DBA Terrain Type - Hilly

Compulsory: Difficult hill

Option: river, wood, BUA, road.

Difficult Hill

Difficult hills, like a few other terrain features, progressed through a series of modifications before reaching a final result. My initial hills were 40mm thick pink foam material, painted and flocked with electrostatic grass; ideal for the gunpowder era, these quickly demonstrated their impractical side for ancients. To improve on the layer-cake look, I scored the hills to create slopes so elements could freely be placed without their tipping over. This worked relatively well, but had the consequence of reducing the upper area to one base width.

The final model is the result comes from gluing two ‘gentle’ hill pieces together, painted an earth colour and finally covered with grass. I modelled some rock outcroppings to define them as difficult hills. Without the outcroppings, these could serve as gentle hills to vary the height, but what is more important are the different sets of rock formations and colour of the hills. These have been duplicated this set to serve for green or arid climate zones. 

Difficult hill.

River

Construction of river sections can be found at the page labelled arable terrain. If plans are to use both a road and river, it may prove useful to construct a section with a bridge or ford. These need not be elaborate, but even a simple construction can convey the general idea of an unobstructed passage of a river.    

Two wood intersected by a river. 

Wood

These are covered in detail under arable terrain, but I would add a preference for fir trees for dry climates over conifer trees. Having both in your terrain collection will prove useful as the number of armies and their location grows. 

Wood.

BUA

These may be constructed on top of a hill for which I have one in the collection; this is modelled after a well known village located in the Caucasus. I have classed this as a ‘fort’ as historically, the inhabitants formed their own defence force to beat off nomadic tribesmen that forced the Caspian Gates. 

BUA - Armenian or Georgian village.

Road

Apart from Roman roads which would be strait, ancient tracks should have a number or bends to avoid terrain features. The construction of roads therefore, follows a similar pattern as the construction of river sections. The finished pieces should also match BUA templates as these may be joined together for a game. 

Next: Steppe