Hi! I'm new to BattleTech, bought the introductory box a week ago, though I've played both wargames (warhammer) and games set in the battletech universe (mechwarrior, mechcommander) before.
One thing that makes it kinda hard to play though, is the battle mats with numerical height designation. That just doesn't work very well for me, I'm not good enough at visualizing how high stuff is. So I'm looking to make some cheap and easy terrain, primarily hills, to be able to visually see how high up the 'mechs are.
I've been surfing around a bit, but it seems hard to find suggestions suitable for battletech around - I've seen styrofoam sheets being suggested as a material for wargame hills, but at least in my parts it seems nearly impossible to get with a thickness lower than an 2.5 cm (1 inch) and that seems far too high for a single level in battletech, no? I'd probably need something closer to 1 cm, which I can't seem to find here in Sweden.
I've also considered some kind of wood, but realize it will be very very hard to cut it so it fits on a hex grid. The last option I've thought of so far is layered corrugated fiberboard, which I could probably scrounge, but while durability isn't my top priority (cheapness and ease of making are), corrugated fiberboard seems very prone to fall to pieces, the corrugated part separating from the non-corrugated.
So, what I'm asking for is basically, what do you people think would be a good material for this? It doesn't need to look great or hold for hundreds of hours of gameplay, basically the cheaper the better. Then if I get really stuck in the hobby I'll probably upgrade down the line, but that's in the future.
Thanks a lot for any help or feedback!
//Ilja
