Cheap as Hexes (Terrain)

One game that I'm a big fan of is Lost Patrol.  It's not particularly component or rule intense, plays fast, and most importantly, looks cool. I love the way in which the jungle reveals itself during the course of the game, twisting and turning which means the Marines need to adapt their strategy as the environment presents itself.  It's those hexes: the game employs about 30 of them and the game basically lasts until the final hex has been placed and reached, unless the Marines are all eaten first!

With COVID lockdown in full effect here in Melbourne, my family and I have been adapting to our housebound lifestyle - I've maybe stepped off my property a handful of times during the last month, mainly to walk the 100-meter trek to the supermarket and back for emergency supplies! What with family, school, life, and work pressures, my gaming/crafting mojo took a serious hit.  But during the last two weekends, I have forced myself to get building - it's therapeutic, enjoyable, and really a whole lot more satisfying than just stuffing around doing nothing of consequence.

So what have I been up to?  One of the two things I've been building (shhh! the other thing's a secret, to be revealed in due course!) are big hexes.  I month or so ago I used my drop saw to cut some large hexes with 6-inch sides out of some old wooden shelves.  They were pretty good if not heavy, but I couldn't seem to get moving with them. I had visions of trying to make a large-scale version of Lost Patrol or something.  Well, after a few abortive attempts, I just packed it away and let it idle.

Then our Premier announced Stage 4 restrictions, so I quickly jumped into the car and picked up some recyclable supplies, namely polystyrene foam and some really large slabs of heavy cardboard.  I recently had some success with polystyrene foam to make terrain boards (mmm, looks like I forgot to write that one up as well...) so it occurred to me that I could use them with cardboard to make some more large, Lost Patrol-inspired hexes.  I had something of an epiphany: rather than building up the sides of the hexes to define the no-go zones etc, why not remove them?

I am all for building up things on a gaming board BUT as soon as you do so, it makes it more difficult to see the miniatures, packing becomes a pain and... I am beginning to develop this hate for line-of-sight blocking objects - and it is so hard to create terrain features that simply obscure rather than block LoS e.g., it's a lot easier to create a wall in a game than an attractive and functional thicket.  So instead of building up the sides of the hexes, I could reduce them!  Let me walk you through where things are at...

Cutting hexes and gluing them to polystyrene

I cut myself a 6-inch side acrylic template which I used to create dozen-odd cardboard hexagons.  The hexagons were then stuck to polystyrene foam (maybe 2-3cms thick) using PVA.  I started cutting, gluing and stacking them up, using my 20-pound medicine ball to keep the pressure on while the glue dried. I wasn't too careful with cutting the sides flush - using a sharp kitchen knife seemed to work well - but be warned, it makes a huge amount of mess.

Melting the Foam

Using my small blow torch - easily my most favourite tool - I melted the hex edges relatively square/even* and then melted into the tile's top surface to create a collection of Lost Patrol derived tile designs.  By the way, using the heat gun not only shrinks the foam, but it also hardens it, which makes it feel more like a viable wargaming surface.

The following photo shows one of my Y-shaped tiles, providing a 3-way branch in the would-be map:

No, the blackness isn't chared foam from over-zealous melting, rather it's the second part of the process: spraying a solvent onto the foam so it dissolves away with an interesting, nearly organic outcome.  I simply used black spray paint! Warning: if you're going to try this, make sure you do your melting etc in a well-ventalated area!

Seal and Undercoat the Foam

I recently read that using PVA, Water, Salt and Flour works very well to make a rock-hard surface on polystyrene foam - something that I will have to try someday. I was keen to retain much of the texture, however, so I used PVA +  Acrylic Black Paint + Water + a drop of washing up liquid.  I am not sure if the washing up liquid actually makes a difference, but my reasoning was it helps break the surface tension of the water, so better enables the sealant to cover the foam.  Well, it doesn't seem to cause any problems (yet!).  Oh yeah, I also threw in some grit in some batches of the sealant - not much, but just enough to add to the variation between tiles.  Here's a shot of most of the tiles all sealed up:

I didn't paint them all on that little desk at once! It took me an hour or two and a few refills of my mixture.  Wearing disposable gloves makes a lot of sense when doing this!

White Dry Brush

I hit this bit real quick - like 60-seconds per title-type quick.  Using some crappy* white poster paint and a house painting brush, I just smash it out.  *The pigment count of this stuff is terrible BUT I've found my style has adapted to it.  I just have to remember that it upon drying it loses 30% of the brightness.

You might notice the two tiles with big slashes in them in the foreground: that's because I ran out of foam and had to stick together offcuts.  The blowtorch melts/contracts the foam so the gaps get wider.  Anyhow, it looks kind of cool.

Adding Some Colour

I was a bit stumped at this point.  I had visions of a dying world, full of browns and blacks, maybe tar pits and other such things.  So I jumped onto Facebook and asked my gaming buddies for suggestions.  One guy suggested a lava-type effect. I was initially a bit hesitant - so many people do lava war worlds in games! - but (1) I decided I'd like a bit of colour and (2) the whole build was virtually for free, so you know, what the hell.  I gave it a go. I found a pot of red paint that my wife used to paint some of our kids' furniture a decade ago and used that for starters:

After the red had dried, I used some orange (but ran out - Covid-crisis!) and yellow to add some variation in the lava.  I also made a very basic wash (brown ink and water) and used that on the path to add some more tones into the mix.  The following picture should give you an impression as to how one of the tiles is coming together:

So now what?

I ran out of time (and energy - I needed to do a workout and chores) today so wasn't able to finish the tiles off.  Well, there are maybe 15 or 16 in total, so it was going to take a while!  Once I've gotten all the tiles to the above standard, I'll likely tackle them individually.  The production line is good for speed but the could do with a tad more careful application of paint from here.  

The above picture doesn't really capture the brown wash/tint very well, nor does the white stand out - the lighting was pretty crappy - but I think it can work.  Some more highlighting, some careful washes... yep, it's doable. I have also tried using some polyurethane as a liquid effect on some of the lava fields.  That will take a few days to dry (I did it way too thick) and I can reassess from there. 

So all going well, this time next weekend I'll have some more pics to share and the project will be close to done!  I'm looking forward to completing it, as I have been working on my own solo-supported skirmish rules for a good while now and I think they'll work nicely with randomly generated maps.  Watch this space!

Update 2-September 2020

I found a few minutes to hit the 3-way piece with some more wash and highlighting on the pathway + use a polyurethane gloss on the lava.  The results are looking really good.  Here, take a peek: