Project 2mm Terrain: Update 3

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I have now done the 90 foot contour and the 100 foot contour. The one change to my plans is that I've ended up gluing the paper pattern I used to cut the contours back onto the elevations. I think it will help me with positioning the roads, buildings and creeks later on.

I'm liking how it is looking but it is much, much slower going than I had anticipated. And it will get a lot worse too because the two levels that I did are likely the easiest ones to do. The next 2 levels will be the worst.

There are two "islands" on the left side and I've got one in the above shot. I'm going to the much larger one next and build it up to its apex of 170 feet because it will be useful practice for the rest of the board. I've already learned that I need to cut inside the lines and I shall learn a few more things as I go.

Project 2mm Terrain: Update 2

So, I've spent the last few days tracing out the topographic lines with a different colour for each elevation.

Though tedious, it has been a useful exercise because sometimes the lines get hard to see, obscured by something on the map, or even almost overlapping. Tracing has let me work out what lines apply to each elevation.

It's also let me figure out the general lay of the land. Most of the battle field is at 150-170 feet.

I've also had yet another rethink and I've decided that I'm going to go with a 1mm cork with 2mm foamcore. I just couldn't find any 1mm board that would be sturdy enough so this will be a compromise of the heavy durability of cork and the cheapness of foamcore. It's going to be every second elevation line with the foamcore and the cork providing the step up between.

The next step is cut out the 100 foot mark, use it as a pattern on the foam core. Then I'll do the same for the 90 mark on the cork.

(I also apologize for the really crappy photography. The lens on my phone is so scratched up that all photos no look like they've been taken in a heavy fog.)

Project 2mm Terrain: Update 1

I now have the big map done and cut to fit my board. I ended up extending the length of the board by 3" just in case I want to recreate the battle exactly. The extra 3" lets me put 3 Confederate batteries on board, which is always better than off board.

I also skewed the map slightly to minimize the 80' contour and confine it to the very corner of the board.

I think the next step is to colourize the contour lines because my plan is to cut each contour out one at a time and use it as a pattern to cut my foamcore. This would be an effectively irreversible process (because I would need to reprint the map, tape it together, and re-cut the contour lines), so I don't want to make a mistake. I'm hoping the colouring will reduce the chance of an error.

I expect I won't be ready to cut my first contour until the weekend.

Project 2mm Terrain: A Slight Rethink

Of course, the moment I clicked Publish on my grand plans, all kind of thoughts came rushing forward. Most of them I dismissed right a way, but there was one that seemed kind of important.

The key thing about this project is that even though I may never game on the board, it is possible that I might. This means that it needs to work as a gaming board. Near the position of Anderson's battery, there's a rather steep hill down to the Powhite creek. It occurred to me that on the terrain board that the 5 levels of change might be a little steep for even 2mm figures on bases to handle. Basically, I was looking at the rise and run being about the same. I really don't want the miniatures to be tumbling down hills unless the hill is basically impassible.

(As an aside, I did a bit of a rough calculation and as far as I can tell, it's a 50 foot altitude change in 250 feet, so at a 20% grade, it is a significant descent.)

So I decided to blow the map up a bit more to mellow out the ascents and descents. So instead of going up 5 levels in about a 1/2", it will be closer to 1". As an added bonus, I think I can get rid of the 80' altitude band (the red line) to simplify my work (or I might just carve it into the MDF through a bit of Dremel work).

The cost is now I must position the big map onto the MDF to figure out which parts of the battlefield will disappear. I suspect the main subtractions will be on the right and on the bottom.

So it's a tiny step backwards but I think it will be better.

The Next Project: Project 2mm Terrain

With renovations slowing down for the summer, it's time to get back to building or painting some miniatures. So, in line with my New Year's Resolutions, it's time to announce my latest project:

Terrain for 2mm ACW

I don't really see anybody wanting to game with my 2mm figures but I do want to have some terrain so that they can have a nice display at the very least. I might even get some solo gaming in if I have something to play on. So, this has lead to this project.

Where to start

I've always liked those architectural models they used to do to display new buildings. They'd have a nice topographical levels to show the slopes and changes of elevation. I want to do that.

I've done a poke around the interwebs and stumbled upon a really good site for these maps: https://www.battlefields.org.

I wanted an eastern battle and I wanted one with some water features and some woods but also not too much. I also wanted one that looked reasonably big but not too big and with some elevation changes but not too much. 

In the end, I selected Gaines Mill, June 27th 1862. There's five creeks but only two are really important. There's some significant woods but they consume more than 15% of the board. There's between 70-190 feet of elevation but I'm going to ignore the very lowest level. Each contour line is 10 feet (I'm assuming feet because it is a US organization). As a bonus, I can easily extend the battlefield to the north and do Cold Harbor.

Here's the map:

The yellow is the 150 feet elevation, the green is 100, and red is 80 feet.

(Actually, there's three of them and they are slightly different in what they show, which will be handy in filling in the bits covered by the legend, title, and compass rose.)
 https://www.battlefields.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/gaines-mill-june-27-1862-1-1.pdf.

If my calculations are correct, I'll be running a 1/6000 ground scale.

The plan

Here's the plan

1. ✅Select the map.
2. ✅Get the base board. I'm using a 2x4 piece of 2mm MDF but I'll only use 2x almost 3 of it for the board itself.
3. ✅Get the material to build the elevations. I was originally going to use MDF for the elevations but there's a few problems with that. MDF is nasty stuff to work on dust wise and I want to minimize my lung's exposure to it. Secondly, while I actually have the perfect power tool to cut the back and forth wanderings, it's a power tool and I have limited time available to use it. Instead, I've gone with a nice set of foamcore boards. As a bonus, they're also a bit cheaper. With foamcore, I can just use some scalpels.
4. ✅Scale up the maps to fit.
5. Starting with the lowest elevation, start cutting out the hills. I have two copies of the map printed and ready to go (and I can make more copies if need be. I have 12 elevations to do but very few of them will be simple cuts.
• ✅ 80 (only in the very lower left of the battle field)
• ✅ 90
• ✅ 100 (lower left and extending up the left side and from the left to the left centre)
• ✅ 110
• ✅ 120
• 130
• 140
• 150 (the bulk of the battlefield is in this elevation or within 20 of it)
• 160
• 170
• 180
• 190 (just a few hilltops in the lower centre although there are some high spots in the upper centre as well
6. Put in the streams and creeks.
7. Put in the old roads. Fortunately, the PDF marks where they are.
8. Put in the buildings. There are 4 of them.
9. Review any existing images and see if I can figure out the fields and how they were delineated. Maybe also use Google Earth.
10. I haven't decided whether I want to smooth out the contours using spackle. I think it depends on what I find in the previous step.
11. Turf up the whole battlefield.
12. Step back and admire.