Help a new GHQplayer get started please

spooky · Post by **spooky** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 3:50 am

Hi evryone!

This is my situation.. I have made a table just for warhammer but i dont have any envirement for ghq scale to play in, its just an empty table right now.

i was wondering if i could make plaster squares like the hexagon shown in modeling guide.

Me and my friend was planing on playing as germany vs russia, witch takes me to my next question.. is a winter landscape easy to make and please give some tips beacuse i dont want it to just look like a big white blanket, also please post some pictures of snow camo tanks if anyone has it.

if anyone would like to talk to me then add me on msn (c.mases@hotmail.com)
im almost always online and i would love if someone who knows much about this game or how to paint/moddel.

thanks in advance

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:08 am

Hi Spooky:

The game does not require hexes. So you can just use your Warhammer table (assuming it is green of some variety). Just get some small trees, buildings and such and you're set.

To make a white table, first paint it light blue, then cover in white, letting bits of blue show through. Though I'd serisouly suggest starting with a summer table and tanks - they're much more versatile...

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:31 am

You can indeed make plaster squares, or rectangles, in a manner similar to the hex's shown on GHQ's guide.

You can also make those squares or rectangles out of other materials than plaster, such as using ceiling tiles, flooring squares, or cut plywood.

You will find lots of information on how to do that on several of the threads here. Try the Show Us Yer Stuff thread, and the Buildings & Towns thread. Also, check out the websites that several members here maintain, which have modeling guides often including terrain-making. Notable among the sites to visit are Ritter's, Cama's, 1ComOpCtr's, and Thunder's. I'm sure I've neglected 4 or 5 very worthy sites as well. Nose around a bit, and you'll see several contributors here who list their websites in their nick's or their .sig's.

But also, I would not be too fast to give up on the cloth-covered table direction either. I've been gaming for more years than I'd care to mention (though I often do

), and as much as I do love playing on some of the extraordinary terrain boards my gaming mates have created, for myself I have implemented the cloth-covered-table approach and it serves me just fine.

This is a picture from the most recent game played at my home. For a full account, check out the Show Us Yer AARs thread.

I use a ping-pong table. I cover it with a felt cloth, on which I have denoted the edges of an area that comes out to 5 x 8 Km in game scale. So I have 40 sq Kms in which to conduct my gaming manuevers. I have two cloths -- one green, one tan. So I can do temperate or desert terrain. I use corrugated cardboard for elevations. I have simply slided-up many of the boxes that have come into my house over time. Sometimes I glue these elevations together to make pre-designed hills, but most of the elevations have been left seperate, so I can stack as many or as few as I want and create that much more variation in my terrain. I use these cardboard cut-outs as platters for my tanks when I spray-paint their base-coats, so over a little time I manage a collection of many terrain elevations that are painted in the terrain types that my tanks are camo'd for. I generally paint different colors on each side of the cardboards, so they can be reversed and used for both types of terrain. (Also, if the carboard is left un-painted it makes a decent desert bare-earth terrain.)

For my most recent battle, I sprayed a little diluted white glue over a couple of my pre-made hills, and sprinked on the mixed flocking that was left-over from several sessions of mounting and basing infantry figures. It was a very thin flocking given the surface area of the hillse, but still I think it came out nicely.

Here is an example of my desert terrain ... in this case a US Army force is advancing on the Arab quarter of a Tunisian town in early 1943.

I use tape -- black or gray for paved roads, blue for water, tan for dirt roads. I use felt cut-outs to show the edges of woods, with some trees spread over them (it is hard in this scale to manage a reasonable woods, as you need thinner fingers than I am equipped with to move the tanks between the trees).

A good variety of buildings helps. I have many commercially-bought buildings. Most are cast resin, some are cast plaster, a few are vacu-formed. I don't have any metal buildings of the GHQ line, but I can tell you from playing with other people's terrain that the GHQ buildings are quite nice. I also have a fair number of scratch-built structures of two primary classes -- hand-made from carved balsa, and vacu-formed plastic packaging materials that I have cut-out and painted up to my purposes.

This picture is a game played on Thunder's terrain boards, using my buildings. His boards are plaster-on-plywood rectanges, 2 x 4 ft each. His boards are sculpted for elevations, and he has flocked the open country and placed paved roads and hedges on them, but not forrests or buildings. In this particular game (a Barbarossa 1941 battle), we used sand for dirt roads, and blue tape to turn some of his paved roads into streams. The factory complex you see mid-board was made from the plastic keyboard cover that came with a PC.

All in all, in about half an hour to 45 minutes I can create any European or Mediteranian terrain that I want to, short of high mountains or ocean-front. Or winter. But using a white cloth, and painting some of the elevations white, and spraying a little brown or tan for some thinner snow / mud, I think a perfectly reasonable snowscape could be made. And ocean-front would not be tough to create using this approach ... it would just take a fair bit of blue felt and maybe some 4-inch wide masking tape for the beach.

