I want a river. I could do a lot more interesting games if my 'temperate' terrain collection included a river. The question exercising my brain is 'How?' at the moment.
My temperate terrain, in case you haven't been following this blog for long, consists of a set of 4mm thick MDF boards, flocked on one side with Woodland Scenics' 'T49 Green Blend Turf'. On top of that, I plonk woods, marshes, ponds, buildings, and so on. The 'obvious' method of making a river, then, is to make another 'plonk it on top' type river - akin to these: http://terranscapes.com/products/water.php#rivers.
All very well, but there's something that disturbs me slightly… The river ends up being somewhat above the surrounding terrain, and is 'kept in' by a dyke - all very well if I was modelling a Dutch Polder, but this is meant to be Britain! The other option is to make a few more terrain boards, with 'river-shaped' gaps, under which I could place a blue cloth. This might work, and would ensure that the water level was where it ought to be - below the ground surface. On the other hand, I might end up needing a lot of boards (taking up a lot of space in my cupboard), if I was to be able to get much variety in the shape of my river. One advantage of this method is that it is easy, by placing the boards nearer together or further apart, to model rivers of different widths - one day I could place the boards near each other, and have them represent a muddy little stream, fordable along its whole length; another day they could be, say, a foot apart, and representing a much more substantial obstacle - crossable, perhaps, only by bridge or ford.
My desert terrain also lacks any sort of 'linear' obstacle - perhaps I ought to set in and make myself a 'wadi' (dried river-bed) or some such. Here though, because my desert terrain is an 'under-cloth', I'd have to go for a 'plonk it on top' wadi - however 'odd' it might look (at least there's no 'water level' to worry about!).
I'm also thinking again about my Syrian town - Arete, or Dura Europos, or whatever it's going to represent. I think I've decided to make my own houses, rather than merely buying and painting resin ones. Much cheaper, and more satisfying in the long run.