Rocks and Water
Having had the paving in the back garden re-done, we had a big bag of rock chippings. I thought these might make for some good terrain pieces. I used 16cm diameter 3mm MDF bases to mount them on, and added some flock and static grass to finish things off.
There are some smaller rocks in there, but they ended up being covered by the grass. I should have let the glue dry on the rocks before adding the grass. However, it should be fine as rocky ground for Saga.
The original plan though was to use the rocks for asteroid terrain for Full Thrust. Again I mounted them on circular bases, this time to represent a cluster of asteroids.
The terrain isn’t flat, which is going to make it harder to store and transport, but I think I quite like the look of it. It’s also going to mean that ships can’t necessarily fit ‘in’ the terrain easily. Whether this is a problem will depend on whether I want to make the terrain impassable, or passable with damage. Allowing smaller ships to hide in it might allow for some interesting tactics.
Finally, I decided to try something without rocks, but with water. I’ve had some EZ-Water sitting around for something like 10-15 years. I’ve never actually got around to doing anything with it. Since I wanted some marsh terrain for Saga, I thought I’d give it a try. For my first attempt though, I started simple, aiming for a small pond.
Starting with a 16cm diameter base, I used glue to make a ridge to hold the water in. Then I added grass to the outside, and brown ‘dirt’ flock for the base of the pond. I’d picked up some rushes from Hobbycraft, and some twigs from the garden to add a bit of clutter to it.
The EZ Water requires melting, and since we now have an induction hob, that was going to be tricky. So I ended up using some left over coals on the BBQ.
This worked quite well, and the ‘water’ could then be poured into the middle of the pond. The result was… okay. A bit bubbly in the middle, and it didn’t quite flow to the edges. I also wanted a small grass ‘island’, but resin flowed over the top of it almost completely wiping it out.
I tried a second pour to fill in the edge gaps, but this resulted in large ‘bubbles’ around the shore line. It’s my first attempt at doing anything like this, so though there’s a lot of room for improvement, it’s probably good enough for use as a small terrain feature.
To do a marsh, I’ll need a bigger base, and make sure any islands in the middle are higher so that they don’t get flooded. There was also a bit of warping from the wooden base. Note enough to be a problem, but it’s something I’ll have to be aware of for larger terrain pieces. I should also probably smooth out the ridge line, so it’s a bit more gradual leading up to the water’s edge.
