"Do You Make Your Own Hills?" Topic

I buy hills, I used to make them but no longer.

There seems to be no "sometimes" option. I have made my own hills, but mostly only when dealers and flea markets let me down.

Aye, both.

Objects under cloth, manufactured hills, and I occasionally use stepped hills I've made myself.

I think a lot of us have done a combination of things. I've bought hills, made my own hills, used other people's hills, put objects under a cloth, etc.

I have a GW hill divided into 4 parts which came in their OOP Battle of Five Armies game. I use this whenever I need hills/mountain slopes. Pretty much covers my need for hills, when I need a hill. So I no longer buy them, nor do I make them. Though if I needed more hills, I would be more likely to make them than buy them— unless I found a really cheap alternative.

Making hills is a part of my wargame crafting pursuits. I made a bunch of hills a couple of years ago. Haven't made any since -- I have more than enough to cover my 5.5' x 9.5' table! I use them for all scales I play (28mm and 54mm).

Crafting for my wargame hobby, is a huge part of my fun. I used purchased foam hills, for the first couple of decades. I like my hills better, as they perfectly match my table ground cloth by being covered with the same material. Cheers!

A combo or several items mentioned from making the hill – or crafting the shape to go under a wargame cloth and bought a couple

'Other' – I buy homemade hills at flea markets…

Other – Make, buy, and improvise

Easiest terrain to make! I use flocked scraps of insulation foam.

+1 robert piepenbrink

I voted other. I make hills when I need them. But only if I can't make it out of Geo-Hex. I cover the Geo-Hex with fabric from Hobby Lobby. My biggest problem with making terrain is not making the terrain, it is having room to store it.

OC's right. I figure terrain for a given climate, period, scale and table size equals about two armies' worth of troops, and can easily be more.

General observation: stray hills are not so bad. Mostly a matter of choosing "natural" or "wedding cake" and making sure they blend with the terrain. It's when you need an entire board edge to be higher than its opposite, or two opposing board edges to form a valley that you need some equivalent of Geo-Hex, and plenty of it.

A gamer friend has boxes, and boxes, and… boxes of Geo-Hex. It was a game changer in its day. It was also exorbitantly expensive! My friend met the designer/maker, and bought numerous more boxes of second's off of him, some years ago. I believe my friend has every type of terrain the guy ever made!

I love Geo-Hex (as long as someone else buys it). It does have its quirks, though. It can be challenging to keep it together, when you are making large setup's with it.

When you cover a table entirely with it, it is gorgeous! On larger tables, I found it challenging: I leaned over a 6-foot wide table, placing my hand on a hill, to avoid falling over, as I reached for the center… My hand pressed into the foam hill, and my heart clenched inside my chest! I feared I had ruined an expensive piece of terrain! I am always very careful, now, when he deploys it.

Having played on it since the mid-90's, I am still a fan of Geo-Hex. It has withstood the test of time, handsomely. For WW II, 6mm games, it is amazing. Cheers!

I began by making my own with spray paint and 1" foam insulation, based on what I'd seen other gamers do (back in the early 1980s). 20 years later, I went hog-wild on Geo-Hex and bought a ton of that on the collectors market not long after it went out of production. I wanted something that looked better and was modular. But I found quickly that the drawbacks were many. It took acres of storage; it was easily damaged (don't spill or lean on it! Or even drop a figure on it!); and it took FOREVER to set up a complete game table compared to slinging those foam slabs on the table where needed (and they accepted all manner of abuse without complaint).

I sold off all my Geo Hex collection eventually and went back to those soft foam insulation sheets, cut and painted to need. Set up and transport easily and if they're damaged, costs pennies to replace. Storage is still a bugaboo, but not as bad as rigid Geo Hex slabs.