It's the Little Things

One thing that I have noticed with getting into war-gaming is the addition of different types of terrain. I see things on Facebook and other websites and I think of some things that I'd like to see on my playing surface.

On YouTube I have watched a lot of the Terrain Tutor. He has some great stuff on how to make cheap and easy terrain for your war-gaming tables

I took some the the videos and used the techniques to make some of my own terrain pieces for the table.


One of the first items I worked on was a plowed field. I figured this would be a nice piece of terrain to slow down tanks and the like. I ended up expanding on it and used it to slow down that pesky infantry. The basic part of the field is a cheap door mat from the Dollar Tree. Its a charcoal black/grey and is pretty thin. I picked up two of these to make various fields. I plan on doing a cornfield in the future, along with a harvested one.

I first started off with cutting some MDF board with about a half inch on the sides. I then hot glued it to the MDF. I painted the plowed part of the field with craft paint and dusted the tops. I let it dry for about a day. 

Field painted with regular craft paint, topped off with a dusting of rattle can.

 I then started building the fence to go around the field. This was a bit tedious but turned out ok in the end. Finished it off by painting the fence brown. In the coming weeks I plan to put a wash over the wood to ad a weathered effect

Fence made with match sticks and coffee stirrers. 

 Next I took some of the DAS clay and began using the technique I saw on the Terrain Tutor. I rolled the clay out into a 5mm sausage roll. I then pressed on it lightly to make a 8mm sausage adn began cutting the sandbag at 1cm increments. I did not cut all the way, you could but this would be very time consuming. I cut just enough so that way I could lay the sandbags in one line, as opposed to each bag.

I made 2 sandbag barriers and a bunker. Took about 30-45min to make. It was very fun to build. Went a little quicker than building the actual real life sandbag bunkers!

Small sandbag barrier I made.

Larger sandbag bunker. This can be used as a fire position or an objective marker.

 Once the clay dried, took about a day. I painted the sandbags using Tamiya Khaki. A littel dark so I am thinking I may use a lighter color next time. Once I added the wash for the used look, turned out pretty good. I also based the bunker with something different. I was using some baking soda for objective markers I just made, but I wanted to try a method I picked up with model railroading. I used some watered down white glue, or PVA as you call it over the pond, and applied it with a brush. While it was still wet I added some expresso colored tile grout to the wet surface. Worked great and it looks awesome! I have to try it with my figures.

Finished with basing material and sandbags washed adn painted.

Sandbag bunker w/ Dragons Teeth in the background.

Finished sandbag barrier.

Hope you enjoyed the update! Keep on gaming!