Hiding in the bunkers

Not the warmest of places, my winter entrenchments. Years back for a big game I quickly knocked up some entrenchments using air-drying clay, these were quite successful so I textured them up and they've been used for many subsequent games. So for this project I started with a final outcome in mind. Clay was rolled and shaped to a basic trench shape then horizontal strips of rattan and some sandbags were embedded in the clay. Once the clay had dried (two days) I added uprights and carried out my now normal winter basing. In the back corner is a Blotz pig-pen that was finished at the same time.

There are two styles of entrenchments - linear which take around four figures and hexagonal for a heavy weapons team. In theory the earthworks could be placed back to back to be complete, but in reality only one side is ever used. Compared to my past efforts I had some trenches crack and had to be glued back together. I think this was due to using old clay, which had to have more water added to make it properly malleable, and I don't think I mixed it up enough.

Winter fences and hedges

The fences took some time as they were constructed from lengths of rattan taken from a blind. I wanted to get the typical Russian village fence look. The hedges were more of a quick fix as they are the best of my old hedges glued onto sticks and dry brushed with snow mix.


I also took a few of my ploughed fields (cheap doormat) and gave them a dry brush as well.

Winter Russian houses

I had debated just adding snow to my existing Pegasus houses, but they were already based for summer and converting the roofs didn't look to easy. I found some nice buildings by Blotz that did just the job. I bought two of each of the three types on offer. It was all going well until I decided to add the snow to the roofs. The wadding I used was very synthetic and wouldn't damp down with PVA, so it ended up far fluffier than I planned. I did debate ripping it off and stating again, but I've got them looking reasonable now.

If I was starting again I think I would use the acrylic sheets dusted with white primer and snow flock as drop-ons over the roofs fixed on with blue-tack or similar

Winter roads finished

I've just completed a large batch of roads, Once again I've used acrylic sheets as the base. This time the thin version that can be used in printers and photocopiers. After a quick spray of white primer it was quite willing to bond with a first coat of PVA sprinkled with sand. Then extra PVA added down the edges and centre with a more normal sand/grit mix. Then is was just the grind of applying the normal finishing touches

A quick idea of how the roads will look like in action

Any ideas?

I picked these metal models up as part of a job lot at Carronade.

A Quad, limber and 25pdr, at first I though Britannia, but the quad body would be resin


What sort of truck is this?


I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but probably put them on the B&B at Phalanx.

Quiet flows the Don?

Or perhaps the Gniloi Tikitsch river for our Korsun pocket game. The basic construction is some old acrylic sheets dusted with white primer. Some were used to make the icy banks, while the rest was painted a milky brown for the river. Unfortunately when turned over the white was to dominant so I gave it a coat of oak varnish, which gave a nice flow effect.

The banks are just caulk and stones textured and painted to match the rest of the terrain.

Total length is six foot.

Yet more trees - Conifers in winter

A bit of an effort, but the 64 conifers had now been based up and I'l quite please with how they have turned out. The trees came from China via ebay and were in four sizes, the smallest pair had just plastic trunks, and the larger tends to droop (not unreasonably in snow) the larger pair are wire and therefore more rigid but the wire needs to be cut or bent to be able to fix them to the bases.

While working on the trees I also created a pair of aircraft bases using the telescopic magnetic retreiver gadgets. I've found my most suitable winter camo German (FW190) and Soviet (LA-7) to display them

Basic contruction is an old CD, scratched to ensure the glue adheres, then a mix of "Plastic Pdading", plus some stone filler to keep the rod in place. Once handened they were then based as usua.