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Hey folks,

I have been mulling over methods of creating 8"-10" forest terrain pieces for my now complete modular terrain set. I have a couple old sets of woodland scenic trees to use (back when they were metal) and I am trying to think of the best looking & practical playing way of having the trees removable from the larger terrain base.

I have seen many forest bases with circular holes cut for round MDF bases attached to the base of each trunk. So the base of the forest terrain had shallow round "peg-holes" for each of the trees to fit into.

Is there a seamless way of creating a forest terrain base without the pegholes, short of permanent attachment of the trunks?

I was thinking of creating a shaped forest base with several neodynium magnets mounted flush with the surface and hidden by static grass. Then I would attach the trees to metal washer bases so that the washers would attach to the hidden magnets. The only trouble would be hiding the thickness of the washers. Anything easier out there? Is this just too much trouble?

Also for hills: what base size and how many would you recommend for hills for a WH/40k/etc 4x6 table. I have some elevation changes built into the modular terrain but I am curious. Should placeable hills be larger than 8"-10"?

Thanks folks. Will send pictures soon.

Found this on google (its 15mm and the bases are cardborad) http://rustandthecity.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/trees.html

Looking through the after picture, if you use static grass its going to be hard to make a flush edge with the trees to the board.

You could use a magnetic sheet and put that over your base for the forest and paint it. Im not sure if the polarity of the sheet will be strong enough if you use sand or dirt over it though.

Another thing would be to use a metal sheet cut various pieces out and glue them to MDF, base coat, apply sand, and paint. For the Trees use magnets (any type).

I used kind of the same method for storing models, bought sheet metal from Home Depot and Tin Snips (cuts metal like paper) and sanded down the sharp edges and Riveted the metal to the inside of my miniatures case and used normal cheap fridge magnets on my Objective markers.

For the Washers you could cover them with greenstuff and put sand or decorate them too look like roots or other foliage.

For Hills if you want the minis to stand up as they are ascending or descending then bigger hills with small graduation of slope change. To cut down on size I make half hills with a cliff edge on one side and sloped on the rest.

Good Luck!

I have been toying with an idea of a forest base where I have trees cut in two parts.

One part is the stump attached permanently to the base. The other is the actual tree which attaches to the stump. These are magnetised together, thus making a complete tree.

When you want to move through a forest you can remove trees for ease of access but you can then put them back in the exact same space as they where for LOS rules.

If you want to make a less dense forest you can just skip a few trees since stumps in the forest is a normal thing.

I skipped the magnets, entirely. All of my trees either have nubs (Woodland Scenics) for plugging into root/stump bases or directly into permanent layouts or are bottle brush-style conifers, meaning a wire "trunk." I create sockets for the trees with some small styrene tube, which I then build up to with the groundwork. For nub trees, I make them flush with the ground. For the wire trees, I leave them proud and paint them brown. Two birds with one stone, as it hides the twisted wire and keeps them standing. By leaving just a bit of extra wiggle room, insertion and removal is quick and easy, but the trees don't all wobble with every little jolt of the table. Any trees with flat bases can be made compatible with the simple addition of a pin in the bottom.

Thanks for the advice folks,

It does look like there is some bad gaps that happen when you try and put the round tree bases flush to the main forest terrain base that has been flocked.

So I am thinking that I will either do circular cutouts for the tree bases with some type of magnets or go the peg-hole route that oadie mentions.
A good thing about peg holes for the trees is that I don't have to worry about having a smooth circle hole to place the tree into. Conceivably I could place the trees on rocky mounds or outcrops if I can just drill a hole.

oadie, how do the holes look without trees? Do the trees wobble much when placed in the holes? I will have to go compare stubs on my trees downstairs.

Anybody have a preferred shape for their forest terrain? Circle or rounded rhombus?
About 10" in size? (Citadel wood size?)

Best internet topic for trees that I have found:
https://daggerandbrush.wordpress.com/category/terrain/trees/
http://aptwargaming.blogspot.com/search/label/Terrain
http://ministuff.godzilla.se/?cat=4&paged=2

What we use for flames of war is just base all the trees on washers then put down forest templates made of green felt. The trees are then just placed randomly on them but the whole felt piece counts as forest/wooded area, but you can freely move models around.

Greengoat wrote:
oadie, how do the holes look without trees? Do the trees wobble much when placed in the holes? I will have to go compare stubs on my trees downstairs.

It all depends, really, on how much work you put in. My prototype was a bit wobbly and a bit plain looking, regarding the little 'trunklets' I made for the wire-based trees. I was using whatever styrene tube I had handy, which was a tad large, so I ran a wrap or two of masking tape over the wire to tighten up the fit. Just slapped a bit of brown paint over the tube to make it vaguely wood-like, since the conifers I was plugging in sat very low, obscuring it entirely, and anything not white was going to contrast strongly with all the snow I added. I'll go back, at some point, and clean those up, after which they'll look just fine.

Nothing, except for a potential lack of time and energy, is stopping you from sculpting bark, root systems, etc. to make your nub-sockets into little pieces of art. The hole for a wire pin is small enough that a dab of paint can make it effectively disappear, resulting in potentially convincing stumps when the trees are removed. Rough ground or a bit of flock around flush mounting holes makes them quite innocuous. I should add, here, that I would only use the existing nubs on Woodland Scenics plastic tree armatures (which are rather short, fat, and rounded) if I was attaching their included bases to the terrain - those things require a tight fit to stay put, which would make adding and removing trees troublesome. If adding my own sockets, I'd clip the nubs off and replace them with finer wire pins - will allow for a much less glaring hole and make manipulating the trees comparatively painless.

