Standing crops - teddy fur Vs door mat

[olicana]

Hi guys.

I've 'made' both teddy bear fur and door mat fields (to look like fields of wheat) within a week, primarily for my SYW gaming. I prefer the mat. Which do you prefer, and why?

More info & pics here:

http://olicanalad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/door-mat-versus-teddy-bear-fur.html

[Jabba]

Personally for wheat fields I think the mats look better, especially with 28mm figures, the fur possibly would look better with smaller scale figures or as a different crop? Can see that the inflexable base of the mats could be a problem though.

[Plutarch64]

I only have the doormat style for playing purposes, but prefer static photos taken with the teddy bear fur, especially those of a lighter "harvest" or straw/light-brown colour which has always seemed to me more indicative of the campaigning period for most periods (as Olicana has used for the mats below).

That said, I always seem to inadvertently revert to spring-coloured flock for the actual bases, which is rather silly now I come to think of it...

[whill4]

I prefer the mat. It just seems to just crops and fields to me. It has better texture and the construction of the mat suggest crop rows.


.02

whill4

[olicana]

From my blog comments and elsewhere I think the consensus is that the mat looks better without troops on it, and troops look better on fur. From a practical war gaming point of view (actually moving stuff about on it) there is nothing to choose between them. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. The battle will continue on Wednesday so they'll be pics of troops in action walking mid air across the tops of the corn. Ah well, we'll see.

James

[Sunjester]

I agree that the mat looks better as a standing crop. I always think the teddy fur looks more like the crop after a battle, once the troops have marched back and forth over it!

[julesav]

The mat is better. Teddy bear fur only looks right with 40mm or bigger figures imho!

[Marine0846]

I use both.
I know, great help I am.
I do use door matt for wheat fields.
For a wild look I use fur for grass land and tall grass.

[Lord Borjado]

You could try to make a quick paint with some tones of brown and dark green using an aerograph. Maybe the teddy looks better

[Captain Blood]

Ive never thought that doormats look like wheatfields. Yours look better than most, because of the surrounding hedges and terrain. But when people just plonk down a square of doormat, and go 'look, it's a wheatfield', to me it just looks like a square of doormat. I don't quite understand why it's such a readily accepted wargaming orthodoxy that a square of doormat is a suitable depiction of a wheatfield.

At least with teddy bear fur, if you squint it looks like blown hay or long lying grass. So of the two, I'd go teddy bear fur every time.

[AlyMorrison]

Well.....
Speaking as the Nottingham representative of the teddy bear protection league ... I am appalled ...
Do the children's tears mean nothing to you....
Doormats ....
Always....

[juergen c. olk]

I like the teedy bear as a practical sense ,as the troops stand on them well.

[Harry Faversham]

Some nob came up with 'this doormat's a field of wheat' and everybody's had to have one ever since. To me it looks like a bit of doormat plonked on yer wargames table. To say we're all supposed to be into the look of the thing... how daft does it look when bloke's in a field tower above everyone on a solid rampart of wheat, even dafter when they have a sixty ton Tiger driving over it!?
Put the doormat where it belongs, on the floor, and let's all disembowel more teddy bears.

[PAULSPENCE]

Bonjour,

Nothing's perfect!

I use Teddy-Bear-Fur for rough grassland etc and doormats for corn fields.

I also dislike the way that troops "float" on the doormats but the fields still look better the rest of the time particularly if the field is hedged or walled.

Cheers,

Paul

[Ignatieff]

fur enough.....I'll get me coat.  Personally prefer the Teddy bears myself.