Hello all. First P&M Blog.

I started working on a modular trench system about a year ago. Got a good start, planned the whole thing, and then life got in the way. I found it all in our recent move, and now I'm in a place to start working on it again.

Let's start with some design concepts, and then we'll move to existing pieces.

I wanted a modular set of trenches for play at home. The pieces are 12" x 12" square, with entry points at a consistent midpoint of a given side. Pieces will have 1, 2, 3, or 4 entrances.

The initial layout called for:

4 corners
4 straightaways
2 T junctions
2 Four-way junctions
2 single-entry bunkers
2 entry/exit pieces

So 16 pieces, arranged in any number of ways, and capable of taking up half a 4x8 game board, either long or wide.



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Here's my first 'test' piece:


Pardon the photo. As you can see, a three-way T Junction. The numbers are designators for total layers of foam. So the top edge of the board will have a step up into a firing line. Once finished, this will be supplemented with sandbags, etc.

Photo isn't working for me.

A few steps later. I've cut foam, glued, and attached some wood framing to the exterior. I don't necessarily want a perfect, clean set of lines, but some semblance of order is nice.



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Size comparison. For the most part, I wanted my troops in full cover while in the trenches. Otherwise, what's the point, right?



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More wood added, and I've used a Devlan Mud wash on the wood to darken it up.


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Foam rough cut and glued together, set for placement.



And again, from a different angle.


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Some wood planking added for flooring. Eventually we'll add some dirt and water effects.


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My next step was to cover the top with glue and add copious amounts of ground foam bits, gravel, and sand. Obviously it's not all staying.


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When shaken free, here's what we're left.


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Black basecoat.


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As that dried, I played with some water effects in the trench itself.


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First drybrush, Calthan Brown, if memory serves.


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Drybrush two, Snakebite Leather.


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Drybrush three: Bleached bone.


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Aaaand..... that's as far as I got before the real world set in.

I'm starting back up this week. More later!

Comments obviously welcome. (Why else would you do one of these?)

This is looking excellent! One of the more realistic looking trenches out there. I have seen a few people decorate their trenches with propaganda posters scattered throughout, any plans to do this with yours?

Here's one more showing the bases laid out in a 3x5 arrangement, with an exit (to another board, maybe?)

Also note that my initial layout plans changed in the course of a year.

I've got some niches set aside for ammo stores, some blown in walls, rubble, and I'm planning on having a crashed thunderbolt in there somewhere.

That'll look absolutely fantastic when finished o.o with that much cover, it would make interesting games. I'd love to see what a flyer would (or wouldn't) be able to do in a game with that many trenches.

That's pretty awesome dude.

Would make for amazing kill team style games or something similar to that.

Can't wait to see this finished, it should look awesome. It would be good for a zone mortalis type game.

Freaking epic! Well done!

Well, looks like it will be slightly larger than I was expecting, subbed!

A move huh? Get more space?

I have so many plans for terrain, but no room. Your trenches are damned cool. I'm subscribing to this, can't wait to see more, enjoying all the painting, water effects, etc.


You ever play with weathering pigments? They'd add a nice mud/dust effect to the trenches.

Impressive work so far... keep up the momentum!

High all. Thanks for all the positive feedback.

@Commander Cain: I haven't seen anything like that, but it's a fantastic idea. I'll have to do some research and see what bubbles up.

@Gorgrimm: I've looked into a number of weathering powders and pigments, from Vallejo to Forge World, but I haven't settled on any I just love yet.

As several people have said, this would make for amazing small-team scenarios, and when I started the design, it was with a zone-mortalis-style gameplay in mind.
Not much room for vehicles, obviously. In a 6th edition environment, that's less tricky than 5th.

Nothing sexy in the way of updates, but good progress all the same:



Our good friend Hunter was over, and she offered to help shape some rough foam. Naturally I took advantage of the help.





Several shapes repeat themselves across multiple boards (I suppose that's true with most modular systems.) So by the end of the night, we had a couple of stacks of good starter material to play with (with which to play? Stupid internal grammar nazi.)

