"Fat Frank" Roads

[Stormwind]

I've just bought some roads from this chap in the UK on eBay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/jefferson64adrian?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

The photos don't really do them justice, they look better in person.

These are the 6mm/10mm dirt roads and they are beautiful, I can't wait to use them to make routes for cavalry through large forests on my battlefield and to generally make it all nice and complicated. =D

They are made of rubber so can bend and go over hills and slopes.  Really something I would recommend to others looking for roads to add to their battlefield.

[xinemus]

Very nice! Like the fact they're rubber, makes it easy to run them over hills etc!

[cjbennett22]

Stormwind, one day youll need to take a battle of your whole table.  Your getting a lot of cool things together.

[Stormwind]

Well, it's not a great picture, but this was the last time I played Warmaster, first time with the fat frank roads, my walls and elven obelisks.  Not everything I have if I put everything on one table it wouldn't be a very fun game as even the infantry might have trouble moving. =-P

[Tiberius]

Those roads look great, do you use any special rules them?

[Stormwind]

Well in Blitzkrieg Commander II rules you can say that if they're column in a road units together don't suffer a distance penalty for command.

It means that if you're lucky with a high command you can bus units all the way across the battlefield...

If you're unlucky, you've made a nice column for the enemy to crash into the flanks of. =D

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Speaking for myself, no I don't use that or haven't felt it would appropriate yet, although in a scenario agreed between both players something like that would be good.  The main purpose of these roads was to allow cavalry / chariots a way through forests, whilst also making it a bit of a command gamble as to whether they would get attacked before they finished moving through them.

[cjbennett22]

I use the same "concept" of rules

If all of a unit/brigade is on the road along with the hero I do an automatically successful first order and the same distance penalties but at the next range, so -1 at 40-60cm.

I find that the risk is usually not from setting up a nice column to be attacked but usually that the roads will only take you to certain places on the battlefield and usually those places are still 1 more turn out of attack position.....most of the time.  roads through woods and other terrain is best for roads, ultimate goal for that terrain and so the rubber is extremely useful

what is the material you used for the base of your "woods".  And are they made with a textured paint?  I need to base some fences and I would really like to base them just like that.

[Stormwind]

Yeah roads are begging for scenario specific rules or house rules, just like rivers! When you read the scenarios the rivers all seem to have "make it up!" kind of rules ha ha.

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Viz. my lovely terrain templates:

I bought 1 meter square of 3mm thick MDF from "Homebase" which is just a British hardware store chain.

Then me and my Dad chopped 'em up with power tools but the thing is when you use a saw you're trying to do sweeping curves and then using a plane to smooth out the transitions between sweeps of the saw-blade end up making slightly odd unnatural shapes.

For urban terrain squares / rectangles with sharp edges are fine but for woods / rocks / ruins etc. I was trying to make it so that you couldn't line up a missile unit along the edge unless you put them in irregular formation, thus inflicting a (-2) command penalty if you tried moving them out of it (-1 for irregular plus -1 for dense terrain).

I'm thinking that for my next round I'll be buying pre-cut pieces of MDF like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201165413570

Which will save on time.  Then I use Vallejo texture paste, there's several different kinds. The "Grey Pumice" one is the best as it has the thickest texture, but using the Black Lava or Dark Earth ones save on undercoating or the first base coat colour, even.  Then you can drop slate or ballast onto it as it dries to give it a different texture, wash and drybrush it

After that I seal with a bit of dilute Vallejo matt varnish and glue a bit of static grass on.