foundation for my mountain.  As I began adding balled up newspaper I kept in mind to leave a large enough flat area for my miniatures to stand.

Plaster cloth, something simular to papier-mâché, is laid out one piece at a time to form the outer shell that our greenery will adhere to.  Take your time with this step.  It is not a race.  After placing each piece, wet your hand and smooth out the plaster attached to the cloth to fill in the holes of the cloth.  This will help to create a smoother surface for your undercoat to stain.  Without ensuring most (but not necessarily all) the holes are plugged, the little earth undercoat they give you will seep into those holes and not do as good a job staining your ground.

You will have plenty of cloth to go the distance.  You should have more than enough to have two solid layers over your newspaper.

Adding the Rocks and Some Color

The rocks glue down with Elmer’s.  Additional plaster is mixed and poured to help fill in gaps between the rocks and the underlying plaster cloth.

Coloring the rocks was deceptively easy.  Yellow, brown, black.  1 – 2 – 3 simple.  Follow the directions and you will be surprised by the results.  Who knew this stuff could be easy?

The earth undercoat is meant to give a earthy stain to the plaster cloth.  For my diorama, I did not fill in all of the plaster cloth holes like I should have.  That combined with being a bit conservation on the water measurement led to me running out well before finishing the job.  Word to the wise: water down this stuff like it’s going out of style.  You can always apply a second coat, but when it’s gone, it’s gone.

I ended up mixing some Beasty Brown and Camo Green Vallejo paints to good effect and finished up.  The blend (heavy with the Camo Green) was a surprisingly decent match to the included earth undercoat color.

Input Green and Season to Taste

Finally, we start adding some grass!  The kit includes three different shades of green for you to sprinkle to your hearts content.  Go nuts, have fun, and be reassured you will have plenty left over to blend.  My only regret at this stage is going so heavy with the dark evergreen turf when I could have spread it thinner over a larger area.  I think it would have looked even better with more subtle highlights.

The kit includes tiny rocks, bushes, and thin stranded foliage which I used to mask out imperfections in my work.  See a seam?  Fill it with shrubs!  Easy as that you can look like you knew what you were doing the whole time.

Late in the game, the directions include a bit on making trees from the stranded shrub material.  I wanted to give the kit a full shake out so I went ahead and made three, resisting the urge to just get out some of my own custom trees.  I have to say my trees do not look anything like theirs do.  Just like the Double Whopper you eat doesn’t look anything like the one shown on the menu, you have to accept the fact that not all is possible with a $15 diorama in a box.

Final Pictures

After the glue and the paint were all dry it was time for some pictures!  I brought out a few favorites to show including one I did not paint myself but instead performed a moderate tune-up on.  After all is said and done, the diorama fits nicely on top of a shelf with my other Battletech books and accessories.

Iron Wind Metals has a lot of surprises on it’s website.  One item you won’t likely see in your local gaming store is the new Interstellar Radar Dish.  To the regular Battletech player the image is iconic.  It’s not some run of the mill radar dish, but a Hyper Pulse Generator station.

The sculpt looks stunning.  I picked mine up at Cold Wars in Lancaster Pa at the Iron Wind Metals booth.  You can get your own on the Iron Wind Metals website.

The full kit is made up of resin and pewter parts that come together to form the full terrain piece.  The resin pieces seem to be cast from an original that was made in a prototyping machine.  There are long concentric rings around the dish that are very obvious up close.  Not a huge problem although I can see how those rings would be accentuated by dry brushing.  Keep this in mind when you paint yours.

The pewter pieces come together rather easily.  The only issue besides the obvious flash and casting trim is the center dish antenna.  It is made up of two pieces that don’t come together as cleanly as one would hope.  You will need some green stuff in order to patch up this defect before priming and painting.

The dish counterweights (the round things sticking out the back) were a bit tricky to glue together and were also two pieces.  In the end, I used a wad of green stuff to stick them together.