I'll glue those together before bed, and let them dry overnight. The plan is to do the bulk of the development off the board, and glue the finished sections down. So a black basecoat and we're on to wood slats on these.

Thanks again for all your kind words. Stick around, we'll have more later this week!

Well my first big terrain project was a trench table. (Link is in my index page) ill gladly email you the pdfs of the posters I have. Note if you print em out on a laser type printer the ink wont blead if they get wet. (Such as when you glue them on)

Galorn, you're right. Those propaganda posters are simply fantastic. I must have some for my trenches. Please send them my way.

I love the idea of doing trenches as a board and also you are doing it very well! just some fun ideas
- maybe you can have the flyer as a downed heldrake "what does this thing do?" *rumble rumble rumble.
- an objective system with flags, very easy to determine capped territories,
- add an armory, or other buildings.

hoped i can help!

daemonhunter187 wrote:
Galorn, you're right. Those propaganda posters are simply fantastic. I must have some for my trenches. Please send them my way.

Pm sent...

This is epic!!! I can't wait to see more.

That is going to be fantastic when it's finished even the small section you've already painted looks great, good luck with it I look forward to seeing more.

That's going to be really cool the play on and to look at when it's finished. I've often thought about doing something similiar. I'm probably going to make a dense city scape board soon and actually try to make it realistic with streets, alleys, hospitals, appartements etc.

Small update. Nothing glamorous, but progress all the same.



At first I liked the stepped wall, but the more I work with it, the less attractive it feels to me. I may fix it, or I may mitigate it with rubble and dirtfall. We'll see. At a minimum, I'll probably rework the vertical braces.





There's five more in similar state. It's worth noting that this process is being slowed by my Dark Angel army. They're in their finishing stages, and I've been pushing to base and clear coat them.
The going plan for these trenches is to rough all the shapes out over the next few weeks, then finish one square a week. That should finish us up before Christmas.

I hope.

I really like this idea. Would like to see more. How do you cut your foam?

These trenches are awesome.

Looking good so far! I'm subscribing. ^^

the "tiered trenchwalls" is a very cool idea... i think a bit of sand here and there wouldn´t hurt but the very idea of tiers i really like... keep it... it makes it look more like the trenchers have to really work for keeping the trenches maintained!

Nice project. Keep up the good work!

Yeah the tiers are great! They are just begging to have little scenery bits on like a lamp or something, keep up the good work.

This is a very good work!!

i really want to see it finished!

 Commander Cain wrote:
Yeah the tiers are great! They are just begging to have little scenery bits on like a lamp or something, keep up the good work.

that is even more brilliant... good thinking there!!!

Nice work. I may have to steal your ideas to make my own. I would make a double layer table though to I could place another flat sheet on top of it for when I wanted a normal game.

Back again. Sorry it's been awhile. Last night I was handed a bag of goodness:



These'll come in handy later on for detail work. Also this guy:



He'll be useful for this piece:



I's a small artillery platform. I also have a Forgeworld Heavy Tarantula on order. Here's a size comparison for you:



Some more random roughouts:






Progress, slow and [mostly] steady. More to come later!

This is looking better and better! I had a book on creating wargaming trenches somewhere, will have to dig it up and see if it has any useful tips in it for you...

Cool project, will be following this!

Nice progress, keep it coming!

I'm confused - I thought I had commented here as I have definitely been here and perused your pages... I'm very impressed with the progress - I do like a good trench system And your's is turning out great...

Those forgeworld (?) goodies and lovely, will add some great looking features to your trenches

Keep them updates coming...

This is awesome, I really respect anyone who puts as much effort into their terrain as their minis

Hey all. All apologies for the dead thread. Tail end of college caught up with me. :/

I'll have some new pics up soon.

Thanks for your patience!

One word: Subbed!

Ok. As promised. FIrst off, the tarantula heavy bolter turret came in.

Even though it was a small model, it was a surprisingly fun build and paint.





Here it is soft-fitted for sizing.



