Building a Wargaming Table Part 1

Recently, Jen and I decided to build a gaming table.  We have never played any wargame before but we thought it might be fun just to get the table set up.  Something to do while taking breaks from painting figures.

Now we don't like the store bought and painted terrain for two reasons.  First, most of them the felt seems too green and uniformed... in a way, kinda cartoonish.  Second, they are so expensive! 

Neither us have experience in building terrain so we resort to the web for examples and bought a Games Workshop book "How To Make Wargames Terrain" .  Reading the book was alot of  fun, so we decide to start with something easy.  We decide to build some small hills! (insert dramatic music).

So we were on a mission and determine to build it ourselves to save few bucks.    

I found a pink insulation foam board in my garage left over from home improvement project, cut it up, and sand it down.  I used the garden dirt in my backyard as base, add some twigs and static grass, paint it, and here is the result.

I placed these hills on our gaming table which we built around the same time.  The river sets are from Battle Field in a Box which I think could use some improvement.  The table, static grass, glue, and the 6' x 4' green felt all costed us about $30 USD.  Two sets of rivers cost me about $40 which is more than the table and hills combine!  Oh well, at least I can use them as blue print for  rivers we will be making later. 

Well, that is it, the hills took us one weekend to do.  We like them but as always there are room to improve.   We will tackle something more difficult on our next session.  I guess something hilly with rock face or giant boulders.

For you experienced wargamers, please give us your feedback on what to improve on gaming table.  Very much apprecaited!