Terraforming the North-West Frontier

Bala Hissar of Peshawar

While I am painting the figures I need, I need also to look for suitable terrain elements. Fortunately, from my games of Darkest Africa and Modern Afghanistan I have been able to collect, in my home, some basic elements I can use without problem.

 

This is the game surface I have from En Cobertura (with some other terrain elements on it):

http://www.encobertura.com/

It is the game table I pepared, some months ago, to play a game of "Skirmish Sangin". Probably, it has a good size for an small skirmish, but I would like to have more modules. Sadly, in this moment, En Cobertura only sell them unpainted, and I have had a very bad experience painting their flexible surfaces:

 

Horrible experience. I´m not an artist of the terraformation...

 

It has been my main problem for a time; I need a game surface of a suitable size for different games, from an small clash between patrols to a siege, from the arid country of Afghanistan to the jungles of Vietnam, and I want that this surface has a reasonable quality. Finally, I bought this game mat from E-Minis Málaga:

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/

 

This game mat is from Woodland Scenics, and I liked a lot its colour, perfect to represent a great number of different terrains and not only the desert (well, perhaps it can be a desert in Spring). Besides, it is not so expensive as the modular terrain, it need less space of storage and it is very easy to represent the contours of the terrain. I expect to use it in this same week with a Darkest Africa game to test another ruleset I have, "The Sword and the Flame".

 

Well, I have the game surface, but I need also other terrain elements. I would like to represent a landscape like this one:

Road repairs, North-West Frontier, 1919

Flat valleys, dry riverbeds, some scattered trees, patches of hard bush and the hills, the imposing hills.

I have some of these terrain elements already:

http://wargameterrain.blogspot.be/

This is my "red fort" handmade by the great artist that is behind Wargames News and Terrain. I bought this one for my "Skirmish Sangin" games, but it is perfect for the Third Afghan War and, in fact, it is the main piece in my first scenario.

 

I have also some buildings, trees and other elements, form different sources:

 

This is a model from Mutineer Miniatures; a great quality building.

 

But I need a lot of other elements, and I have found some interesting sites in the web that are the main reason of this entry: to share that information:

 

An interesting seller in Ebay; very nice items, and cheap too! I pretend to buy some of them, specially hills and brush dots.

http://stores.ebay.com/Battlefield-Architect?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

 

A modelling service with great elements. I like a lot the olive trees.

http://www.realisticmodelling.com/default.asp

 

Another one, with wonderful buildings. They have a fort perfect for some games.

http://crescent-root.com/index.html

 

This one has the palms I need. I have, actually, also some of their walls.

http://www.jrmini.com/shop/jrmini.php

 

And, of course, for my roads and rivers, this one:

http://www.terrafirmastudios.co.uk/#/flexible-dirt-roads/4564861504

 

A great company with excellent products. I´m very interested in their animal enclosure and oasis:

http://www.architectsofwar.com/

 

As with other entries, I pretend to update this one or to write other "chapters" of this one when I have new information about terrain elements I´m interested in.

 

And now, to paint more Afghan tribesmen!