Trees - the love/hate relationship

Darby and I were discussing Vietnam gaming yesterday and one discussion was about trees.  I have a love/hate relationship with them in regards to gaming.  When the gaming table is loaded up with trees it really is impressive.  Some of you guys have been sharing pictures of your games and I see a mix of a lot of trees, and then some sparse placement of trees.

(IMHO)
Pros:  
Looks great when you have a lot of trees
Lots of cover for skirmish gaming

Cons:  
Get knocked over a lot when reaching for figures
Not easy to place units in trees if they are on a larger base or flight-stand
Storage & Transportation can be a pain

Since this forum has become active again, my interest in Indo-Chine/Vietnam has returned (figures on the way!).  But I'm in the debate about terrain right now.  So wondering what you're opinions are on trees for the gaming table.

This time around I'm thinking about I Core hill fights.  But trees... what to do?

Have you ever let the difficulty of making/storing terrain dictate the AO you base your games on?  
A couple of trees enough to abstract a forest cluster... or do you need several dozen?
Does storage factor into your decision?

I share your views on trees Squirrely. What scale are you pondering this dilemma in? 10mm?

Both.

10mm - I think the clumped effect is what I will go for.

28mm - That's where I'm really debating and kind inspired this thread. Lots of trees will look great, but storage/transportation will be an issue. Also, moving figures around between trees it's inevitable that someone will knock down have the forest try to maneuver a squad through some trees.

For 28mm, I do the "exotic jungle" method of palm trees and plastic plants built up around the base. I'll post pics later on, but you'll get the idea. For the smaller scales (like the wee ones) I'll use some palms, clump foliage, and the trees seen here in this post:

https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/t199-trees-for-the-vietnam-tabletop

As for storage, that's always a challenge. I have some pine tree terrain for my Mountain Man project that are a challenge to store, but the palm fronds on my tree tops come off so I can get more crammed into a single Rubbermaid storage bin.

and I always thought Squirrels had a thing for trees....

-BadMoon

BadMoon wrote:and I always thought Squirrels had a thing for trees....

We find big trees with big wide bases on woodland templates works best for us - it does not matter where the trees are on the template - if the woodland gets really crowded just remove the trees altogether until things thin out a bit.

BadMoon wrote:and I always thought Squirrels had a thing for trees....
-BadMoon

Vietnam is one wargame period where trees are a necessity, like them or not. Yes, there are areas without much in the way of trees, but why limit yourself?

So many important and exciting events in Vietnam were in the jungle and that means trees. For jungle where there is a lot of undergrowth, I have large bases (about 3" square) with usually two trees and lots of undergrowth.

For non jungle areas I used to put two trees on a free form base. Knocking over any of these multi-tree bases is not a problem.

Now days, I prefer my trees to be mounted singly. There is more flexibility. I use large fender washers. Their weight and diameter minimize the knock over problem.

For storage, I like the boxes that reams of paper come in. You can often find an office that has more of those than they know what to do with. With their height, I can get two levels of trees in them. To get the second level, I glue short pieces of 3/4" x 3/4" wood in each of the four corners, half way from the bottom of the box. I then cut a shelf from the cheapest foam board I can find. It rests on the wooden corner blocks. I can now store twice as many trees with the same footprint.

To save storage space, you may be able to do two shelves, by placing them 1/3 and 2/3 of the way from the bottom if your trees are short enough. Or, if you can get only two shelves in due to the height of your trees and still have room left over, cut off part of the box to make it shorter.

Tom

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

Garryowen wrote:Vietnam is one wargame period where trees are a necessity, like them or not. Yes, there are areas without much in the way of trees, but why limit yourself?

Well said.

Garryowen wrote:
For storage, I like the boxes that reams of paper come in. You can often find an office that has more of those than they know what to do with. With their height, I can get two levels of trees in them. To get the second level, I glue  short pieces of 3/4" x 3/4" wood in each of the four corners, half way from the bottom of the box. I then cut a shelf from the cheapest foam board I can find. It rests on the wooden corner blocks. I can now store twice as many trees with the same footprint.

I like it!

It's a Zen thing.

Embrace the tree. Hug it and the feel the love. Cultivate your inner greenie. Feel the wellness and sense of peace with nature as you build your exotic primeval forests. Then enjoy reducing them to burnt stumps with arty, nape and Arclight strikes....  

Trees are the very Yin and Yang of Vietnam wargaming. There can be no VC without jungle. Were there no jungle, the grunts would not leave their firebases. Hell, there would be no need for firebases.

Seriously though, you need a shitload of trees and other foliage for Vietnam but I managed to squeeze them all into several boxes. I use a mix of individually based trees on washers and stuff on broader bases.

OTB wrote:Embrace the tree. Hug it and the feel the love. Cultivate you inner greenie. Feel the wellness and sense of peace with nature as you build your exotic primeval forests. Then enjoy reducing them to burnt stumps with arty, nape and Arclight strikes....

OTB is hi-lar-ious!

This gives you an idea of what my trees look like. I've got tons of these and I try to do the undergrowth to match the stand-alone pieces, as seen in between the tree stands. They're exotic but they look great enmasse on the tabletop. Since I'm only doing Kill Team size play areas for skirmishing, I don't require a whole lot.

They look good B6. I think I will have to take a similar approach.

Thanks man! Yeah they serve dual purpose for pulp too, so coming up with something that would serve two locales was important when I planned out my trees, and my jungle in general.

Those look great B6. Palm trees really vary in quality.

Tom

Thanks Tom. Yes they do...... those fronds are from one thing, and the trunks are from a Pegasus set. I think they look good paired like that.

Todd love those palms!