I painted my own piece rather quickly and am only marginally satisfied with my work.  The primer coat was not ideal, but I pressed on so I could finish the project.  No sense keeping such a fine sculpt on my desk collecting dust.  I’ve got plans for this little dish after all.

The HPG terrain piece can be used as mere decoration or as something more elaborate as a centerpiece of an objective based scenario.  Here are a few ideas on how to incorporate this terrain in your own games.  Use the large base for hexless terrain games but do without on a standard hex map.  Both styles look great and accommodate large and small games alike.

• Scan the Target / Send a Message

The attacking force needs to send a message out and to get a ‘Mech within communication distance (usually 3 or 4 hexes, 6 if the ‘Mech has an active probe) for two consecutive turns in order to transmit the data to/from the station.  During those turns no ranged combat attacks may be made by the scanning unit.

• Seek and Destroy

The HPG must go down.  Give it a hefty construction factor ( > 100 CF) and send in the troops to either defend it or destroy it.  As an interesting twist, use the shielding rules from Tactical Operations (page 19).  Another option is to impose a rule where the attacking force may NOT target the HPG if there is an enemy ‘Mech in range with a to-hit number of seven or less.  This kind of rule will result in some interesting decisions by both Attacker and Defender.

• Extraction

You have a spy on the inside and he needs to get out before his cover is blown.  Your force is tasked to get him out in one piece.  Follow the extraction scenario in Total Warfare (page 260) but limit the spy placement to within 6 hexes of the HPG.

Unique terrain is a great way to spice up your games.  I’d love to hear your ideas on how to use this piece in a campaign or scenario.

It’s finally here!

After a long wait my new mat has finally arrived.  You can’t imagine how happy I was to see it waiting for me after work.

The mat is gorgeous.  The star pattern and nebula artwork are stunning.  To see it in person is something pictures cannot do justice to.

One Good Side Deserves Another

And, oh by the way, it’s double sided.  That’s right, on one side I have 1.5″ hexes for aerospace fighter dog fights and furballs.  On the other is 1″ hexes to add the extra space required for the long range weaponry of Warships.

I love having the flexibility and just can’t wait to play out my first battles in space.

Games To Play

I’ve got a list of games and After Action Reports dying to be written.  After such a long wait I’m excited to finally get a chance to round up some Aerospace figures for a proper space battle.

• Aerospace Grinder aka The Furball
• A proper Warship battle
• Case White anyone? (using new BattleForce rules of course)

The Troubling Thing Is

I ordered this mat in December of last year.  For a while Hotz didn’t even respond to emails requesting status.  After paying so much good money I expected better service.  I got so worried in fact that I made a post about it earlier this year after hearing similar stories from other Battletech players on the forums.

To make matters worse, the mat is not exactly as I had ordered.  I had requested that the nebula patterns be made blue instead of the red he usually uses.  It still looks great but after waiting so long and being so very patient I was hoping that at least my order would be correct.

I contacted Hotz with my concern and he replaced the mat for me very quickly.  I am happy with my mats and can’t wait to play out some great games.

If you have the time to wait and the money to burn, the product is amazing.  You just need faith that Hotz will eventually take care of you.

At Cold Wars 2009, the ScrapYard met with Jim Fox, the Iron Wind Metals representative at the exhibitor booth for Cold Wars and all the other HMGS conventions.  I think there are a lot of Battletech players who have heard of Mike Noe and the Office Wench but have not had a chance to get to know Jim more.  I sat down with Jim and asked a few questions to help the rest of the Battletech community break the ice.  There is more to Iron Wind Metals than the headline owners after all.

SYA: Tell us a little about yourself and how you fit into the Iron Wind Metals family.

JF: So, basically, at age 12 I went to the factory because I knew a friend of one of the owners and grew up there.  Thirty years later here I am.  I was there when it was all lead figures and you bought them one at a time and started with Dungeons and Dragons. You know, Battletech didn’t even exist then or historicals… So I’ve been around for a long time.