I went with a three-tone brown camouflage, in the style of some earlier East German paint jobs.

Boltgun for the legs.
Ushtabi Bone, Snakebite leather, and Scorched Earth/Rhinox for the camo itself.
Brown wash, either earthshade or devlan mud.
Burnished gold and some snot green/mephiston red for the lenses, details, etc.

Fairly standard, all told.











Particularly pleased with the red lens. Mine don't usually come out that well.


Still needs a clear coat, and probably some gloss on the lenses.

More later!

Subbed! This looks intense

I wish I had this level of modelling skill. Truly amazing!

@Squigsquasher: You DO have this level of modeling skill. I'm not doing anything approaching difficult. I'm doing a lot of simple things, over and over again.

Update: When last we left our intrepid boards, the demo model looked something like this:



Time to fix that.

So I added some localized craters:





Nothing special here, just used an x-acto at an angle, and scooped it out.

Added some top boards for the gunner's walkway, and played with the step-up:



And re-primed:



Then some boards and plating, and assorted rubble for the weapons platform for board 2:





More later!

Great as always! Can't wait to see it finished.

May I suggest getting one of the Earthshaker emplacements from Forge World and working in a spot for it? That would make a nice centrepiece.

This is looking brilliant.

Great project!

MOAR!

Center walkway pathed out:



Rough fitting:





Obviously we've got a lot of work to do, but it's shaping up, and that's driving inspiration right now. This week should see rubble and priming, I hope.
And finally, a primer coat on the gun emplacement:

Great work so far, definitely looks like your making progress.

Keep it up man! I love seeing this progress and turn from a great idea into an amazing display.

Looks great! Can you show a few pics of the figures inside the trench for scale?

@Forlorn: Ask and you shall receive. Dark Angels vs. Tau work for you?









ps. This shot made some mold lines really jump out at me. I have more work to do on my Angels....

Lovely work, mate, keep at it!

@Nafarious: Right now, I'm cutting my foam with a box knife, x-acto, etc. I have a hot wire cutter on the way, however.

Small update this evening.

FIrst coat of brown wash for the floorboards. Last time was devlan mud; this time around it's agrax earthshade. Once that runs out, I'll be making my own. I've always wanted to try, and this seems like the kind of project to mass-produce some brown wash....



Here's a closer shot, so you can see what the wash is really doing. I know a lot of smarter, more accomplished modelers would tell me to prime the whole piece black, but I really like the look the wood is giving me (she said knowingly.)



Finally, agrax wash for the wood, and a first coat of rhinox hide and snakebite for the ground, leadbelcher and a black wash for the metal.

This is an amazingly ambitious project! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Keep working! You've made great progress so far. A little advice regarding shell holes (i.e. craters) is that they tend to be more bowl shaped. The kinetic force of an artillery shell impacting and exploding on dirt or even stone has a tendency to create shallow, very spherical depressions in the ground. I recommend doing a google image search for "shell holes" or "WWI battlefields" to get a feel for what the craters would look like.

Consider this project thread followed!

Keep it coming!

Looking good!

Are you planning on doing a second set for the OpFor? That would afford you the opportunity to add in some "No Man's Land".

I have plans on doing something like this sometime.

Source of inspiration, this. Very well done.

This is very inspiring! I'll be following your progress.

Sorry for the radio silence. The wife and I spent the week in Colorado on vacation.

New progress pics!

Texture on the rest of this board, same as before: a layer of glue, followed by copious amounts of foam drek:



Once that dried, I brushed most of it back into the bucket. Second coat of glue/water mix to seal these prior to painting.


Tomorrow night should see brush priming and painting this second side. Then we break out the GS and make some sand bags.

Lovely! I forget, do you make the foam bits or buy it? I'm guessing you make it but how? Do you break it up by hand?

I make it. I bought a food processor at a garage sale for $5. just cut your foam down into bite sized chunks and let the processor do the rest.

Solid, thanks. I made some rubble on a smaller scale recently by throwing some old pencils and sprue into my smoothly maker. It's probably toxic now and I've gone deaf but it was totally worth it. Maybe.

