https://www.hexterraintoolkit.com/
The idea behind the HTT is that you use a series of wooden jigs to build your own modular hex terrain out of polystyrene. The hexes measure 100mm from corner to opposite corner, which is about 87mm across the flats. At the most basic level the HTT allows you to make simple flat hexes and sloping hills, but additional jigs allow you to add rivers and cliffs, as well as a 'snowflake' style system for securing all the hexes in place on the table.
It's a neat little design, and given my liking for hex-based gaming it's something which I should have plenty of use for. Although I already have a growing collection of Kallistra terrain (which I intend to keep using), I liked the idea of using slightly smaller hexes, particular for my 10mm collections. There is also something very appealing about the natural, organic flow of the HTT's sloping hills, and the fact that using a polystyrene-based modular system offers a lot of possibilities, if one is able to use a bit of imagination.
This week I snatched some time here and there to start practising with the toolkit, starting off by using some waste polystyrene packaging to cut basic hexes, a few river sections and a couple of hills. Yesterday I also received some extruded polystyrene in the post, which so far I've found easier to work with than expanded polystyrene.
Above, you can see my first efforts. The grey tiles are the extruded polystyrene. It's much denser than the white packaging stuff, and gives a cleaner cut. Going forward with this project, I intend to use this material rather than expanded polystyrene.
From this angle you can see the hill hexes at the back. Each tile is 15mm deep, and a basic hill is two tiles high, then going up in 15mm increments. Hills can be made with one, two or three high corners (the two you can just see in this photo both have two high points), and there's a option to use a steeper slope for higher hills. It will take a bit of practice cutting the hills to ensure they look as natural as possible, but I think I should get the hang of it quite quickly. The two models in the picture are 6mm buildings by Total Battle Miniatures to give you an idea of scale. Although these hexes will work especially well with my 10mm minis, I think they'll also have great potential for use with my Newline Designs 20mm collections.
Here I've given some of the tiles a bit of paint, prior to adding some static grass etc. I'm still experimenting with what will look best. The rivers you see are cut more or less freehand rather than using the jig. The jig will give you very clean, uniform river straights and bends, but I wanted something a bit more natural looking. Cutting them freehand is easy enough - the main thing is to make sure each end is the same width so they match up. When using my 20mm miniatures, single-hex waterways will be more like a stream, while rivers will be two or more hexes wide.
The extruded polystyrene is an interesting material to work with. I'd never used it before, and hadn't really been aware of just how widely it's used with crafters and model-builders. It's a very easy material to cut and shape, but still reasonably sturdy. This stone wall is something I did in about 10 minutes, playing about with an off-cut. It glues easily with PVA, and the surface takes paint very well. I imagine it should be easy to add filler and other textures to it, too.
At the moment I'm using a handheld hot wire cutter to make the hexes, but I think I'll invest in a tabletop hot wire cutter - probably the one by Proxxon. This will speed the whole project up a bit, and allow me to make use of the styrene for other modelmaking projects.
In the course of starting this project I found some wonderful examples of hexes made by people who are using the Hex Terrain Toolkit, and people who use styrene to make some fantastic models.
Some great examples of hex tiles made using the HTT:
https://toysoldiersofftowar.blogspot.com/
Gerard Boom from Shifting Lands is a great source of inspiration for making styrene models. He also designs and sells mdf tools for use with the Proxxon hot wire cutter:
https://www.shiftinglands.com/
Ross Kearns, the HTT inventor, also has a series of YouTube videos with tips on how to use the various jigs
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgVcLDhucUt0SzKXeDsxczQ
More hex terrain goodness to follow...
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