75th Anniversary of Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Terrain Build)

I like using filler (spakling paste) for my basing. It’s creates a decent texture and can hold things down if attached while wet which effectively places those items ‘in to the terrain’ rather than ‘on top of the terrain’.

I start by scoring the MDF base with a knife to help create a rough surface area for the filler to adhere to. It’s then a simple case of applying the filler. I use my finger and some water to smooth it out and create undulations so it looks more natural.

For the mine fields, I will simply sprinkle over some sand and small stones/cork chippings to create some texture and leave to dry.

For the tank traps and barbed wire, I pushed the primed tile spacers into the filler and applied a small blob of filler around the base of each ‘post’ to create the impression of these posts being fixed into the ground. Again, some water and my finger smoothed these blobs out to make them look more ‘natural’.

Same approach for the barbed wire posts. Once the posts were attached, I gently pushed the coils of barbed wire into the filler along the line of the posts. Not to far, just enough to hold them in place.

Finally, I applied sand over the base to create texture and left it all to dry. I generally leave this 24 hours to make sure it has fully dried. You also need to be careful of warping, particularly with the longer stretches (which is why a 4″ length of base is better than the 8″ base). I’ve noticed a few of mine warping so carefully hold the ends down with some weights to avoid this.