Dune: a post-holiday relevation

[Ochoin]

After our fortnight in Mauritius, we were forced to journey home via Dubai.
In order to avoid sitting in a hotel for too long, we undertook a day on quad bikes in their desert (a blast, BTW).

Wargaming/modelling content: the desert isn't flat! My Sudan gaming mat is a beautifully realised but flat surface and absolutely is not accurate. The wind moves small and large dunes around to create an almost maze-like terrain that affords much cover, ambush points and a confusion of direction (trust me- the quad journey needed a guide or I'd still be out there looking for a sherbet bar).

Even sitting on a quad, marvelling at nature's wonders I was thinking about how to create this for a wargame. I'm thinking that carved , textured & painted pieces of MD foam, placed randomly, might help my Sudan gaming approach greater realism.

Any other ideas?

donald

NB Australian deserts- I've seen a few. These *do* seem to be featureless & fairly flat plains.

[PaulRPetri]

Let me know what you come up with Donald my Sudan stuff is getting close to completion, well sort of, and I know its not flat in the desert.

[Ochoin]

Paul, I do use a variety of hills but, as I discovered (& most people already know), there's a lot of "micro-terrain.

Here's what things currently look like:









I'd like to include at least some dunes, gullies/wadis etc.

donald

[steve_pickstock]

You might want to research 'barchans' - whoch are a crescent shaped dune, and one f the more mobile ones. They come in all sorts of sizes but only one shape, with the horns of the crescent facing away from the wind. They can be humonous things or they can form smaller groups or fields.
My suggestion would be HD Foam shapes, textured to match your board, to use as scatter terrain.

[PaulRPetri]

Boy you put my stuff to shame Donald!!
I have to ask where and what are those small trees you use? They look the part perfectly. Top of photo one for reference.
I love the cork mountains they look great.
Your steamers are terrific mine is an Old Glory 15mm one with 1/72 crew. Looks ok....

[Graeme]

As Steve says, barchans:







Also yardangs:









and zeugen or mushroom rocks:





Both yardangs and zeugen are formed from the erosion of bands of hard and soft strata. In yardangs the strata are vertical, in zeugen the strata are horizontal.

You've probably already thought of oases but there could also be man made structures around wells.