This was a relatively quick, mostly airbrushed project. I wasn’t even going to share it but I had a game of Chain of Command and realized they made a huge difference.

It almost feels silly. It’s the simple plowed fields with stone fencing. These took maybe an hour of work, including setup and teardown of my airbrush. Yet they helped form a fantastic game of Chain of Command (one of my best, in fact).

It’s genuinely funny how something so small can have such a big impact. It allowed for a lot more maneuver as men dashed from the fence lines to the stone fences. It also shaped two important firefights during our match. One took place in the center of the board, with a German section using its LMG first to do a lot of harm, then to spread covering fire to cover the maneuver of other units. The second battle happened on my right flank (perspective above) around the field in the back yard of those two houses (Photo just below, it’s the field to the left).

It was also a great chance to put out my new hedgerows, seen… well, everywhere. Reminds me I owe a tutorial for how I made those. They’re not amazing but they worked quite well and weren’t too difficult to put together. I’m not 100% happy but it was a step in the right direction.

Per the fields: they were very effective and often occupied by troops. I originally thought I’d add crops to them by drilling some holes and putting some stalks into the dirt–now I realize we wouldn’t have occupied them as much for fear of harming the terrain piece itself. No, if I add any greenery it’ll probably just be small scatterings of flock to give the impression of sprouting crops. That way, you can safely put whole squads inside them–or as will be seen in my “On the Field” post later this week, a whole section alongside an anti-tank gun.

Let this serve as a good reminder that sometimes even the small projects are well worth your time. I often forget how decisive a little bit of terrain can be in shaping the feeling of a board. And let me tell you: this board felt great.