SYA: How long have you been coming to Heavy Metal Gaming Society Events like Cold Wars and Historicon?

JF: I started going with one of the former owners about 10 years ago.  That was the first convention I’d been to.  Although I went to a small one in Cincinnati in high school back in ’82.

SYA: Do you play CBT yourself?

JF: That’s a good question.  I played Battletech in about ’87 in college two or three times and that’s the only time I’ve ever played. I was really into Dungeons and Dragons as a kid and got into fantasy and I’m now more of a miniatures collector.  Although I really like Battletech, I just never got back to it and now I’m so busy making sure we have the booths ready I have very little gaming time.

SYA: Speaking of, you have a great collection of miniatures that you bring to all of the conventions. How did you end up with all of them and do you know who painted them?

JF: Well, often what would happen is the person who… we used to have six sculptors on staff and as they created stuff about half of those guys were Golden Demon type painters. So some of those guys painted them and then we also have fans who are tremendous painters who would offer to paint certain ones for trade or for favors. So, we have acquired that painting collection over a very long time period from various painters.  As a matter of fact most of them we would be like, yea we don’t remember who painted that.  But then a guy will come up and go “yeah, I painted this.”  It’s a real hodge-podge and that’s why you’ll see a variety of finishes on them. Some of them are a bit more glossy than others, all of them are beautiful but you’ll see different tastes and directions with them.

SYA: Historicon is going to be changing venues in 2010. Could you tell us what you think that would mean for Battletech players?

JF: I think it has the potential of making it the best Battletech venue we have ever had.

SYA: Including GenCon?

JF: Yes. I really do, because Historicon is smaller as a con and I think we can make more of a mark there than we do at GenCon because you are competing with 30,000 other interests there.  You have 33 or 34 thousand people going there and most of them don’t play Battletech.  Historicon is more of 5,000 or so attendees so percentage wise we have a higher percentage and with the bigger venue we will be able to go to them and say, “Ok instead of a side room I want two rooms.  Instead of a side room I want to be in the main gaming hall.  I want exposure.  I want this, I want that.”

It’s got a rail system right to the front door.  The entire east coast can hop a train and make it there and come for a day or whatever.  They had a meeting on Friday night to inform us about why and a lot of the details about that venue and afterward I think we are going to do a limited special piece for anyone who pre-registers and comes and plays Battletech.  And that will be their first chance to get it and they will get it for free.  It stinks of opportunity for us.  I really really believe that.

SYA: How closely do you work with Catalyst Game Labs when deciding on new product?

JF: Catalyst is a company, if I understand it right, that has a lot of guys who work from home and they connect via the internet so they are kind of a scattered out company. At Origins last year we actually took them to dinner and said, “Ok What direction are you guys going and what can we do to buddy up with you guys?”  We try very hard to work with them but it doesn’t always work that way.  They are very busy just trying to get their stuff done on their end of it.  Although we would like to work even closer with them… we try.

But it’s two separate companies functioning two different ways and we actually manufacture product.  They’re authors and publishers and they create a lot of stuff overseas.  Two totally different companies, but we try.  I know that they have some more box sets coming out and we want to know as soon as possible whats in there so we can make sure we are heading in the right direction.  It keeps getting better and better.  They’ve grown very fast and they’ve had some growing pains too.  And actually Battletech in the past few years has had a very good up swing mostly due to them.  They’ve done a really good job and that’s been great for us.

SYA: How many people have you had come to the booth to buy their first Battletech miniature?

JF: You get a handful every show because of the gaming that’s here.  It introduces a lot of guys.  What we really see are a lot of guys who come up and say “I haven’t played Battletech in 20 years but I played it last week”.  We get a lot of that.  It’s one of those game systems that is so solid that you remember it again very quickly, pick it up again, and it’s a great game system. It’s a fall back for a lot of guys.  But, we do get a handful every show. Four, five, six something like that.

SYA: How much do you work with Mark “Speck” who runs the Battletech events here at the HMGS conventions?

