I guess I like them well enough. They will help fill my table with terrain, and trees work for any type of game. Here's how they came out.
So here's where these trees are not so cool. First, the foliage pieces don't stay attached very well. Ironically, they fall from the trees like leaves. Go figure. I thought I could avoid this by completely drilling out the holes and pushing the branches through them. No dice. They still fall off. Also, the foliage pieces have a definite up and down facing that you don't realize until you've started to paint them. One side has more detailing and depth, clearly meant to be the topside. I didn't figure that out until about five minutes ago.
The bases are a nice feature of these sets. I don't have any good "forest area" pieces and thought these would work for that. The bases even fit together to make a continuous forest section. The allegedly cool idea is that you can remove the trees from the bases when you put models in the forest. Well, the trees are removable.
The trees actually remove themselves for you. All the time. Every time you touch them, and even sometimes when you don't. You see, unless you precisely balanced your limb and foliage placements your tree is going to be unstable. Heaven forbid you did something vain and stupid like arranging the trees in a way that looked cool to you. The good news is there appears to be definite ways to put certain trees in the base. Figuring that out is practically a mini puzzle game in itself. Well played, GW!
So now I have more trees. I don't look forward to making additional trees. But I know I need more to fill the table. I'll save that for a future date when I'm having such a good time that I need something to bring me down. Fiddling with trees always seems to do that for me.
6 comments:
I have to say these trees (not specifically your version of them) by GW have always looked a bit odd to me. I don't mind the twisty trunks, but the flat pieces of foliage just don't look right.
I have a real love-hate relationship with the GW trees...more hate lately.
@ Scott, I agree, which is why I resisted them in the first place. But I thought somehow I'd get away easier with the GW trees. Not really. They look like World of Warcraft trees to me.
@DS, I'm in your camp on this one. I'd love to be able to love them, but I just ended up hating them.
They do make a great base for treeman conversions though.
I've built about 3-4 sets of these trees. From the first time I looked at the foliage sprues, I knew I would NEVER glue them to the trees...I still remember (and HATE) the plastic palm trees that used to come in the 3rd Edition 40k starter box.)
I DO like the trees though--a BIG part of my liking them is that they are totally different than everything currently available (I like using them as 'dead forests').
I think I like them only because I have plenty of the older-style GW trees (which I LOVE because they stand the test of time and stand up to a LOT of rough handling: constantly being bumped on the table and moved into and out of storage).
It should be noted: my endearment with these has gone down since they first came out, now that the plastic trees are the ONLY tree option offered by Games Workshop (I guess that means my love of them spawns from my love of having options).
@imaginarywars: I wish GW still sold their old trees. My friend has them and they have seemed to hold up well over the years, and they were old when I first saw them.
These GW trees are really unique, but still look like video game trees to me.
I will probably buy another set. But I'll fill in the big base and use it for area terrain. Then I'll take the trees and mount them on individual bases as bare and dead trees.
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