A quick update with a prototype hill! I had an hour to myself over the weekend and for 220 yen ($1.50) I found a way to make some hills. The attached image shows the first of twenty hills I made with two pieces of carper tile. The deeper, brown tile is 2 cm deep and completely flat on one side, and with a mild grip surface on the other side. I marked the flat side by drawing around a hex tile with a felt pen. I then used a craft knife to cut through the roughly cut the material into hex shapes. The green carpet tile was similarly marked on the underside with pen and then it could be cut very easily with scissors, so a more accurate hex shape. I then put the green bit on top of the flat bit and used that as an outlines to trim the sides of the brown tile to be a little closer to the correct size. I will eventually sand down the edges to get them straighter and glue the green bit to the flat sides of the brown bit.
In terms of cost performance, I don’t think it would be possible to better this. It was also just about within my crafting abilities, and I didn’t need any special tools. An unintended but welcome consequence of using the brown mat was that it grips well and will not slide about on the game board. I tested the pictured prototype hill on my recently made rotating board https://memoir44fans.com/t/solitaire-table-management/654/18?u=ben_phillis, and it stayed firmly in place.
I realized that in many cases, hills are in rows rather than in isolation, so I made some of them in rows of twos, threes and fours and there was no need to cut each one out. As I mentioned I have 20 tiles in total (the green and brown mats are roughly the same size) and it is enough to span the board as in Pointe du Hoc scenario.
Time permitting, I may make some sand and snow variants by the same technique. I will do the sanding and gluing of these first, and see how it goes. I may apply a small bit of sand colored paint to the brown parts, but I don’t think it’s really necessary.
