A River Runs Through It - Making River Terrain

 

The Coa River and the Santiago Monastery, built by me.

I finished making river sections for the main table of my game at this year's Fall In convention in Lancaster, PA  Fall In Convention web site.  November 7-9 2025 at the Wyndham Resort and Convention Center in Lancaster, PA. (This is the hotel that used to be called The Host). Click on this link  to get to the convention's home page so that you can register for the show and make reservations for the games via the Table Top Events app.

First things first: 

I need some of my followers (you) to sign up for my Friday morning game (see below) because, so far, nobody has signed up for the game. If you plan on attending the convention then I would be most grateful if you would sign up for one of my games. Each game has 8 tickets or player slots. I can run the games with 2 or 3 people since I can then step in and play multiple commands to facilitate the game.

Each game is a Napoleonic skirmish game set in Spain during the Peninsular War and feature the exploits of Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men against the Forces of Evil, notably Pierre Ducos, Obadiah Hakeswell, and Colonel Henry Simmerson.

Click on the links in blue, for each game below, and sign up for one of my games. I have made some terrific bespoke terrain boards for the game and have painted a number of 40mm figures from Sash and Saber and Perry Miniatures.

Sharpe's Treasure sign up Event number 528 at Friday 10AM (8 of 8 tickets available)

It's 1810 and Napoleon has conquered most of Spain. Captain Richard Sharpe and Sgt Harper must find and retrieve the Sword of Santiago before Napoleon's spy, Pierre Ducos finds it. Legend has it that the bearer of the sword will unite the people of Spain and drive out the invaders of Spain. So Sharpe and his Chosen Men of the 95th Rifles find themselves in a race against time to find the Sword of Santiago before it falls into the hands of the French. This is a Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Bridge - Battle of the Coa River Event number 441 at Friday 7PM (5 of 8 available)

Crawford's British Light Division has made a fighting retreat across the Coa River Bridge, but just barely. However, somebody forgot to give Richard Sharpe the order to retreat. Was the lost order the work of French master spy Pierre Ducos? We will find out. Now Sharpe and his Chosen Men must fight for their lives to reach the safety of the Coa Bridge. Help Sharpe escape in this Napoleonic skirmish game.

Sharpe's Rescue   Event number 527 at 10AM Saturday  (3 of 8 available)

Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men must rescue Lady Farthingdale, who is held hostage by a renegade army of British and French deserters under the command of Sharpe's mortal enemy: Sgt. Obadiah Hakeswell. Lady Farthingdale is the wife of an important British diplomat and the heat is on Lord Wellington to find her. Wellington turns to his only hope:Richard Sharpe. The hostages are being held at a remote mountain village where all sorts of dangers await the rescuers. Napoleonic skirmish game.

Making River Sections

The river sections were fairly easy to make. I use cork-backed place mats the measure about 12" by 16" and I cut these in have to get two 12" long by 8" wide pieces of cork board. Next I spray some tan primer on the boards. After that, I draw the outline of the river on each piece, making sure that they all enter/leave the center point of the cork board. This way, the river section water will line up with any of the boards that I make.

Moving on, the water parts of the river are painted black and then dark green on top of the black. Some lighter green color can be used along the edges of the river bank to denote shallower waters than in the center of the board.

Next, I spread a mix of wall board paste and tan paint over the surface of the board, but take care not get any of the goop on the water sections. While the goop is still wet, I sprinkle some fine Woodlands Scenics railroad gravel on top of the goop. Now I let the boards dry overnight.

Now I dry brush several different layers of paint that is lighter than the underlying tan primer.

Note that the final step of the river section boards will be glossing up the water. This is because you don't want any of the fine gravel, dust or other bits of material falling into the water piece and mucking up the surface of the water. I used two or three coats of Mod Podge on the water parts, letting each coat of the material dry before applying the next coat. I use a small craft brush (ten to a bag for about $3.00 at Michael Stores) to brush the Mod Podge onto the water. This produces a moderate amount of gloss on the water that almost looks like water when you look at it.

The final touch is to find a bunch of rocks and spread them along the banks of the river. I do not glue the rocks to the terrain river board. When the game is over, I just scoop up all of the rocks and put them in a metal gallon pail, which makes them easy to carry around.

