Cork Walls

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

In an attempt to break the wargaming drought I have began work on some more terrain for Indostan and have even had time to write this post on Anzac Day. I find working on terrain more easier than painting at the moment, because I can do little bits here in there as (my very limited) time permits and can generally put what ever I am doing down immediately, which can be a problem when painting.

I decided to work on some walls, tall enough to conceal a miniature and provide near total cover. I have quite a large collection of low walls, but the higher walls will allow for some different tactical choices our games are currently lacking. 

My usual go to material is foamboard, which I use for all my adobe buildings, a material I find very easy to use. For the stand alone walls though, I needed some studier stuff that was capable of standing upright. I haven't used cork tiles too much and have found it a little harder to cut at times, but it had the weight I needed for this project.

I cut a cork tile into strips then applied cardboard bricks to represent where adobe has fallen off the structure. I know the bricks can be scribed directly into foamboard, but not into cork. Besides I use this method on my adobe buildings all the time. 

A couple of the wall sections required actual "bricks" to be removed, so once I duplicated the bare bricks on both sides I scored the outline of the missing brickwork with a knife and finally tore out the offending cork with a small pair of pliers. To add some texture to the cork I gouged out chunks with a pair of side cutters, to give that shot up look.

I used foamboard offcuts (I never throw offcuts away) to act as supports for the wall and chose to place one in the center of both faces. This is all that is needed to support the walls and they are quite sturdy. I made eight such sections in a couple of hours total. Lastly I made a single archway section, much shorter than the wall pieces.

One very important aspect of my terrain creations is a piece's versatility. That is, how useful is the piece in my games. If I can use it across multiple periods then I'm onto a winner. Although pieces that are highly specialsed usually look really good, I will go generic over specific any day. I hope my walls could be equally useful in an ancients game to that of a modern one.

After making the walls I laid them out on the desk and threw up a few combinations to test their use. They will be ideal for what I want and will endeavor to give them a covering of plaster and a coat of paint ASAP. Now to make a few hundred or so more... Painted walls now HERE  (Click the images to enlarge)

A single basic wall section.

A foamboard building and Old Glory Pathan for scale.

 

A combination using seven of the wall sections...

...another and...

...one more.

A few more wall sections and I'll have a table looking just like this one!