JF: As closely as we can.  Because he’s put his heart and soul into what you guys do over there so we do everything we possibly can and he may even help us set up the booth and help us take it down.  So if it wasn’t for those guys we couldn’t do this.

SYA: Speaking of convention support, you have been giving great support in the form of product coupons, how have those been working out for you?

JF: I think they work pretty well.  For instance this morning we had a kid who obviously played in one of the games over there and he came over and bought a fantasy piece.  So there is a lot of cross over gaming and I think it works very well. It really does.

SYA: Is there any recent work being put into the Iron Winds of War game?

JF: That game itself is a stand alone game system where you can plug any figures into it you want.  So the work is mostly done on that. We spend about 99% of our time making ‘Mechs.  Between casting them and producing them and packing them and shipping them, we spend about 105% of our time. We are always behind.  I encourage anyone who can visit Cincinnati to visit the factory to see what we really do and see how much much work goes into it.  It’s a craft really.  We make 100% of this product right here in the United States. Hand made, hand packaged, hand shipped.  It’s pretty cool to see it.  It takes a lot of time and effort so there is not a lot of time being spent on some of the other things we’d like to do.

SYA: Was that a real offer to visit the IWM factory?  How would that work?

JF: Yeah, well you would want to email them first because their schedules are real mixed up.  They work a lot of weekends but not all weekends so it’s a hodge podge and they have a lot of part time people so some of them work funny hours.  But yeah, you can contact them.

SYA: I see that most of the resin products have sold out already. [Pointing to the empty shelf where boxes of radar dishes and drop ships were just the day before.]

JF: They just came in.  We don’t manufacture any resin.  It’s a whole different technology so we have somebody that we contract that with and the first order; twelve dropships came in two weeks ago so we go, “Ok, we can’t even announce they are here.”  Then another 24 came in last week so right before [Cold Wars 2009] Mike Noe came to me and asked if I wanted to take some. So I brought a limited amount to the show here and of course they’re gone.  They’re beautiful. I brought eight radar dishes in and actually most of those got sold to people who aren’t Battletech players.  They are just so cool that guys were like, “yeah, I got to have one of those.”  We are going to continue to add to the resin line for more things like the radar dish.  More generic things that crossover. They are just such pretty pieces.

SYA: Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time.

Hex maps in 3D provide the best of both worlds.  The attractive looks of 3D terrain meets the simplicity of map sheet rules.  I always have fun building maps with my good friend and fellow contributor Saxywolf.  Last weekend we had a go at building an iconic map from the Solaris 7 MapPack.

King of the Mountain is a map that just screams to be in 3D.  It was a pleasure to build and I just love the results.  Read on to see how all the bits of foam came together as we built this great looking map.

Materials List

• Pink insulation foam
• Hex paper and pins
• Hot wire foam cutter
• Apple Barrel Paints (Brown and Black)
• Paint brushes
• Elmers glue
• Woodland Scenics Medium Ballast
• Poster board (40 x 30)
• Various shades of spray paint
• Woodland Scenics Realistic Water
• Miscellaneous ground cover (static grass, flock, rock debris, foliage)

Planning the Map

We made ample use of paper templates to help us mark what we needed to cut.  Each level is it’s own cut of foam, so getting them right was important to keep the map accurate.

We chose to use 2″ hexes for our map to give our miniatures a little extra breathing room on the battlefield.

Here at the ScrapYard we use large format paper printouts to make cut-outs for the large level 0, level 1, and level 2 terrain.  If you don’t have such a luxury don’t fret.  Standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheets  work just as well with a little patience and a lot of scotch tape.

Once you have your paper templates ready, use a few pins to attach them to your foam.

Cutting the Foam

You are going to need a Hot Foam Cutter of some kind for this task.  You can get one from any respectable model railroad store.  We made use of a system from Hot Wire Foam Factory and it worked great.  Whatever tool you end up using, make sure you use as thin a wire as you can get away with.  The thinner the wire, the less stringy strands will result from your cuts making them faster and more accurate.

