Fields are the cheapest and easiest terrain feature to make for a Crossfire game. All you need are carpet tiles and/or door mats from a DIY store.
My tables aren’t the most aesthetically pleasing but they are effective. The example is from Village P – A Crossfire Battle Report. To quote a passer-by at a show who commented to a mate when looking at my table:
Look at that, carpet tiles! Simple but effective. And cheap
I’ve tried a few things to represent fields, for example in the photo above you’ll see two types of field feature. Both based on carpet (I think), but one of which was more successful than the other.
Now I’ve settled on a couple of cheap and easy sources for fields, one type for in-season fields and one for out-of-season fields. Both from Homebase, a UK based DIY store.
Out-of-season fields
If you are only going to do one set of fields, then go for the out-of-season variety. For these fields I use: “Carpet Tile Plain Sand 50cm x 50cm”. These cost £2.79 per tile from HomeBase. Amazon stocks similar products, for example the “Brown and Tan striped carpet tiles”, but they all seem to come as a pack; in this case 20 tiles for £29.99 (USA, UK, and Canada) and you’ll never need that many.
I like these for a few reasons:
- the slight furrows are suggestive of a field
- the sandy colour suggests dirt
- the plastic backing, which makes them incredibly resilient
- they pack up very compactly
- they are dead cheap
Making out-of-season fields
Making the out-of-season fields is pretty easy. Buy some carpet tiles. Cut them up. You just need a craft knife, steel ruler and cutting board. The carpet tiles have a hard plastic backing. You just need to score this with the craft knife, using the steel ruler as a guide, then snap the plastic. The final step is to cut through the carpet.
Before I cut any I made a template of some of the shapes I was interested in. You may find that useful. It saved me having to measure anything when I was cutting up the carpet tiles.
One 50cm x 50cm tile makes quite a lot of field features. The following photos show what I cut out of three carpet tiles.
Having made the fields I plonked them in a 9 litre Really Useful Box. All the above features fit with room to spare.
After I supplemented with some others I’d made earlier I ended up with these field shapes in my box:
In-season fields
For in-season fields I use a “Rubber Backed Doormat”. Get one with bristles (Coir) and no pattern. The “rubber” backing is actually vinyl but is very important as it holds the fields together. Bristly door mats without the rubber backing will fall part pretty rapidly, making a mess, annoying loved ones, and necessitating early replacement.
The in-season fields appeal because:
- the bristles are suggestive of a field
- the golden colour suggests ripened crops
- the rubber backing, which makes them incredibly resilient
However, the bristles mean they don’t pack up as compactly as the out-of-season fields. They are also more expensive, I think they are £8.99 for a 70cm x 40cm door mat from HomeBase. Similar ones from Amazon (USA, UK, and Canada) cost £6.99.
You make the in-season fields pretty much as the out-of-season fields. You’ll need to cut through the rubber backing rather than scoring+snapping.
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Hi,
Very very nice!
Il would be interesting a picture of the same table with miniatures.
Roby
The photo at the top is from my recent Village P Game. You’ll see lots of photos with figures there.
Ah! Thanks a lot!!! And what did you use to cover the tabletop? Is that cloth or something different? I like the mix of brown and green to simulate the soil. I’d like to make something similar.
thanks a lot.
roby
Roby, this is Teddy Felt and green Spray. This is my latest attempt at a base cloth. You can see more detail on my post about Making a Wargaming Terrain Mat / Base Cloth.