Mental note, find old food processor for urban rubble making.........

It will do sprues, but it chews up the blade faster and yes, is deafening. Don't do this at 3 am. Your wife will find a new use for the blender.

EDIT: I don't know if it matters to anyone, but I've compiled all the pics into a gallery. You can find it here.

Hey all. I would apologize for the thread necro, but A: it's my thread, and B: it's 24 hrs short of a true necro anyway.

I work for a school district, so the last month has been crazy. Things are finally settling down, and I've finally gotten some more work done.

So: to the project.
I've got the first board rubbled, based, and painted. All that's left for this is details (posters, more water effects) and some greenstuff sandbags around the firing positions. I want to get more done, so I can do a lot of bags at once, rather than piecemeal.



Detail of the dirt caked onto the uneven wall shelves.


Firing shelf stairs.


Ammo crate nook.


I also made good headway on board two, the artillery position:


Thanks again for all the advice and kind words! Keep 'em coming!

Yea!! The updates have returned!

I would totally love to see the the board once all the extra detailed are put in.

And board 2 is coming about really nicely!

So engrossed on the pics on the first board, I almost forgot there are a bunch more yet to come!

Good to see life in this again.

This looks great Looking forward to seeing more of this, would be so much fun to play on

Young Logan

Nice to see you at it again. Have you thought about casting your sandbags if you're having to make a lot? Everything is looking great.

Awesome work as usual, keep it up!

Looks greats. I like the way the foam bits turned out. Looks like piled up slate and rock.

Updates!

@Casey's Law: Yes, I think I will be casting bags, simply because I'll need a mess of them.



Updates:

Flooring down on most of the second board.





It's small progress, but I'd rather get back in the habit of updating regularly. I'm sure you'd all appreciate the same.

I love the work you've put into it so far. Keep it up!

Now is the going to be a mostly Trench board or will you be adding anything else like a bombed out building mixed in.

i's lootin this ideer, right proper an quik like. dis'd be a gret way to fun'l 'umies in ta da firin lines o' da boyz. actually, my FLGS doesn't have but one or two trench works pieces, so yeah, i'm going to be paying real close attention to this thread and the stuff your doing so i can make some of my own to donate to the store. it's also nice that it won't cost much to do this but time, and time is something i do and don't have plenty of, all depends on the time of the year, and the part of the year when i have the most amount of time is fast approaching.

keep up the good work, looks great. here's an idea for you, Tamiya makes a sand bag kit - item # 35025, for $5 and change, a German Jerry Can Set - Item #35315 for $7 and change, Jerry Can Set Kit - Item #35026 for $5 and change, another Jerry Can Set - Item #32510 for $12 and change, along with several other accessory kits that might be right up your alley for decorating your trenches. you probably already know this, but just in case it slipped your mind.

@ deadmeat85: The plan is to build 16 panels or so of this, enough to fill half a 4x8 board, and then begin developing transition panels, into swamp, jungle, desert, no man's land (for insertion into a second trench set) or city outskirts. Eventually, I'd like to do this same concept with a series of city buildings, parks, and avenues. One gargant-sized project at a time...

@ SebastionSynn: Thanks for the Tamiya finds! They're perfect. You may just see a barrel with your name on it.


Now! More updates:

Got some more wooden siding up.




Which means panel two is coming along nicely. (Ignore the board underneath it. That's my old 3x6 table...)


Also, meet panel 3:


This panel will have an angular firing ledge, similar to the full-side firing ledge of panel one.

This looks like an awesome game table! I'm going to have to add it to my queue of stuff to steal for a later date!

Out of curiosity, what are you building them all on top of? Looks like some kind of wood. How heavy, and how prone to warping is it?

@Jimsolo: It's described by Home Depot, Lowes, etc. as 3/16 in. Tempered Hard Board.