Use your templates as a guide and cut out all of your levels.  Depending on how many levels and the complexity of the shapes you are making, this may take a while.  If it was easy, it wouldn’t be nearly as cool.

Shaping the Foam

Shaping the edge of your foam will give it an authentic look.  We don’t see ninety degree angle cliff faces in nature and your hills shouldn’t either.

First things first, lay out your levels on top of each other as they will fit when they are attached.  Look at the level changes and mark those that are more than one level high.  You are going to shape the single elevation edges first.  Once you have multiple levels glued together you will then shape the two and three level change faces.  See the picture for a sample of what I’m talking about.

Use your hot foam tool of choice and work across the surface with a wavy pattern.  Use a piece of scrap foam before you start on the real thing if you are unsure of the technique.  Once you do it yourself and see the results, it will become obvious how to get a simple yet effective result.  After only a few edges you will be a pro.

As we shaped the foam we glued levels together.  Once the glue had a chance to set we shaped the two and three level cliff faces.  At this point though, we did NOT glue the level 0 terrain to the rest.  It was kept separate for reasons described below.  Keep on reading!

Base Coating

Base coating provides your terrain protection from the spray paint you are going to apply later.   We use Apple Barrel paint because it is cheap and easy to work with Acrylic based paint.  It covers well and seals the foam so we can apply spray paint later on.

Wait for this base coat to dry for a few hours and go over it again to make sure you have hit all of the nooks and crannies. Depending on how detailed your edges are you are going to want to make sure the whole piece is covered.

Putting It All Together

Our base is a large (40″ x 30″) poster board we got at Staples.  We glued only the level 0 terrain to the board.

One of the issues that we have found on previous maps was warping of the poster board over time.  When you are gluing two different materials together like we are, you are bound to notice a bow or sag to your map as the poster board flexes under your foam.  This is unavoidable unfortunately.  We have thought of some methods to stiffen up the construction but all of them would inevitably lead to a heavier and bulkier map.  One of the major advantages of using foam and poster board is how light and transportable they are.

As a mitigation we glue only the first level of terrain to the board.  Anything level one and above gets glued together but not to the level 0 you glued to the poster board.  What you end up with is a board with removable terrain features.  Not only does this result in less warping but also make the board much easier to transport and store.

Adding Some Texture

Break out the Elmers and make sure you have a lot of it to spare.

In order to make our map look as good as it can we base the top part of our foam with a medium railroad ballast to give it a proper texture.  Using a foam brush we spread a healthy amount of Elmers glue onto our terrain.  Once the glue is down we sprinkle liberally with our gravel texture.

After all of your terrain is covered, give the last layer about five minutes before flipping it upside down to get off the gravel that didn’t stick.  I hope you have some sort of large paper underneath to catch the excess.  We dumped it on the poster board, brushed it onto a piece of paper and poured it back into the container.  You will be using less gravel than you think.  Make sure you don’t waste what comes off during this step.

Make sure you give this step as much time to dry as you can.  Excess glue can leach into the base coat of paint making your foam potentially vulnerable to spray paints until the whole thing has time to dry and set completely.

Painting

We took all of our terrain outdoors for a whole lot of spray paint.

There certainly is an art to doing this well.  I have to give all of the props to Saxywolf for an amazing job choosing colors and blending them together just right to give us the colors you see on the final map.  He made clever use of some of the leftover paper templates to cover up portions of the map when applying the last colors on the acid moat and then touching up the brown by covering the acid moat.  If you can wait for a day with no wind, you will not have to keep re-spraying to touch areas up. To blend the the entire map together a bit more, he used a mid-tone color from farther away.

Take your time and you’ll do fine.  If you happen to feel overwhelmed, use another piece of scrap foam (properly base coated with Apple Barrel paint) to try out some of the colors you intend to use.

