TOW – Warhammer Hills Set

As part of the release of the Old World, Games Workshop released some of their old terrain sets in support of the game. One of the sets was their old medium sized hill. I had never picked these up, so I figured I would go ahead and grab the new set for the collection.

Normally, I use fleece mats and place my hills underneath. However, I find when playing Fantasy Battle, it is better to have a smoother matt to move the trays of troops along. This also means it is better to place the hills on top. I was glad to see GW made these available again. They also had the advantage of stacking well, for easy storage.

The set comes with two of the same hills. These are caste in hard grey plastic and are quite resilient. No clean up, no glueing parts together, just ready to go out of the box.

I finally got around to painting these up for my collection and decided I wanted a look similar to the box art. That meant I would go with a base tan for the stone and ground. I had considered gray, but looking at the box the consideration ended quickly.

I started by spraying the hills with some Krylon camo tan as a base. Once that dried, I added a wash using Vallejo dip. I have a bunch of this and want to use it up on terrain…. This gave a mottled brown and tan effect.

I then drybrushed up the planned exposed areas with a few shades of tan. I did not touch the areas that I planned to flock, as I wanted the mottle brown to come through.

Next it was time to flock the hills. I opted to try Scenic Effects summer blend flock and static grass mix. I often use this on small areas when basing figures. I have never tried it on large surfaces, so this would be the big test! I grabbed a large brush and started spreading white glue on all the areas that I wanted to cover. I dipped the brush in water, as I went along. I did not want to thin the glue too much, as I wanted maximum adhesiveness. The water was just to help the brush move the glue around and get into some of the recesses. I quickly sent back with a smaller brush to spread the glue to some of the tighter spots. I then sprinted the flock on the base and let it set over night

The next day, I pulled the hills out of the setting trays and tapped off the extra flock. I then took the hills outside and hit both with two coats of Army Painter Matt varnish, for final affixation. I let that dry and now I have two hills.

I must be honest, I was not sure how these would turn out, but am very happy with the result. I considered adding some tufts, but the flocking came out with enough variation for my taste. If your looking for some nice hills out of the box, these are not a bad option (especially, if you can get a good Xmas sale).

• Manteuffel