$13.98 US currently for a 4x8 sheet of the stuff. In longer lengths, it can bend, but at these sizes I find it's similar to working on a ceramic floor tile.

daemonhunter187 wrote:

@ SebastionSynn: Thanks for the Tamiya finds! They're perfect. You may just see a barrel with your name on it.

thanks Brah! as for the ones that i will be working on, your name suggests to me more of a recruitment poster, something like "Daemon Hunter, wants you for the Inquisition! See your local Inquisition recruiter today, or stand accused of heresy!". now whether i go as in depth as you with all those boards, probably not, my FLGS only uses 3' x 6' tables, so for me it will be two sets of three trenchworks on one end of the table, and another set for the other end, and then a two foot area of no man's land in between. another option would be to build a city of death on two sets as well.

daemonhunter187 wrote:
@ deadmeat85: The plan is to build 16 panels or so of this, enough to fill half a 4x8 board, and then begin developing transition panels, into swamp, jungle, desert, no man's land (for insertion into a second trench set) or city outskirts. Eventually, I'd like to do this same concept with a series of city buildings, parks, and avenues. One gargant-sized project at a time...

Im also in the planing stages of my own modular board. Hence why I asked about other building and terrain. I really like your idea about building up the height with the foam and I'm going to use it on my board as well. Lol, I have about enough planed out to build about 8 4ft x 6ft board. Hopefuly by the new year i will be able to start the as you say "Gargant-sized project."

Looking forward to the final board.

Loving the progress! And casting sandbags is definitely a good decision at this scale.

Even if you're going to cast them, I'd recommend Milliput over GS for making your sandbags - you get more Milliput for your money, after all.

 Dysartes wrote:
Even if you're going to cast them, I'd recommend Milliput over GS for making your sandbags - you get more Milliput for your money, after all.

Easier still is sculpey. Bake it then glue in place.

Really? I would have thought you'd be casting in resin using a silicon mould. It's the correct tool for the job really. Putty is for sculpting for a reason. Of course if you want to quickly pressmould them then manipulate them into position then you should certainly use milliput and oyumaru.

The current plan is to make gs masters and make either oyumaru or silicone molds for resin. I don't have any oyu right now, but I've been looking for any excuse to buy some. This seems like the time.

Hey all. Sorry for the silence. New job is dominating my timeline for now, so I'll have a bit less time to focus on this.

BUT:

Oyumaru is ordered, and a bigger batch of resin is on its way as well. I was almost out. I've started a few demo sand bags, but until I get home, I won't have pics up.

Your work is worth waiting for. Incredibly inspiring, and the skill you have is impressive.


** edit **

Also, if you have already explained this I apologize- what are you using to weather the wood? It's some of the best wood weathering I can remember seeing.

I agree with Bloodaxe. We will still be here waiting, alone in the dark, watching.............

For wood weathering, I'm doing... nothing.

Seriously. It's just a sepia wash with either GW gryphonne or Game color sepia wash. What makes it look like that is that I don't prime it. I leave the wood raw, and essentially stain it, rather than paint it.

Ah! Ok. That's really good to know. I use similar sticks (courtesy of Starbucks... by the fistful) for my WFB buildings / fences / etc. I've been priming black and then build up color via drybrush. This sounds so way much easier and looks great. I think I'll make another WFB building and have a go at this. I'm bored w/ my current projects anyway and a fresh project might be the kicker I need to get back into things.

Don't you think that starbucks frowns upon that?

Incredible! I'm going to try this!

It's my thread: I'll necro it if I want to...

Back for a small update. I've been mostly focused on my Dark Angels lately (for which I have no blog, but probably should.) Between a Winter Escalation League and an impending Apoc game, they took most of my time.

But not all of it.

This is where we left panel 2.


Added flooring.


Check for fit.


With final corner attached.


And stained.

Updating your own thread (regardless of how old) isn't considered threadcromancy. You will get some Mod attention only if you reply to someone else's dead thread.

If anyone on Dakka is distracting me from my current projects and making me want to start something else is it you. You you you. If I give in to it I'm so completely going to blame you for everything. I had a modular system similar to yours when I lived in VA, but it wasn't finished because I wound up with an unexpected move and I had to sacrifice a lot of my terrain (no room or storage).