Water Effects
To add a little extra to the acid moat we used a pourable realistic water effect from Woodland Scenics.  Even after drying overnight the water wasn’t completely cured.  Keep this in mind as you plan as the stuff becomes very tacky and will catch anything that gets near including flock and static grass that you may want to add in the last steps.  I’d advise you cover it very well and give it extra time to dry.

Adding the Details

Hex delineation is important for these 3D maps.  We are still relying on hexes for range and line of sight after all.  In previous maps we used a sharpie to put a dot where individual hexes were not easily seen.  For King of the Mountain we tried something a little different.  We used little bits of terrain, rocks, static grass, and foliage to mark the hexes providing character and functionality in one swing.

Here are a few shots of the finished product.  We managed to build this map start to finish in one weekend.  Between each step that required substantial dry time we played a few games of Battletech.  Nothing like smashing ‘Mechs while you wait for the Elmers to dry.  If you look closely you can see the dark brown base remains unattached to the mountain in the middle.

Sometimes a mapsheet just looks bland and boring.  Perhaps it’s time to branch out and try some Battletech miniatures rules.  Or maybe, all you really need is a little visual appeal to add to those maps to bring them to life.

Here at the ScrapYard we’ve gone to great lengths to come up with custom trees for our Battletech games.  You’ve probably already seen some finished ones in the background of recent pictures.  Here is a detailed view of how we did it and how you can make your own.

MATERIALS LIST

• 26 gauge bare wire (Craft store like Michael’s)
• Wire Cutters
• Super Glue (Gap Filling, 5-10 sec drying time)
• Elmers Glue
• Epoxy (5-Minute Epoxy is available in many craft or hobby stores)
• Corks, top of box, pins OR tape, piece of cardboard
• Primer (Spray paint is easier, but brush-on is ok too)
• Brown Paint (Again spray paint is easier.  Different shades if you want different color tree bark.)
• Washers
• Black felt (Craft store like Michael’s)
• Shades of Clump Foliage
• Shades of Fine Turf

Cut Your Wires To Length [pic 1]

Cut between 18-30 wires 2.75″ to 3.25″ in length.  Varying the length will give you different tree heights, while the number of wires effects the thickness of the tree and the number of branches.  Too few wires and it starts to look patchy, and much more and you need a thinner wire or it becomes difficult to twist and makes the wire texture harder to cover.  Just remember that the roots use up about 1/2″ of the wire length.

Twist the Tree Trunk [pic 2]

With all the wires together, twist a portion of the wire approximately 1/2″ from one end.  Let them splay a little as you squeeze them when twisting as this makes it easier (and possible) to twist them around each other.

Superglue the wires at the twisted location so it doesn’t fall apart while twisting the rest of the tree.  Don’t add too much as you don’t want to drip or run down the wire and end up gluing other sections of wire together.  It will need extra time to dry as it need to fill gaps rather then just hold two surfaces together.  If you can hold the tree twisted tightly for a few seconds without gluing yourself to it, it will dry faster.

Twist the Roots and Branches [pic 3]

Twist 3 or 4 groups about 1/2″  from the end to make roots.

Twist all the tree branches.  I usually just do it in a semi-random pattern.  Often the lower branches stick way out as they do on the right of tree 4 [pic 4].  You can either clip them, or twist them into a loop [pic 5] which allows you to attach a bit more greenery.  Twisting at least two wires nearly to the end makes them stronger.  Remember that it’s the clump foliage that gives the tree volume, not individual wires.

Superglue all the main branches for added strength and stability before moving on.

Smooth Out the Wire Texture [pic 6]

To avoid getting glue on your fingers try gluing your trees to a cork [pic 9], popsicle stick, or even a scrap piece of cardboard.

Carefully coat the tree with Elmers.  Wait till it dries and repeat.  I use a toothpick and spread it all around as it dries. You are trying to smooth out the spiraling wire groups so it looks more like a real tree and not a twist of wires.

Take a Break From the Tree to Make the Base

Spray paint your tree base, in our case a metal washer [pic 7], with black primer.

