Winter is coming....

 Many battles in WW2 took place in winter, and although I've done some games  using my winter game cloths, I'm increasingly using my Hexon for games. I've done a few winter scenarios using my green Hexon boards, but it doesn't sit right and I've finally taken the plunge as it is January, and bought yet another set of Hexon to do up as winter  boards to join my green and desert ones.

I just got a basic set (a box of 21 2x3 hex clusters, one 4 hex hill, 3 x 3 hex hills, 3 x 2 hex hills, 8 x 1 hex hills and 10 x separate hexes). I got these in plain brown as sadly Kallistra don't do pre-flocked snow boards.

I've learned that the base colour shows through with lighter flock from flocking some of my desert terrain, so step one was to roughly spray everything white. I've deliberately made it mottled as I'm aiming for the dirty/patchy snow rather than the North Pole! Hopefully the variations in colour will show through the flock.

I went much heavier with the white on the hilltops. Snow doesn't necessarily accumulate on hilltops, depends how windy it is, but it adds to the impression of height. I maybe went a bit too heavy as there is more of a hard line rather than a feathered edge. Hey ho, never mind.

Having sprayed the lot, tbh, you could probably use it just like this without the flock. It would certainly be a lot quicker and less messy. The base boards are finely textured which looks quite good with the spay paint, but the hill features aren't so much, so things will just slide off the hills without some flock. Flocking it is.

Tim very kindly lent me his huge jar of Woodland Scenics snow flock. He'd used this to do his own Hexon snow boards 15 years ago, and still had lots left.

Then it is time slap a on a good coat of PVA, slather on the flock, press it down and tap it off again. This bit took quite a long time, and was pretty messy. I should probably have worn a mask as the flock went everywhere.

Having tapped the excess off, they looked pretty good. As I'd hoped, the varying paint tones showed through OK. The flock also lightened them up some more.

I left it all to dry overnight, then the next day went over all the items again with a soft brush to get off the excess flock, and generated another great pile of dust off them. At least they won't drop all over my games table now.

The next step was to add patches of vegetation. In my experience, snow in the UK and continental Europe rarely covers everything evenly, and where there are trees, the ground can be left quite bare. There is a reason Bundeswehr snow camo has great green blotches on it.

I just used the same Noch grass green flock which is used on the standard Hexon boards (and I use as clump grass on my figure bases).  Adding the greenery really lifts the boards, and somehow the 'snow' bits look even colder! 

I went pretty light with the grass on the main boards, and used a ratio of one board with four clumps to two boards with three clumps and one with two clumps.

I went a bit heavier on the hills, particularly the lower slopes, but tried not to overdo it.

The single hex features just got a few clumps on them. Once again, I left the whole lot to dry overnight then brushed off the excess static grass flock (which had gone everywhere).

On the whole I'm pretty happy with that. It didn't take too long and has come out looking OK. Maybe a bit silly to do it now, having painted all that 15mm desert stuff, but I'm sure it will come in useful. The spray pooling on those hills is still showing, so I may go over the whole lot with a bit more white spray, partly to feather the edges, and partly to lift some of the whiter bits. The hills are still a bit slippery on the baseboard, so maybe I need to flock the undersides a bit.

Having done this lot and compared them to my other Hexon collections, I've ordered a few more hills and another pack of 10 x single hexes. Single hexes are really useful for all sorts of things. It shouldn't take long to get those painted up.