So yeah, if I do start a trench project I'll make sure you get the credit and the blame for inspiring me on my terrain thread. Your work is absolutely excellent and I am enjoying your project very much.

Argh! ...Gimme that board.

...I mean nice work. The structure of the ductboarding looks quite appealing. I don't know how authentic it is, but visually you've pulled off an interesting looking trench system. You just need to grimdark it up a little with having the odd hand drooping out from between loose wall boards to fit the setting.

Great looking trenches!

UPDATE!

Merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays / Happy New Years / Festive Whatever It Takes To Not Offend You Unnecessarily.

The Holidays were packed with family and fun, and I actually got some time to focus on the project, once everyone else was passed out.

So here we go.

You may remember this sad fellow:


Well, we've fleshed it out a bit. I started by building up the wall to match the firing corner.


Gave it a test fit with two layers:


Then built up the third layer of the wall:


Top view:


Angle:



Next up: a new panel.




And last:


So. Yay for progress.

More later, slowly but surely. Camkierhi may have thrown this project under the bus (for the time being) with the new LoER Terrain competition. It's got my creative juices flowing. If it happens, you know who to blame. Just sayin'.

Long overdue update!

We've got more rocks and gravel in place.



This time it's a mix of blue and pink. There's really no difference other than brand, but my last art project sent me blue foam instead of the usual pink. What can you do? Grind it up.



It's a pretty simple process. Slather the top in generous amounts of glue, and bury it in the box. Come back tomorrow.

Oh man its been a while. Glad you are back at it.

Here we go. Need to seal this with a glue/water mix before we proceed.

Nice work. Now I want chocolate cake for some reason.

Holy Gaking Gak on Toast Gakman!

These are amazing, you wont be murderously upset if I attempt my hand at this sort of project.

I'll be delighted if you give it a go. The more the merrier!

Share what comes out of your project. It can only help the rest of us.

daemonhunter187 wrote:
I'll be delighted if you give it a go. The more the merrier!

Share what comes out of your project. It can only help the rest of us.

subed forever!
and for sure, I will be going out to get some Plasticard, Sticks and foam in the next few days.

Nice to see this coming along.Some of the best trench boards I've seen. Keep it coming!

Some different updates this evening. I got a little wood laid down, but I've been more focused on an idea that bit me a while back.

I've been trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the board. I've said from the beginning I'd like a no man's land, and a city scape in the same 1x1 format.

So here's a few demo pieces to test and play around with.



No man's land: a crashed tau transport makes for good cover, an objective, or just landscape.





Obviously there's a LOT more to work on here, but it's a start.



Next, a base for ruins. I think eventually we'll see a wrecked stormtalon, avenger or thunderbolt. Something to explain the large gash in the landscape.
Might make for some fun smoke and flame work. (Dare I ask: LEDs?)



I don't know that I like the base running all the way to the edge of the panel. It hinders its modularity. We'll see how that fleshes out. It's easy enough to modify.

Just an idea: how about an unexploded ork rocket/missile partially embedded in one of those awesome bunker walls?

-Grim

You know, I've never done ork *anything*.
It may be time.

OK, I'm completely hooked... subbed.

Everyone should have some sort of fungus infection.

Awesome work bud. I'm ever so slightly jealous keep it coming

This is amazing. One note for the no-man's land boards. Something I've seen used to amazing effect is water effects. Having tons of craters filled with brown, muddy water looks absolutely fantastic, and it would fit perfectly as a contrast with the large ruins and brightly colored (and destroyed) vehicles.

Small, quick update.



Classes are back in, and they're eating up most of my time. (Ancient Hebrew is a time sink.) 0_o

Hey all. Consider this project on hiatus until September or later. I just don't have the time for modelling right now. I'm sorry.

No worries dh, real life comes first! See you then!

My P&M blog seems to only get updated about once every 2ish months so...I can totally relate. Hope the life calms down and hobby time becomes more available.