Making rivers for DBA3.

Since the publication of DBA 3.0 I have taken steps to standardise all my terrain pieces; hills, wood, fields, rocky and scrub ground, enclosures and built up areas (BUA). One major benefit of the project was the storage of all the terrain features in A4 size boxes as seen in the first photo and secondly, I could easily reproduce many items to represent terrain of other temperate zones, such as dry and tropical in addition to the arable ones.

The same items are used for the DBA variants to include fantasy (D3H3) and gunpowder era (DBA-HX3).  

Rivers.

The following is a brief explanation of a river system was constructed for our DBA games; these include a basic number of straight and curved sections with short bends to offer variety of combinations. I recommend, after placing the river sections, to connect the sections with masking tape to prevent slippage; a major benefit when taking photos and of course moving troops over them.

Materials required:

Scrap pieces of vinyl flooring 1 mm thick with rubber underside (see photo).

Modelling knife.

Metal straight edge

Scissors.

Water base paint.

Sourcing vinyl flooring I would recommend first to query your local ‘Do It Yourself’ shop for scrap pieces. It matters not what pattern as the surface will be painted and a good size can also be used to make your game mat, waterways, gentle and difficult hills, roads, fields, bases for rocky and scrub ground,   

Cutting and Shaping

Rivers for DBA use game must be 1BW in width. I would recommend a length of 20 cm (8”) is best for both straight and curved sections. In the photo you will also see small curved section of 1 ½ BW in length are useful to add variety and will you help reach a board edge (Photo 2). Joined together, the nine sections will produce a length of 34 BW which meets the maximum allowed for an 80 cm x 80 cm board (20BW x 20BW).

The material with backing is about 2 mm thick. With a pair of scissors, I will cut diagonally each bank so as to slope down to the table surface as seen in the photo.

Painting and Flocking.

With a blue latex or water base paint cover the river sections and let dry. You can paint the banks brown, but I did not find it necessary.

I used electrostatic grass to match my game mat to cover the banks and later finished the sections with clumps of coarse foliage. At the water’s edge, I used a black marker to tidy up this last step.