I printed this terrain board… two years ago, I think. It’s been sitting around for a long while. I got it from a Kickstarter and it’s now available from DeweyCat. His work tends to be on the lower fidelity side but very affordable during the Kickstarter–I believe I paid around $15 for it. Anyway, it’s proven itself already, as I just finished a Chain of Command 2 game on the board.

A lot of effort here went into the wood framings and I’m not sure it was worth it. I primed black, then drybrushed up through a grey green triad. After this, I washed and lightly repeated the process. I do think the wood looks good but it’s lost on the eye at tabletop distance and it took a considerable amount of time.

The ‘painted’ buildings are the same process, but I finish with a color triad in the painted color. The objective here was to get more depth and really make it look like brown wood painted green or blue. Again, I really like the end result, but I’m not sure I needed to go through all that. In the future I’d stick to the simpler path: dark brown, mid blue/green, light blue/green. Maybe wash and repeat the highest tone.

P0I was happy each building had a base plate. I like the added detail and it sits well on the board during battle. The little stairs for each building and the opportunity to base them organically really helps sell them.

I’ll note that the corrugated metal roofs are somewhat ahistorical. Most rural villages would have had thatch or just plain wood roofs, angled steep to help shed snow. It’s not impossible, mind, as the material was available. It’s just not common.

The thatch roofs here honestly bug me. They’re so steep and angular that I feel it. It makes me less inclined to use them and I may replace my remaining two thatch roofs with corrugated metal roofs instead.

Altogether, I think the set looks great. I realize now I didn’t print off an extra outdoor storage shed and I think I’ll go back and do so while I still remember the general basing mix. After that I may add snow to the set. I’ve always wanted to do so, but none of my opponents have snow based armies and I do think grassy armies look strange on snowy boards. We’ll see.

So there we go. This took longer than I expected but I’m glad I finally got around to it. I’ve still got a bit of the terrain bug so there’s a chance I bang out a few more quick pieces. Just looking at my stack, I have a bunch of standing stones that would make a quick project with fun, usable results. We’ll see where I’m at after submitting two final projects and taking a final exam this week.

Never get a master’s degree. You’ll find yourself daydreaming of the Eastern Front when you should be studying.