After working something approaching 150 hours in two weeks, I determined that this would be a weekend of relaxation, and so I set to the task of building my terrain for my 3mm scale FWC campaign, the First Upheaval. It was with some reluctance, naturally, that I ultimately decided against using Hexon-II tiles, mainly because, undeniably beautiful though they are, the 25-30% surcharge to ship them from the UK was simply more than I could bear.
Instead, I decided to give the foam TerrainMaker tiles from GHQ a throw, and let me say, so far, I have no regrets. They require more handling, naturally, because you have to make them yourself. But one can make tremendous progress on them inside of a weekend, and for my money, they look as good as Hexon tiles, if not better, and are superior for making rivers that look natural and curvy, and overall I'm really pleased with the progress. They are also much, much less expensive, especially if you're in the U.S. By the end of the day I expect to have some photos worth looking at, though at the moment all I have is a lot of tiles with drying paint on them, to wit:
A few thoughts to start, if you should choose to do the same thing:
1) Paint all sides of the hex, including the bottom. Do the sides and bottom before you add flocking to the top - you get better-looking tiles overall. Behr Ultra-Flat latex interior paint gives excellent coverage and can be had in touch-up pots for about $3 each. The process can be a little messy - those plastic shirt covers that come with the dry cleaning make great drop cloths.
2) A hot-element foam cutter is indispensable for making hills. This is where the TerrainMaker system really shines, because no two hills ever look alike, yet if cut with care, will all match up geomorphically. I recommend cutting the angles on the sides first, about 1/4" into the foam block, then cutting the whole thing. That way, you always end out with clean edges. However, I don't recommend this for cutting river tiles, which are only 1/4" thick and tend to deform - an X-Acto knife gives better control and more accurate results.
3) Wood glue seems to give better results than plain white glue when laminating multiple parts of a tile together. No idea why this should be, but there it is. It seems to fill gaps better.
4) Lightweight wall spackling plaster, which can be had in small tubs for touching up walls, is another essential material. It dries quickly to a consistency almost identical to the foam tiles, and so is great for sealing the edges of multi-layer tiles (rivers and hills are made by stacking tile parts and gluing them together). It's also quite durable enough for gaming, and so is useful for building up hills that cut a little short, a consistent issue on smaller hill sides. This avoids the mismatches that can sometimes occur from a slightly inaccurate cut.
5) Sealing the terrain once you've made all the hexes is easily accomplished with a spray bottle and dilute white glue, though Woodland Scenics makes a solution expressly for this purpose that works slightly better, in my limited experience - less glazed-looking in the end.
So there's the project underway. I'm actually enjoying it, which is unusual - typically, terrain building has been a necessary evil to me, but something about these tiles feels very appealing. I'll let you know how this all goes as it progresses!