As I am in the process of working on some dudes for Warmaster Revolution, I need a bit of terrain for the game. I have tons of trees, but they are a bit too big. I also noted in my last Epic game, that I did not have a good supply of forest for that game. I decided to find something I could use for both. I wanted them to be rugged and not too big. I also did not want green trees, so they would work for alien locations a bit better.
I saw that Gale Force Nine had the Hextech offerings that might fill the void. Unfortunately, they seemed to be out of stock… Fortunately, GF9 just rereleased them in less fancy boxes! I found them on sale, so the decision was made for me.
The sets come with various patterns of tree bases and separate trees. The trees are of two types. A more dense larger tree and a thinner single tree with some bushes. The trees are painted in two colors (maybe three or maybe that was just differences in dry brushing). The bases are dark brown with a tan drybrush. The sets also come with a whole bunch of magnets. The idea is you magnetize all the tree to git into the bases, so you can remove them as needed. The individual trees have a hex bottom base that plugs into the larger base.
I got the sets in the mail and started to check them out. I had expected a bit of pimping would be necessary (I find this is the case with most GF9 stuff) and looking at the pieces, this was confirmed. First, I wanted a bit more variation in the colors and I also wanted to blend the black base shading a bit. Then, I was not interested in the new system and just planned to glue the trees in and use them in clumps. Finally, I wanted more variations in the base sizes and more smaller base clumps.
I got started with the bases first. I noticed that each base had lines separating each section (I guess this is part of the hex terrain system). I just pulled out some snips and cut some of the larger bases into smaller sections along these lines. With that, I had a nice smattering of different sized clumps.
Next I worked on the tree coloration. First, I stained each tree piece with Agrax Earth shade. The intent was to reduce the strong black and color breads on the trees. This worked fine and achieved the result I was looking for (it also darkened all the trees!). In hind sight, I should have used different shades on the different colors to help with color variation (Sepia and Reikland would have worked).
Next, came the dry brushing phase. I separated the types of trees into four sections (splitting the red and orange trees in half). I then started with red orange had hit the first (red) quarter. The next (red) quarter I hit with a straight orange. The first orange quarter, I hit with an orange yellow and the last group with a more yellow orange. I was lazy and did not feel like digging out my other orange paints, so I just mixed the oranges as I went, using what I had in my paint box. This gave me the variations I was looking for.
Next came the bases…. When I test fit the trees to the larger bases, I found the they were not exactly a snug fit… Some had very noticeable gaps and the others set up too high, making the hex base quite obvious. There were also those guide lines on each base for the next system… I started by filling in the lines with some brown putty (I need to do an article about that stuff, at some point). I then hit the sides of the bases with Vallejo mud pumice. Next was the tricky part. I would put some white glue in the holes, set in the individual tree and pumice up around the base. This took a little while, as I had to do it one tree at a time. A second watching of Superman helped with passing the time away….
I let that dry for a couple of days to start the next step. I saw that a number of the hex edges were still somewhat visible… Ugh…. I thought about doing more pumicing, but decided to cut bate and just move on and hide them later. So, I just drybrushed the bases with some medium brown and then finished with a light drybrush of tan. Every so often, I would hit the top of some of the lighter trees and bushes with the tan, just for more variation.
The tan had the nice side effect of making some of the hex base anomalies even more visible. Ugh… So, I went with the tried and true method of camo, static grass and turf! I found some dead grass static grass and went to work. I had planned to do this anyway, just to break up the bases, so no great loss of time. I just dabbed hear and there on the bases (hitting any obvious base issue areas along the way) with white glue and then poured static grass on the bases and shock it off. Mission accomplished.
To finish up, I sprayed everything with some Tamiya Mat varnish. This would lock in the grass better and eliminate the satin sheen that came with the earlier painting. I ended up spending a bit more time than I planned on these, but I think they will work out well. With that dry, the trees are done and I am ready for our next micro scale game!
- Manteuffel