The REAL terrain of Southeast Asia!

Having been stationed in Southeast Asia (northeastern Thailand) for 18 months when I was in the Army, let me clear up a few misconceptions that wargamers seem to have entrenched in their minds, as far as the landscape of the area. Here are a few key points to remember when you're buying/building your terrain for Vietnam:

1. DON'T buy lots of palm trees!!!!  I know Hollywood wants you to believe that Vietnam is wall-to-wall palm trees, but it's not true!!  The only places you will see palms are along the banks of rural creeks and rivers, in a tree-line set back from the beach, scattered around in towns, and in "orchards" on the numerous coconut plantations. Rarely will you see them elsewhere. Also, except on the plantations, palms in Vietnam are NOT the tall, thin, "South Seas" coconut palms. They're shorter and a bit scruffy looking. This is a typical river; a mix of deciduous trees with palms interspersed. This is along a tributary of the Mekong, above the Delta.

2. Vietnam is NOT all "jungle"! The majority of rural Vietnam is rice paddies, grasslands, scattered villages, and forests. What Hollywood wants to call jungle isn't "Tarzan swinging from the trees" stuff. It's quite simply rain forest, just the same as in Brazil or Indonesia or wherever. It's almost totally confined to the Central Highlands. Here's the upper Dong Nai River. 

The Mekong Delta area is a maze of large and small rivers that reminds me for all the world the bayou country of my home: southern Louisiana. Basically a vast wetland with fingers of dry land between water courses.

Here's an aerial view of part of the Delta, rivers zigzagging every direction

3. Your wargaming table can never have TOO many rice paddies. Paddies are probably THE defining feature of rural eastern and southern Vietnam and indeed all of Southeast Asia. They come in all shapes and sizes. Solitary farm houses will always have one or two smaller ones nearby and villages will be surrounded by them

If it's before the rice sprouts, the water in the flooded paddies varies in color from "mud" to "tea" and every shade in between

After the rice sprouts, the colors of the fields vary, depending on how far along each crop is, exactly what variety of rice was planted in each paddy, etc. 

Good-sized dykes or raised roadways are very common. 

4. Put away the blue paint for your rivers. Vietnamese rivers, large and small, are one color. Mud. To be sure, the shade varies in different parts of the country and along different stretches of the same river, but it's always muddy. Here's the Mekong, near the mouth of the Delta

And here's a small tributary in the Delta

Here's the upper Mekong, just inside Vietnam, on the Cambodian border

And this is farther up the Mekong, just inside Laos

And two shots along the lower Dong Nai, not too far from Cat Tien

For those who can't shake their addiction to those horrible little plastic palm trees that come 50 for $15 from China, more power to you. It's your game and you should have the table decked out any way you want. But for those who (like me) want to depict the landscape of Vietnam as accurately as the scale allows, I offer the above observations in the hope that they'll be helpful. 

Terrain for Southeast Asia, Part 2

One of the things that defines the Vietnam War, as far as I'm concerned, is the Mekong Delta and the riverine forces that fought there. I find that this area makes for fascinating wargaming.

As such, a fair bit of the terrain I work on represents the Delta area and rivers are a major portion of that. As I've said before, I use GHQ Terrain Maker hexes, despite not being all that happy with it as a product. There's far too much variation in exact size and shape from hex to hex and it's way too much trouble to try to alter every single hex. But, I've yet to find a better, but still affordable alternative. 

So, we begin with a 1/4" hex, which I smear with a liberal coating of Flexpaste

I then tap gently with my finger all over the wet paste to raise small "wave" ridges, to simulate current, etc. Then let it dry well and we end up with this

Rivers in Vietnam are rarely blue or blue-green as they are in the US or Europe. Generally in Southeast Asia, they're an opaque mud color, and in some areas, with a noticeable olive green tint. I went to Home Depot looking for a "muddy water" house paint and what should I find for $2 in the mis-mixed bin? 

Enough to last a lifetime!! So after giving my hexes two coats for even coverage, I then add a generous coat of Vallejo Gloss Varnish and here's the end product

When strung together and banks added to both sides, I get something like this

As you can see, the GHQ hexes don't fit together as seamlessly as I want, but it'll do until I find a better alternative. 

Ok, back to the work bench!!

Terrain for Southeast Asia, Part 1

One of my ongoing projects is terrain. No matter what timeframe, it's got to have terrain to go with it. Terrain doesn't tend to be "one size fits all". 3mm and 6mm are somewhat interchangeable as far as terrain goes, but not totally. Different width roads, etc. Soil color varies between northern Germany and southern Vietnam too. At present, I'm working on some Vietnam terrain tiles

I use GHQ Terrain Maker hexes. Honestly, I'm not all that happy with them as a product. There's way too much variation in size from one tile to the next, there's always some dented or crushed area on a tile, etc., but they're as good as you're going to get for the relatively low cost. Other better options, Kalistra, etc., cost an arm and a leg. So, I make do with these. One of the things I dislike is the little hexagonal pattern the high density styrofoam beads leave on the surface. To help make that less noticeable, I smear the top of the tile with Woodland Scenics Foam Putty. It helps even out the surface. 

The soil of southern Vietnam varies from dark brown loam that would be right at home in an Iowa corn field to such a shocking red that you'd swear it's on Mars and every shade in between. As I obviously can't make a dozen sets of terrain, I settled on a terracotta shade. That's what's stereotypically "Vietnam" in my mind. So this is what I end up with once it's painted with a couple of coats

As you can see, I use the cheap "granny" paint. Americana Terra Cotta. Now it's ready for flocking. This particular tile will become part of my Fire Base, and I want it to be the area of the hospital tent

The tent is by DB Miniatures in Canada and the red cross decals are by Company B. I've glued it down with Scenic Glue. The next project is to surround it with sandbags, GHQ in this case

Ok, more in the next installment, as my aid station takes shape!