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

The German defenders in Italy were very well dug in and had created a series of defensive lines across the country. Because of this, I’m going to need some trenches to represent the dug in nature of the defenders. Unlike the BoW crew with their Bolt Action desert trench table, I can’t glue foam to a wooden base. My trenches will be placed on the table as ‘terrain’.

I’ve started with 3mm foam underfloor heating insulation. I’ve used this to craft hills and other objects as it is very easy to work with. I’m going to build the trenches in 4″ strips and have cut three 4″ lengths of foam, each of narrower width. I’ve then proceeded to glue these together using PVA and held in place with a cocktail stick. I’ve made sure that each strip starts flush with one long edge – this will make the inside of the trench wall.

I’m going to need a fair amount of this, so I made quite a few.

Once the PVA has dried, I mounted each piece of foam onto a plasticard base. I’ve made sure that the plasticard is slightly wider and longer than the foam base. This will give the basing material something to stick to.

The strips of foam create a stepped effect which won’t be ideal for the polyfilla cover so I then went across them with a sharp knife to lessen the stepping.

Finally (in the last picture below) I have scored the plasticard to give the polyfilla something to stick to.

I also want to break up the uniform look so will create some craters in the front of the trench line. To do this, I’ve started by cutting out circular areas of the foam.

The next job will be to apply the polyfilla top. This will provide some weight, definition and hold the whole thing together.