I’ve been slacking in the hobby front the last month, due to a small flood in my basement that kind of put a kink in my hobby work. Fortunately, the space has now been remodeled, so I will be getting back into the swing of things. In the meantime, I was doing some light work in my kitchen. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a small game convention that a buddy of mine set up. Once I finally found the location (with some help), I jumped into a game and later sold some of my old mini at the flea market. However, while looking at the other sellers, I came across two sets of old Scenic Effects Rivers, still in their original packaging! The price was more than right, so I picked them both up.
Now, these old rivers are were made with latex, so they have all the benefits and liabilities therein. The main problem I have with latex terrain (which is why I have very little of it (except for roads), is that it is a bit flimsy on the table top. It tends to bunch up and buckle on the table and shifts too easy during game play. As such, I have tended to avoid these as water features. However, I wanted a stream set and I always liked the look of the old set.
So, I needed a way to stiffen the terrain a bit and have it “stick” better to the board without buckling, when being moved over with figures. I decided the simple solution would be to add felt to the bottom of the strips. This would add a little stiffness, while keeping sufficient flex. As a material, it also clings to battle mats, so you do not have the accidental shifting.
So, I took a trip to my local Michaels craft store to get some flat. They set the felt in different colors in both single sheets and single sheets with adhesive backing. The adhesive sheets are perfect, as it removed the extra step of applying glue and working about shrinkage and its resulting bowing. I picked up four sheets (letter sized) of the brown. The rivers had a somewhat translucent green color and I wanted to darken that up, without it turning turquoise. I took the shrink wrap and backing board off the packaging carefully and then just attached the sheets to the back of the streams. I then pulled off the top shrink wrap that was holding the sections together. I rubbed down the felt to make sure I had a good and flat attachment. From there, the hardest work started. I just took out some scissors, to cut and trim each stream section. This involved cutting through some latex overflow and the felt. The cutting was easy, just follow the edges,, but I had to do it in two sessions, as it was a bit hard on the hands!
Now that everything is cut out, I have my streams and they are ready to go for gaming. I am a fan of adding felt to the bottoms of terrain and strongly recommend it for those items that are too slippery or to light on the table top. If you have the same problem, maybe some felt is the answer!
- Manteuffel