Oh, one more benefit to the socket (or magnet, for that matter) route: Scale compatibility. I have a bunch of snowy conifers in various sizes, from 6" down to <2". By plugging in medium and small trees, I can scale my forests to 15mm FoW terrain, 10mm DZC, etc. By plugging in medium and large trees, I've got 28mm terrain for 40k, KoW, Infinity, or any other system you like. You can use the same technique to make individual bases for large trees, without losing the ability to add them to a larger forest when you want.

Anybody have a preferred shape for their forest terrain? Circle or rounded rhombus? About 10" in size? (Citadel wood size?)

Mix it up, in terms of both size and shape. Ovals, circles, rectangles, etc. I like to make kidney-shaped stands, especially. Depending on the size and extremity of the curvature (more "crescent moon" than "kidney", it's possible to have models obscured by trees without actually being in the terrain - that can be cool, or it can simply add a layer of confusion. I keep mine shallower and more rounded. The real benefit to the kidney stand, aside from being an irregular, and therefor more natural feeling, shape, is that it allows you to make larger forests by butting them up against oval stands. Two kidneys and a small oval can make a Citadel Wood-sized forest or be broken up into small, scattered clumps of trees. IMO, so long as you don't take things too far (i.e. placing individual trees), the more modular a system is, the better.

I made trees with "heavy weapon team" bases, that I could then put on a 1/2" foam template. Cut circles from the foam the size of the bases, shave a layer roughly the thickness of the base, and then glue the remaining "plug" back into the hole. Leave the hole unflocked, just the base paint colour, so that the bases fit flush when in use. You can remove the bases of trees, for movement, and then replace them if a unit moves away.

Another option would be to just leave non-flocked patches on top of your outline, so that you can just place the tree bases onto those areas. No matter what, if you have removable trees [other than that stump idea, that's brilliant!] you'll have outlines of the bases to "worry" about. I'm not that big onto the looks of my models or terrain, I prefer function over form in my terrain, so the visible base outline was a non-issue for me and my gaming group.

As for size, it depends on what you're interested in doing with the terrain, tactically speaking. If you'd like to be able to advance units up a flank with protection, a narrow, long forest is ideal. If you want something for the middle of the board to block LoS between deployment zones, a large rectangular shape is interesting because movement doesn't have equal effect on LoS angles. Compared to a perfectly circular forrest, where movement has equal impact on LoS angle regardless of relative position.

Crescent shapes can create "safe zones" where Jump Pack infantry are protected from incoming fire without needing to land in difficult terrain. At least, from a large "forward" arc.

How tall are your trees? 2" tall protect infantry and vehicles, and often allow turreted vehicles to shoot over top without granting cover to targeted units. 4" tall would give cover to a Knight, without granting cover in return. 6" tall might be high enough to give cover to a flyer, so they wouldn't need to Jink for a save.

Size and shape will determine how your models interact with the piece, so size and shape should be determined by what you want the terrain to do in your game. A tall forest on top of a large, 3" tall hill will block LoS, slow movement through that area, provide excellent firing position, and make a great centrepiece. A short, 6" round forrest would give cover to an advancing unit, but not block much LoS, and probably just be a springboard for an advancing unit.

Thanks folks,

I am thinking that since I have a variety of tree types and my old metal woodland scenic trunks are varied in size, I will go the route of using 1.5" washer bases on my trees and cutting 1.5" plug holes into 1/4" MDF bases for my terrain. This may leave some unsightly holes when I remove trees but I like the idea of having all my tree placements interchangeable for scale.

Also, greatbigtree and oadie' s advice on forest shapes are greatly appreciated. I will mix up the shapes. My intent is to create a good general amount of forest terrain for my home board without intent for any one game or scenario.

Will send pictures soon.

Sounds like a plan. The nice part about 6" inch-ish sections is that you can cluster them together in whatever forms you like. 2-3 in a line make a good flank wall. 4 in a circle make a good LoS piece for the centre. 3 in an arc makes a crescent.

Always happy to help. Definitely post pictures, when you have them. Whether to clarify a question, illustrate a point, ask for feedback, or simply prove that we're not just shouting into the electronic void when we give advice, we always could use pictures!

Slow progress. Making forest bases. I am starting out with making five woods pieces, start to finish, to find any changes before I do more.

Mark out general forest shapes in pencil on 1/8th inch MDF. (I did dimensions of 4" - 8")

Drill 1.5 inch holes in 1/8th inch MDF with hole attachment. (I made five holes per base)

Glue 1/8th inch MDF onto 1/4th inch MDF.

Cut out shapes with angled jig-saw.

File and sand rounded sides.

Will use 1.5" fender washers as base of individual trees.

Maybe insert magnets into MDF base to stick the washer in there.

Notes:
1/4th + 1/8th mdf looks a bit thick, maybe a sandwich of two 1/8th next time.
Washers fit great but a little thin, about 1/16th. They may need leveling with putty? to make them even with lip of MDF.
Make sure washer holes stay away from edge of base pain to cut around with angled jigsaw.
Glue everything together before jigsaw. Use clamps to keep it from moving and don't loose finger.