Waterways.

Waterways are not used here often as the Picts rarely come out of their box to do battle. This past week I have added four Middle Eastern armies two of which may make use of waterways for seaborne landings. This prompted another look at waterways and possibly improving what I already have in the terrain box.

The DBA 3 rule book does specify the dimensions of a waterway and the addition of beaches. The latter do look nice, however, the first waterway constructed had irregular shaped beaches protruding from the waterway which had a tendency to curl, thus spoiling the effect.

To avoid this, the newer pieces would have straight edges with sections of beach painted along the waterway’s edge. The first step was to sketch possible curvatures on paper and to maximise the amount of variation; I would construct the waterway in two sections (40 cm x 16 cm) so sections could be interchangeable with one another.  

From scrap material (vinyl floor sheets) I was able to produce six sections. Painted dark blue, these would later be painted a lighter shade to produce a wavy effect. With a pen, I marked the areas that would be painted as beach.

At a relaxed tempo this took a day to complete.