75th Anniversary of Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Terrain Build)
Trenches - Sandbagging
I thought I would add some more detail and contrast to the trenches by lining the top of the wooden retaining walls with sandbags. This was somewhat inspired by the Bolt Action boot camp and I’ve used a similar method.
Having done a tiny bit of research, roughly a sandbag in 15mm scale should be around 4mm wide and about 6 to 8mm long. This is obviously quite small and tricky to get right but if I can get close, I think it will be good enough.
I’m going to use Das modelling clay and roll out long sausages to about a diameter of 2mm. I then gently squash these between two kitchen chopping boards. This has the benefit of adding some texture to the sandbags as well!
Rolling the clay sausage on the chopping boardOnce squashed, using a ruler and a sharp modelling knife, I’ve cut the sausage into 6mm lengths. I’ve then left these to dry.
I tried creating some variation by stacking a few sandbags or arranging them together in different ways while still wet. If I’m honest though, this was very fiddly and I lost patience quite quickly!
Chopping the sand bags up
A completed sandbag, ready for drying - note the texture from the chopping board
Once dry, they are ready for attaching to the trenchesLeft overnight to dry, I attached the sandbags along the top of the trenches using a lot of super glue. Once this was all dry, I then sprayed the whole piece with watered down PVA. This was partly to give the sand bags some more adhesion but also to fix down the sand that I had applied to the Polyfilla in the previous entry on this project. Once dry, this will be ready for priming and painting.
With the sand bags attached
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