Forrest Hexes

Work continues at a feverish pace on Hex terrain.  Currently in the terrain dry dock are some forrest hexes. 

I gave up making wire trees myself after discovering that I can purchase these little beauties for about $0.35 each from Amazon and have them in my greedy little hands in 24 hours.

The trees are held by a plastic sabot which allows for the following features:

1) The trees are removable for both storage and transport (reduces wear and tear and space requirements

2) I can switch out tree sizes to allow the hexes to be used for 6 or 15mm scales

3) I can switch out tree types (deciduous, conifer or even palm trees based on the scenario need).

My standard "forrest floor" ground cover was used to depict the specific forrest areas - some rules treat a hex as all forrest while others are true line of sight - it's best to be able to handle both.

The base material for each each is standard blue (or pink) home insulation foam which is pretty rugged up and to the time you dig into it - then it wears away quickly.  The hexes are also only 1/2 inch thick so a pin wouldn't have a lot to grab onto.  I needed another method.  Plastic Sabot's!

Evergreen makes a wide variety of stryrene plastic bits, including tubes and I had some 3/16 diameter tube hangin around.

The first step is to drill through the hex where you want the trees.  I'm going for 5 per hex, so 5 holes where drilled.  I used a 5/16th drill so it would be a tight fight for the tube.  I suggest you use a drill press or power hand drill to make these.  It's difficult to drill a precise hole with a hand piece as the material doest create a strong bite for the bit and it will wander all over the place.  If you try and punch a hole out with an awl or narrow round file all you do is simulate an American Civil war musket ball wound - tiny hole going in and giant hole going out.

I chopped up the plastic tube into 5/16 inch lengths - just a little smaller than the hex depth to try and limit the chance for tubes to protrude.

Partially insert the tubes into the pre-drilled holes, put a circle of PVA glue around them and push them fully in.

The actual value of the sabots is that they distribute the force of inserting and pulling out the trees over a wider area and, therefore, reduce the chance of damaging the hexes.  This isn't a form of armor plating so you need to still be careful switching out trees but should make the hexes a lot more durable.

Once the glue sets, I painted the tubes to match the base color and set aside to dry.  After that was done the hexes get a layer of ground foam and forrest floor material.  The holes were "uncovered" by poking a wire from the bottom up through the tube to move and scenery material from blocking access - set aside to dry and you're done.