ok so here i go
1) How do you create a cliff face with reasonable detail

2) how do you create areas with ivy - as i can only find two patterns one is oatchy the other design simply repeats itself over a large surface area.

Use the surface editor (press S) to fix the repeating texture, click natural..

Use the terrain editor. Make a patch, maybe 10 by 10. Select it. Hit Y. Check "paint height" and "height." Mouse over the patch and their should be two circles hovering over it. Hold Altand press left or right mouse button to raise or lower the terrain.

Adjust the inner and outer radius and amplitude and play around with it. This is a very powerful and useful tool for making realistic stuff. I find my terrain patches need to be laid out top down (XY) for the editor to work properly, so I edit them and then rotate them to orient to the side of my terrain to get a "cliff."

cheers for your quick response guys - I understand how to make a cliff face but I am still unclear as to how to solve the Ivy problem - is it a decal that I can alpha out using the vertex editor or will I just have to create a patch, clip it and duplicate it to make an almost continuous prefab to use?

What I mean regarding the ivy is that I have only got two patterns and these are as described in my original post, where they both repeat.

You can alpha it out entirely with the alpha editor (g key with vertices selected) or with the alpha tool under the terrain editor (Y key, select "flatten" and alpha").

With the terrain editor you can selectively alpha out portions of patches to your liking.

Easiest way may be using the surface inspector (S) and just mess with the stretching of the texture. Also just try out CAP and LMap and natural, etc. etc. and see what looks nice.