Fall In! Prep Part I – Trenches

I know it isn’t until November, but if I’ve learned anything being a convention GM it’s that I shouldn’t put any stress on myself trying to make a deadline. It is just a hobby afterall.

That said, some folks on the Too Fat Lardies Yahoo Group put together two “Lard Days” at Fall In! to showcase some TFL games. I threw my hat in the ring to run some games of Chain of Command. My scenario is a late war affair where some British Commandos have relieved some Canadian Paras and are preparing for a German counterattack. The only terrain elements I needed were some trenches and a gun pit.

There are a few manufactures that make nice 28mm trenches, but I wanted to do these on the cheap as I’m assuming they won’t get much use. Fortunately I had already purchased the 3D printing files for these trenches from Printable Scenery. My plan was to print a set of masters and then cast what I needed in dental plaster.

I printed a set of masters using my PrintrBot Play (which is now apparently OOP), but naturally neglected to snap a picture, which would appear below.

I then made latex molds of all the masters using Duplos to contain the material.

Over several days I casted enough pieces using some dental plaster that I bought off of eBay a few years ago. I think I have enough to last a lifetime.

The bottoms of some of these were pretty thin and I had a few casualties when I removed them from the molds. I shored them up with some balsa that I trimmed to fit.

Prior to painting I added some details here and there – some corrugated metal using a cardboard coffee insulator, a camo net made from gauze, a tarp of lead foil and a strand of barbed wire.

I also needed a few machine gun nests so I ginned these up using some plastic sheet and bamboo skewers. I know they look more “Eastern Front-like”, but they work for me.

Here’s the finished products after painting and flocking. They aren’t great as individual pieces, but together on the table they look okay.