Terrain for Saga: The Crescent & The Cross

Having painted two armies for Saga: The Crescent & The Cross after a couple of games it became clear that I was going to need some new terrain as green felt and western European house models don't work very convincingly with sand coloured bases and a Levantine setting. I decided that some buildings, and areas to represent woods, rocky ground, brush and marsh would be enough for my needs so set about making them.

Terrain put to good use

The base cloth that I use for Saga: The Crescent & The Cross is a sheet of light beige felt bought from a local haberdashers. It is a remarkably close colour match to the base colours I have chosen for my figures (and hence terrain) and works very well. It was also very cheap, which is never a bad thing!

Buildings

There are a variety of manufacturers out there that make very nice 28mm buildings and I have previously bought some for Saga: Dark Ages rather than make them myself. This obviously saves time, and the buildings look good, but I found I have a minor problem. The rules on terrain sizes given in Saga: The Crescent & The Cross (p.107) define buildings as either "buildings" of size S to M (which for clarity I will call "small buildings"), or "large buildings" of size M to L. This unfortunately means that of the seven buildings I own, none are large enough to be large  and four are too small to even be small. More annoyingly, two of them are longer along one edge than the small building maximum size but too short along the other for the minimum. Which is a shame as they all look very realistic and reasonably sized for the game. Now I do appreciate that these rules are there to stop silly rules abuse and that in most games nobody will mind (or care) but a bit more flexibility would have been helpful. However, we are where we are and in the light of the wording of this rule I want to get any new buildings I make compliant with the rules as I understand them.

Thankfully, desert buildings are a lot easier to scratch-build than ones with timber frames and thatched roofs. Also, I've previously made a dozen or so smaller buildings for a 15mm  desert village as well, which made things easier.

To comply with pretty much any sensible interpretation of the rules, I ensured that my large buildings (I appreciate that only one is permitted; I made two in the end because I thought one of them wasn't going to work half way through the process - in the end it was fine) were at least M along each side and not more than L in any direction. In my mind that means not more than L when measured across diagonally. Not that it was necessarily the intention of the rules writer, but this interpretation means that there isn't a lot of flexibility about large building size. Essentially they will end up being between somewhere roughly between 6" x 6" and 8.5" x 8.5" . Small buildings have even less room for variation - having to be between S and M across means they will end up fairly consistently around 4" x 4" square. I'm sure it wasn't the intention of the rules writers that all small buildings would be square, but there you are. Anyway, if you go down this route, you're pretty sure to be compliant even with the toughest rules lawyer. And when all is said and done I don't think it matters much anyway as in my opinion desert buildings look fine if they are square.

Two small buildings

Unlike my 15mm buildings, I did not give these buildings removable roofs partly for aesthetic reasons and partly because you can deploy figures on top of flat roofs so there is no gaming need (at least, if using them for Saga). The buildings were constructed from 3mm foamboard stuck together with PVA glue. I cut recesses for doors which were made of cardboard strips stuck to card cut to shape, and stuck cardboard windows in place on the sides. External staircases on the large buildings were also made from foamboard. Once assembled, the buildings were covered with PVA glue and liberally sprinked with chinchilla dust to texture.

Large building #1

Buildings were painted with Crown Brown Sugar, dry brushed with Crown Biscuit (identically to my figure bases). Window opening were painted black and all woodwork in a dark brown. Details were selectively lightly washed with Windsor & Newton Peat Brown ink and then lightly dry-brushed with Crown Biscuit to provide final highlighting.

Large building #2

Area Terrain

I cut out a selection of generic bases from 3mm MDF to make terrain bases for area terrain in a variety of sizes. These would then be used  with smaller indicative bases representing different terrain types, which would be placed on top.

I made two large sized bases, roughly round between M and L across (for wood, brush, or rocky ground); two small sized bases between S and M across (for brush, rocky ground, or marsh) and two which were just over S across but between M and L in length (for brush or rocky ground). This selection of sizes would cover pretty much every need.

Bases were textured with chinchilla dust and painted Crown Brown Sugar highlighted with Crown Biscuit.

Woods

If a wood can have palm trees, this is one

I rescued some old and very tired palm trees (originally from S&A Scenics), repaired their damage and repainted their bases as area terrain bases above.

Brush

Brush

I made some small bases from a couple of MDF offcuts and stuck some tufts cut from an old doormat to them. Base was textured and painted as for area terrain.

Rocky Ground

Rocky ground

Using a few more MDF offcuts I made bases and scattered small stones on them. Again these were textured and painted as for area terrain. This really is about as simple as it gets!

Marsh

Marshy ground

I'm not entirely convinced open water in desert terrain is very accurate, but it's only representative. On a couple more bases made from MDF offcuts I stuck a small piece of plastic card (to get a flat area for open water) and surrounded this with a few tufts taken from an old doormat. I textured the base around this, raising it slightly with a small amount of filler before applying chinchilla dust. I painted the open water in a murky blue which I then darkened a bit with a black wash, and painted the ground as normal for area terrain. Finally I applied a few thick coats of gloss varnish to the water and finished this off with a little flock around the water's edge.

Crop Fields

Crop fields

Finally, I cut a few rough rectangles from the remains of the doormat to give some options for different shaped crop fields.

At the same time as doing these I also completed a couple of terrain items for Dux Britanniarum but I've put these in a separate blog post for ease of reference.