Once the primer has dried, glue the washer to a piece of black felt [pic 9 at left] with Elmers.  You can use superglue if you want it to dry faster, but it will soak into the felt so quickly that it will leave a residue on whatever is underneath the felt while it dries. Once the felt is secure cut out the base from the rest of the felt.

Fill in the washer with something cheap.  Epoxy is ok, but not as cheap as old putty, tightly folded newspaper, scrap cardboard, or anything else cheap so you don’t end up filling it with more expensive and loose turf.

Time to Paint and Add the Leaves

Spray on a primer (we used white) followed by the desired main color [pic 9 at right].

Once the paint on the tree is dry it is time to attach the tree to the base.  Mix some epoxy (thoroughly!) on a piece of cardboard or index card.  Apply blobs to the roots and set on the washer. I use epoxy when gluing a wire tree down because superglue has a hard time holding unless one surface is pressed flat against the other and the roots don’t have much surface area to glue down.

Superglue Clump Foliage to the ends of the branches, and maybe a few smaller pieces further toward the trunk.

Coat the base in whatever mixtures of turf you want and your tree is finished and ready for the battlefield.

Some Pitfalls to Avoid

To the right you can see what happens when you don’t mix epoxy in equal proportions.  The epoxy will never harden. To avoid this, squeeze the epoxy in equal portions onto an index card, and mix it with a toothpick.  This allows you to mix in less of one part if you put too much of it on the card and when you use the toothpick to move it from the index card, you only grab the well mixed portion.  I tried mixing it right on the base.

The copper wire pine tree to the right is a good example of what a tree looks like when you have many many branches and a very thin wire.  It bends so easily it gets deformed a lot.  I won’t bother trying to make anything of it.

Since these battles take place on a multitude of planets, environments, and seasons, feel free to use and mix all sorts of wild colors/shapes/turf, etc.

I prefer my Heavy vs Light Woods to be clear.  You can use Forest Green (its darker then Dark Green; almost black) and/or multiple trees of differing heights on a single base to represent heavy woods.
You can use course turf/bush clump vs fine turf to differentiate between open and woods on the map itself when the trees aren’t on that particular hex.

To celebrate the release of Strategic Operations, and the included advanced aerospace rules, I took a bit of time to make two deep space maps using a combination of GIMP and Heavy Metal Map.

I’ve included each map in three different formats depending on your needs/wants.  The first is a PDF for printing on your normal everyday printer (8 1/2 x 11).  Also included are both High and Low resolution JPEGs.

Please let me know if a different hex color would work better. I’m open to suggestions to improve!

ScrapYardArmory – Deep Space Map 01

Printable PDF (1.27MB)

Low Resolution JPEG (2.47MB)

High Resolution JPEG (7.71MB)

ScrapYardArmory  – Deep Space Map 02

Printable PDF (1.55MB)

Low Resolution JPEG (2.70MB)

High Resolution JPEG (8.53MB)

A company I have never heard of before, Fat Dragon Games, has released a paper terrain product meant exclusively for the Classic Battletech game.  They even use a CBT miniature in their previews online.  (Kudos to the first comment that identifies the ‘Mech!)

And they expect us to pay $11.99 for it.  The kit includes 8 city buildings, a ‘Mech hanger, a static defense turret, storage tanks, generators, satellite dishes, fire template, and city scape tiles with and without hexes.

I am not sure if they are aware of the wide assortment of card stock terrain templates already available for free courtesy of the CBT community.  See the forum post for more.

If the quality is good enough I am sure there will be a few sales for them in the future.  Honestly I am glad to see third party vendors making products for our little niche of a game.  It is a good sign and positive attention for us.  I’ve bookmarked their site to keep tabs on further releases.

If I were to give them any advice, I would try running with the map tile idea.  Honestly the only competition in that field would be Heavy Metal Map which is not the map making dynamo that I had expected when I purchased it a year ago.