Hey all, friends and I are looking to expand our terrain collection with some more 'natural' elements ( rocks, small hills, forests, ponds, etc.) scaled for Infinity. Wondering if anyones got any suggestions for building or buying, anything'd be much appreciated.
For "natural" stuff I feel like it's best to build it yourself in bulk - especially because you can make it to your exact specifications and it is (almost literally) dirt cheap compared to buying stuff. I've made hills all kinds of ways. You can do spray foam for the general shapes and then carve and add cork bark for rocky cliff faces and such or you can get regular white foam used in packaging and 'layer' it to crate either tiered mesas or big blocking terrain bits. Sculpt-a-Mold is your friend too. Here are some examples of terrain I've built: Upper left is spray-foam w/ cork bark for the rocks, smoothed over with sculpt-a-mold on an mdf base, painted and flocked. Upper right is made from cut up pieces of standard white low density foam glued together and cut with a hobby knife (for a martian terrain board, hence the color mismatch) The bottom two are mostly sculpt-a-mold over foam but with plaster cast rock textures using a woodland scenics mold. I think the building part is the easy part, but getting natural terrain to work within the Infinity rules might be a bit more challenging. With the exception of the martian terrain, these pieces were not really made with Infinity in mind, and due to the necessity of touching terrain to get partial cover, I'd think carefully about how much of a 'base' you want to have as well as how steep the pieces of terrain should be for the sake of determining when a figure needs to climb vs when they can just walk up it. The martian terrain bit was specifically designed to allow figures to snug straight up to it and in this case not be possible to stand on top, so no one would try to climb it. Many hobbyists including myself use 'pink foam' for more complex structures like buildings but really basic materials are fine for hills and such. If you are looking for terrain inspiration in general, I like the following youtube channels: Black Magic Craft Geek Gaming Scenics (formerly Luke's APS) The Terrain Tutor For trees I use the woodland scenics trees as a base and do some customizing. Again, I don't use them specifically for Infinity though. They are almost too thin to hide behind, so when I use them I put the trees on a template that represents a saturation zone, and for me personally I don't love doing that since it feels a bit weird alongside everything else being true line of sight.
This is a table I tried. But play wise it's a little too MSV friendly. When making it I wasn't trying to make a table one sided, but when I tried my Djanbzan fireteam (QK, MSV2 & multi-terrain in N3) it turned out not to be a fair to play on. I've kept the terrain but plan on using it in conjunction with outpost style buildings. Keep the natural stuff for accents and use buildings for the bulk of the terrain. I just used Styrofoam and airbrushed it. I was contemplating more realistic hills but using n3 rules figures pieces with cleaner edges would be preferable. The N4 rules may allows more realistic terrain, but I' m going to use waresnals Cosmica terrain for buildings, and accent the table with forests and rocks.
Monster Fight Club (not linking as they're not a partner) so some reasonably prepainted and robust trees, rocks, and crystals if you're looking for something playable out of the box.
@Lawson , thanks man, appreciate the links, its been awhile since I've tried to scratch build something (has that block of styrene been sitting my basement for two years...) Did not go well first time but hey, thats who we learn. I'll look through those channels and at using some different materials. HUGE miniatures makes some decent trees I'll see if i can post a picture of some of the ones i've made, if the Forum doesn't eat them pictures. @Cannon Fodder , Damn those're some sharp looking rock features my dude, fantastic stuff. Making a couple that are taller would probably helps some, as would some scatter rocks both for the ground and the tops of the larger formation might make things a little bit more friendly for nonMSV wearing troops. A big thing i want to try and accomplish is having terrain that can utilize the verticality that makes Infinity so fun, and can also offer troops with Terrain skills the chance to use them. And just offer a different visual experience cyberpunk cities are neat but variety is the spice of life. @colbrook I gave'em a look, terrible store layout, interesting looking terrain I'll have to give it some thought.
@Lawson & @saint Try bushes instead of trees. Which basically means same size than you got in that picture, but "invisible" trunk, so crown touches ground. In reallity, most of what is called tree in wargames is bush or young tree sized (who places a 50cm tall tree in the table? yeah, handful of "check my huge table" youtubers). With similarly size base than they are you get the "must touch".
I started to make some larger flat pieces to raise section of the table higher. Making a more hilly table, or make it a valley. But I started having storage issues so I dropped the idea. I also made a ton of scatter rocks using the same styrofoam. If you are going this route I strongly suggest you add some weight to them. Otherwise the lightest touch causes them to move. I took a soldering pen to add cracks to the larger pieces, and melt holes in the bottom to glue in some nuts. A pure wilderness table is not well suited for infinity, but I think taking a wilderness area and adding an outpost or mining equipment would work well.
I'd like to replicate these trees. HDF base with a real twig cut down to be the tree trunk. It's screwed into the base. The top is spray foam formed into a ball and then hot glued onto the trunk.
much appreciated advice, I'll keep it in mind. Yeah the end goal isn't 100% wilderness, more like outposts or if i can get really fancy some sort of sculpted gardens.
Gardens? That one is easy, you need lots of foam flock for leaves, and scouring pads as inner part. MDF or FPVC for base. Cut pads into rectagles, place two or three side by side if too thin, then apply glue and flock over them. You can cut them rough for a wilder look, or make gates if they are taller than S2, even arrange a small labyrinth. Damn, even foamboard, or MDF boxes like some brand sold, can be used as core over which glueing the foam. Simple clay models or old toys to make "rabbit hedge", etc. Like the trees you have, but over a different support. These ones are bit wild, or maybe the sides too tidy for the rought top. Lichen moss, instead of pads, are great for fully wild ones.
rock formations: pink insulation board cut to size, score and rasp edges to achieve rough look, top with sand, paint. vegetation: pieces from three or four 30cm x 30cm sheets from the dollar store. total cost of this table (excluding game mat): ~$80 (CAD)
So I built a full set of these but they won't load for love nor money. rocks where made using cork board, 5X7" MDF boards and basing paste from HUGE miniatures.