If you want to add some tall grass or reeds along the river bank, then do this after you have dry brushed the river board. I use a sisal door mat and cut off small bits of the fiber. I dip the strands of fiber into a small pot of green paint. The fibers suck up the green paint so as to make them green. The pieces are then glued to the board using two-part epoxy glue.

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Taking it to the next level

 

Peninsula terrain boards and the Monastery of Santiago for my 40mm skirmish games.

I have been busy as a beaver working on the Spanish terrain boards and terrain ground clutter pieces and I am nearing the end of the construction phase of the project (or at least as far as I can foresee). Recent terrain additions include some vineyards, an olive grove and a mount to place the monastery in the Sharpe games.

I decided that the Monastery of Santiago, the center piece of my terrain, needed to be elevated a bit more to make it truly stand out, so I cut off a chunk of 2-inch thick pink foam insulation board and carved out some steps and  ramps to provide access to the monastery.

Front view of the monastery and the dual entrance ramps.

The church has a back door so I had to have an access point at the rear of the building.
When I elevated the buildings on a 2-inch thick slab of foam board, I was able to carve
some steps into the raised base. Rocks were scored into the foam with a ball point BIC pen
and then painted various shades of grey to simulate stonework.

A view of the raised monastery cited on the far side of the Coa River crossing.
The sides of the raised base will have bark nuggets glued on and painted to match
the stone inside of the river gorge. The driveway still needs some dry brushing and highlights.

This picture depicts the Coa River, but it also shows the monastery layout before I 
decided to raise the buildings two inches higher. On the far back table on the right a 
new board is a work in progress- the pink insulation foam has been painted a dark
brown undercoat color.

A close up view of the vineyards.

NEXT:

Now I have to turn my attention to the construction of some river sections to place inside the river gorge. I have cut up some cork placemats and given them a coating of tan primer. Then the water will be painted onto the boards using black paint and dark green paint; then the ground gets covered with wallboard paste and all other dry brushing work gets done. Finally, a gloss coating of either gloss spray on primer or Mod Podge will cover the water to give it a shiny shimmering water effect. This step must be done last, otherwise bits of sand and dust will get on the gloss surface and stick - this doesn't look good.

THE BOTS ARE GONE?

The bots disappeared at the beginning of October and now my viewer count is deemed more accurate with respect to the number of visitors and page views that each blog entry is getting. The previous entry currently has around 350 views compared to 15,000 views for several of the September postings. I hope that this is the last of the bots for awhile.

In closing, here are two pictures of the Perry 40mm British light infantry company of the South Essex Regiment.

Peninsula War Terrain Boards are Finished; or Are They?

 

Vineyards for my 40mm Peninsula War terrain

Click on the Pix to enlarge

I have been very busy making terrain boards for my 40mm Richard Sharpe games at this year's Fall In Convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania  Fall In link November 7th through 9th. I will be running three Napoleonic Peninsula War skirmish games featuring Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men. My games will be on Friday morning, Friday evening and Saturday morning of the convention.

I finished construction of two vineyards the other day, using the "how to do it" instructions from Pat Smith's "Setting the Scene" books. Pat's instructions are easy to follow and even easier to build and I highly recommend the book.

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Another view of the vineyards, now populated with some 40mm Sash and Saber Spanish Guerillas.

The deep gorge of the Coa River in Spain

40mm French fusiliers passing under a mountainous bridge

View of the entire 15 by 6 feet of tabletop space

The village of Santiago, where all of the action takes place.
Battle Honours 40mm 3D printed buildings.

The hidden valley road that skirts the Coa River Bridge.
Beware, here be guerillas.

View of the table from the town of Mondega. Santiago is off in the middle distance
on the high ground.

The light company of the South Essex regiment (Perry Miniatures 40mm figures),
supported by a company of the 95th Rifles, approach the Coa River Bridge.

Why Have Just One Table When You Could Have Two?

The plan was always to have two parallel 15ft by 6ft tables for the game. I was only going to make terrain boards for the main table and use a Cigar Box Battle Mat system for the second table. But now that I have seen how the terrain boards look, I decided to take the plunge and build a smaller number of boards for the second table. Fitting all of this in a rental SUV to transport everything to Lancaster will likely place a constraint on how much terrain I can take to the convention. I have a reservation for a large SUV already, but I might have to switch to a rental cargo van, which has much more cargo capacity than the SUV. We shall see.

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