My favorite trees have been made of paper and I may yet return to them, but at the moment I am using plastic pine needle clumps from an artificial Christmas tree made in the late 1960s or very early 1970s (my parents purchased it no later than 1972).
These are acceptable, and, that they make use of the last remnants of the Christmas tree that I used for most of my life, they have a certain nostalgic quality to them.
However, like most wargamers, I am never satisfied with things-as-they-are and for the last year or so, I have been enamored of these and similar trees. While I think Playmobil makes the perfect tree for toy soldier gaming, they are large and require more storage space than I can afford to give them.
These 2.5D trees strike a nice balance.
While on vacation visiting my parents, I took my son to Antique World & Flea Market, located in Clarence, NY (fun fact, I worked there briefly in high school as a janitor). And, as we perused the stalls for used Star Wars toys for him (of which we found plenty), I kept an eye out for toy soldiers and such for myself. As expected I didn't find much, but as you must have now surmised from my topic for this post, I did come across some trees in the 2.5D style.
Lumped in with maybe 100 cowboys, Native Americans, horses, cattle and fencing, I had to make a special request to purchase the trees separately. Of course, the stall's owner was getting lunch, so his assistant had to phone him, and explain what it was I was asking about.
They came back with a price of $3 for the pair - a more than reasonable price, given the links above.
Score!
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| A Tiger tank leaps out from behind the trees to attack Wonder Woman, who is hardly surprised. |
