05 February 2015

Winter War Terrain

I have been quite negligent in respect to posting on my blog recently, aside from posting AAR's from my two campaigns, I have gone pretty quiet. Unlike most of the competitors in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I have not even posted my entries. Although I have been quite busy with gaming and painting figures for the challenge most of my focus as actually been on terrain design, acquisition and assembly. I was hoping to write a post about my northwestern Europe WWII terrain project, but I have just not had a chance to assemble a lot of photos. But of course you can see most of it in my recent 29, Let's Go campaign AAR's.

I have put a lot of work recently into some WWII Winter War and Stalingrad terrain projects, there is some overlap here, but I have just finished putting together the terrain for my Raate Road campaign project for Chain of Command. I have put together some photos finally so I thought I would show it off. What you see below is the layout for the final scenario in the campaign "Attack on the Border Post".

Looking east at the border station near the village of Raate on the Finnish-Soviet border.
The mat is from Cigar Box Battle Mats. Really not much bad you can say about these mats, they look great. I could have got one without the road, but it is easy enough to hide parts of it with the tree bases. Folds up quite small and easy to transport and I suspect easy to wash. It is made out of thin fleece. 
Looking west, the border station is to the left with a farm to the right.
This pdf building is from Sgts' Mess, a wargaming company specializing in 20 mm stuff for WWII. It was easy enough to assemble and paint, I will definitely buy more of them.
The hill was made from styrofoam, shaped with a propane torch (outside) and then painted. I dressed it up with some rocks and Winter Tufts from Army Painter. The little snow drifts in the foreground are from Gale Force Nine, I thought they would be bigger when I ordered them but they are small. Cover is very important in CoC, dressed them with some tufts also.
These group of buildings are from Pegasus Models, quite cheap and easy to assemble. They are hard plastic the roofs come off but they have no floor.  Easy enough to paint.
The small tree bases and trees as well as the bases for the fir trees are also from Gale Force Nine. The road blocks made from logs are also from Sgts' Mess, I think I will need more. Made from resin and quite easy to paint.
The snowy firs are from Grand Central Gems. I drilled a hole through the bases and used a very thin superglue to fix them in place. I am hoping these are not too tough to transport. These trees are quite cheap unlike a lot of their products and are quite robust. They were dressed up with flock from Army Painter as well as some from 4-Ground.
Some ponds from Gale Force Nine. I flocked the edges and added some tufts.
A Finnish Sniper.
The pdf fencing is from Sgts' Mess, and excellent product. The entrenchments are from Gale Force Nine.
Russian Commanders safe near the daccha!



33 comments:

  1. Very nice work indeed. I like the idea of shaping the snow covered hill using a blowtorch. A lot less mess, and just as quick as using a knife. After shovelling snow for the umpteenth time this winter, I'd like to take a flamethrower to the snowdrifts around here. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks AJ, do the propane outside it gives off very nasty fumes, heat it slowly from a distance. It also really seals and hardens the styrofoam.

      Delete
  2. This looks like a fantastic board - thanks for posting in such detail

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is great John! It feels cold, you nailed it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Best looking winter terrain I've seen in a while. Superb looking table.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks you for the compliment, let's hope it works as a game piece

      Delete
  5. This is Chris from Cigar Box Battle Mats. Damn! You made our winter mat look great! Please contact me at info@cigarboxbattle.com I want to offer you a discount.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is phenomenal work, John. It will be a joy to play on a table this nice and if you play in a B & M store, you'll get loads of traffic and comments. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great looking set up, John. Clever use of diverse elements to make a very fine whole!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Peter, I think the blending could improve a little,

      Delete
  8. Stunning scenery.....

    Any chance of a How To or a Step by Step? I would be very interested in how you produces the Winter terrain and I suspect many others would too.

    Darrell.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really not much to explain Darrell, most of the elements are store bought. The only thing made were the Hills.

      The project was a bit expensive. These are the rough numbers:
      Mat $60
      Pegasus Houses $20
      Sgts' Mess Stuff $30
      Gale Force NIne Stuff $140
      Central Gems Trees $80
      Misc $20

      $350 in total

      Delete
  9. Great looking stuff! That terrain mat is amazing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Samuli, I really appreciate the compliment from you as I suspect you know the terrain.

      Delete
  10. Wow john that is absolutely stunning!!!

    Would be great for a retreat from Moscow game to with all the figures available now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Beautiful, impressive and atmospheric...that's really amazing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now if I can only learn how to make the snow fall like on your blog Phil!

      Delete
  12. Looks great! As others have said, makes one shiver just looking at it!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Absolutely beautiful table John! I'd love to play on that, but I imagine it won't travel to Montreal :) I bet it would look great covered with Rangers and Huron!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lovely table John - I particularly like the ice effect in the mat's art - very evocative of deep, cold winter.

    Those Cigar Box mats are very nice but their shipping is ridiculous if outside the US. $39 to Canada?! WTF. This is why I do almost all my business with companies in the UK and Europe. Deep Cut Studio (in Lithuania) has similar products and they ship anywhere in the world for 10 GBP for as many mats as you want. I just don't get it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes I do not think it is so much the company but the USPS, it is almost impossible to send something out of the US without using International Priority Mail. I will have to look at Deep Cut.

      John

      Delete
  15. Hi John - congratulations on the winter table - you've done it to perfection! I remember doing a winter scenario at a con many years ago where it was a white tablecloth and lashings of table salt over everything! The trees look really snow blasted but like Curt I find getting stuff from the US costs a fortune in postage. In fact apart from Brigade Games they are all way too expensive because of the post. Re the winter table - I know you're a Napoleonic enthusiast and as good as CoC is, I could see this one just as good for doing an Eylau or Retreat from Moscow!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Doc, I can see lots of uses for the table, including running a Dark Ages skirmish game with my skraelings and vikings.

      Delete
  16. This is Chris at Cigar Box Battle Mats. May we please use a couple of your photos on our webstore if we credit your blog?

    ReplyDelete