Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Greetings All,

One of my resolutions for this year was to get a basic assortment of war game terrain that I could use in a variety of 28mm game systems from Fantasy to Sci-Fi to Gangsters to Ancients.

I am looking for:
- Basic Hills
- A River
- Small woods
- Dirt road
- Some rock outcroppings

So, is there a good, reputable, reasonably priced online seller I can get these from who has a normal webstore and the like; who accepts Paypal or Credit Cards? My Google-Fu has been unsatisfactory in my search so far.

I possess these items currently, but they are looking a bit rough and they are obviously scratch built/make shift. I just want to upgrade to a higher quality.

What size river?

Pegasus hobbies do a prepainted river that works for 15-28mm certainly - in hard plastic, and the pieces jigsaw together. It's only 4" or so wide, though.

GF9 do their "battlefield in a box" stuff.

What's your budget?

I've had good results with both https://www.nobleknight.com/ and https://www.miniaturemarket.com/

It should be noted I've only ordered terrain from the former, not the latter, and that was just ruined buildings. One advantage Noble Knight has over MM is they also stock OoP product. However, for anything currently in print or recently released, MM usually has a bigger discount.

 Easy E wrote:
Greetings All,

One of my resolutions for this year was to get a basic assortment of war game terrain that I could use in a variety of 28mm game systems from Fantasy to Sci-Fi to Gangsters to Ancients.

I am looking for:
- Basic Hills
- A River
- Small woods
- Dirt road
- Some rock outcroppings

So, is there a good, reputable, reasonably priced online seller I can get these from who has a normal webstore and the like; who accepts Paypal or Credit Cards? My Google-Fu has been unsatisfactory in my search so far.

I possess these items currently, but they are looking a bit rough and they are obviously scratch built/make shift. I just want to upgrade to a higher quality.

Oddly...the basic stuff is occasionally the most difficult.

Hills are still something you more or less can't buy unless you're looking for small rocky outcroppings (available from Gale Force 9 "Battlefield in a Box", etc.). Hills are still generally best done with one of two things, pink foam or - my new choice, upholstery foam. Upholstery foam is lightweight, maleable, can be had in varying thicknesses, etc. You're still basically spraying/painting/flocking these hills and they're generally best done in layered or tiered fashion so models can stand on them. This hasn't changed and nobody has solved the problem of how to produce cheap and awesome wargaming hills. I'm in the process of re-doing my first attempt or I'd showcase some.

Rivers...can be mixed bags. You can go with something simple like a large strip of marine upholstery (slick blue, green, or brown "fake" leather used to upholster boats, etc.). Robust, cheap, etc. Doesn't look amazing. Another option is the buy some of the pre-made river bits from Gale Force Nine if you can find them (again Battlefield in a Box). They're okay and make decent creeks, but not really rivers. You can find some companies producing neoprene rivers which are just mousepad material rivers, in mixed pieces. No personal experience with them. The gold standard is still to create your own using water-effects...but this is vastly time consuming and harder to store. I've never managed it.

Small woods. This one is actually easy. Look up basic Woodland Scenics tree armatures. They come in a variety of sizes, relatively cheap with 15-20 per bag. Create bases for them, and then here's the kicker...don't use flock or the materials they intend to use with trees...simply use lichen. It's maleable, stays moist, and is easy to drape over the armatures You don't need to glue, so you can have dead trees or change the lichen out to reflect the seasonal changes. Slap a couple trees on an MDF base and produce a good chunk of these tree bases and you're set. I'm working on some more currently. But here is a sample:



The trees in the back are for my desert games. I spray the trees and dry brush them with a light grey/olive and then just stuff the lichen in the branches. Easy as pie, and quite cheap.

Dirt Roads. Another tough one. A lot of people use latex produced roads which you can occasionally find at gaming conventions. They'll come rolled up in a rubber band. I don't have a recommended source for these as I don't own any.



Rock outcroppings can be had from "Battlefield in a Box" on occasion, or you can occasionally luck out and find some cheap aquarium decorations. You could also carve these out of foam if you needed to...or, worst case scenario, use some real rocks?

If you are inclined.. you can make your own rock outcroppings by repurposing cedar bark from the garden store..

I made a lot of rocky protrusions using that, and based on CDs

Kallistra sell hills but I don't know how good their overseas shipping is.

If you order the brown hills you will need to glue something like sand on them for texture and then spray it. I also made the mistake of using pva glue for the sand and then pva glue for a second layer of sand. That broke the first layer of glue so don't do that.

https://www.kallistra.co.uk/?page=14

For hills seriously just have a look at making your own, you know what space you have to store and how you want to transport.

even if you find hills reasonably cheaply, the postage will likely wipe out any decent price due to the bulk of the things

To be completely clear. I have all of these items in my collection, homemade and scratchbuilt.

However, I wanted to upgrade to something that was a bit more..... professional in appearance.

 Easy E wrote:
To be completely clear. I have all of these items in my collection, homemade and scratchbuilt.

However, I wanted to upgrade to something that was a bit more..... professional in appearance.

to be honest I've not seen bought ones that look 'professional', they are all pretty small and not generally very good for gaming - think the GW small hill and modular hill, pretty but not that useful.

the only half decent stuff I've seen was basically someone who had made what you would make yourself and was selling them at trade events - mail order sucks

Micro Art studios make some really affordable expanded resin foam hills that just need to be painted, but it's overseas.