Just some ideas. Your mileage may vary.

spooky · Post by **spooky** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 4:20 pm

Thanks a lot for replying, ill try to find those ppls sites and find theire tips on what to do as well

1ComOpsCtr · Post by **1ComOpsCtr** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:42 pm

The easiest way to make your first winter wargaming terrain is to purchase white felt from a local supplier. You can make one large battlefield with the felt, since it comes off a roll that is 6 feet wide by however long you need it, or you can cut it into squares or rectangles depending on your preference and produce geomorphic table sections. You can use a brown felt tip marker to create roads and mud features, as well as outlining any major terrain features. You can place items under the felt to create hills, or can use other pieces of felt cut in the shape of a hill to indicate contour lines. It just depends on what you like. Felt makes a great beginning...

The great thing about felt is that is is fairly inexpensive, so you can make changes without too much cost...

Will

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 6:32 am

If you're going to use felt or any other fabric for that matter, get something smooth. Real felt tends to snag bases. But there are plenty of "smooth" fabrics that will both (a) look good and (b) be cheap!

chrisswim · Post by **chrisswim** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 4:18 am

For terrain, buy green felt or drop cloth that can be used in summer, then get a white sheet (flat) or felt and lay over the green. Can also use baby powder on the terrain if desired. Somewhat messy, can use with green cloth and have some remaining snow in trees and certain areas.

jb · Post by jb » Thu Apr 12, 2007 4:33 am

One thing that is really nice about felt ,is its versatility. You can make many different battlefields,especially when campaigning.
Below are some pictures of a campaign we ran almost two years ago. We used 1944 units US ARMY and German. The twist is that we used the area east of where we live. It is about a 15 minute drive, so we could actually see where we are gaming. Topograghic maps were downloaded of the area so we could set it up. Following are some pictures of the maps,the movements,the actual area (one of the intersections SW of the lake),and pictures of the troops and battle.
I also prefer dedicated terrain,but it takes alot of time and $$$

jb · Post by jb » Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:07 am

...and this is some of my dedicated terrain I've been working on for the last few weeks. It is of the area just SW of Prokhorovka-this is just the North half of what I'll be using at Little Wars this saturday.

Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 7:51 am

That terrain is looking good, there, JB!

You building that on 2ft x 2ft squares?

What rules do you plan to use for the con event? What ground scale?

Don't know if you recall from another thread (waaayyy back), but CG has used static-grass to cover up the gaps between terrain boards in some of our big battles on his terrain boards. It really makes a nice detailing touch for the big impression (although it erodes away as the board gets bumped repeatedly over time).

I expect it will look even better when you get some of your beautiful models spread around on it!

Make sure to take pics. Lots of pics. We'd love to get a full AAR!

jb · Post by jb » Thu Apr 12, 2007 8:55 am

Thanks, Mk1.
The tiles are indeed 24"X24". The ground scale is 1"=100m. I used maps from WWII and also brought Google earth into play, to replicate this battlefield. It is really amazing that this area has hardly changed in over 60 years. I do believe that that the main road that runs parallel to the RR line is still unpaved. The woods have hardly changed shape or size. Just a few of the minor ones have shrunk.
The rules will be my own "Micro panzertruppen". As for the AARs I'll try to do them from memory. I've changed the game seqeunce to where I'll be very busy for the 5 hours of play. I'll do my best. Maybe Fullmetaljacket can help out,he is after all helping to judge.
Pictures,well lets hope I don't forget my camera like I always do!
Thanks again.

Cav Dog · Post by **Cav Dog** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:08 am

Spooky,

Here are some pics of a winter terrain board I made for a historical Bulge Baraque de Fraiture Scenario.

The board prior to "winterization"

After the "snowfall"

Some close up shots of the action:
Crossroads with defenders in place.

M16 from the 203rd Autoweapons Bn

105mm Howitzer from A Bty, 589 FA

M8 Assault Gun from D Troop 87th Recon and Paras from Co F 325 Glider.

A Grenadier Company from the 560th VG Division emerging from the woods.

The VG company was decimated by the US AAA halftracks as soon as they came into view. The next installment will show how things changed when the 2nd SS Panzer takes over the attack on Parker's crossroads.

Hopefully I will have some snow covered bases by then, the green just looks too out of place.

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 5:27 am

Hey JB:

What do you use for the base of those 2x2 terrain tiles?

chrisswim · Post by **chrisswim** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:29 am

Very nice winter terrain. LIke it a lot. Seems just like the photos from 'the Bulge'.

bejart7092 · Post by **bejart7092** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:35 am

I used maps from WWII and also brought Google earth into play, to replicate this battlefield. It is really amazing that this area has hardly changed in over 60 years.
I do believe that that the main road that runs parallel to the RR line is still unpaved. The woods have hardly changed shape or size. Just a few of the minor ones have shrunk.

Really impressive terrain, JB. It looks like it will be fun to play on. Thought you might like to see the old Dept of Defense map of Prokhorovka from the late 1940's-early 1950's.

Hope it's a great game Saturday.
Bill

http://www.freewebs.com/gupiao/