How to Make Entrenchments

How to make Entrenchment Markers By Dale Before you begin you will need some 3-6mm MDF or cardboard, some balsa wood, matchsticks or twigs, a craft knife, glue, sand, flock (grass), paint and modelling or builders putty or filler.

Step 1 First you need to cut out the base of your entrenchment from the MDF or card board. Make sure you cut this to fit around a medium base. This will allow the entrenchment to fit in front of a infantry or gun team. Use an actual base when doing this to make sure, there is nothing worse than completing your entrenchment to find it doesn’t fit!

Step 2 Next build the inside wall of your entrenchment, I’ve used balsa wood cut into logs supported by two posts, but you could easily use matchsticks or twigs from a tree. Glue them on top of each other and use the support post to hold it all together.

Step 3 Use your putty build up the front of the entrenchment into a sloped bank. Remember to leave some of the wooden wall showing over the top. You may like to cut, or sand, off excess putty once it’s dry.

Step 4 To add some texture mix some sand with your base colour paint and paint the bank part of the entrenchment. The sand will give you some texture to work with in the next step when painting the entrenchment. If you’d like more texture just sprinkle some sand on the still wet paint and paint another coat over it.

Step 5 Now you can paint the logs your favourite wood colour, before dry-brushing them with a lighter shade. Now you can dry-brush the bank with some lighter earth shades. Here I’ve built up the colours with two different shades, going from the dark colour of the ground to an intermediate shade to a final light shade.

Step 6 Finally apply some grass flock using PVA glue; I’ve used static grass here. Be sure to leave some gaps to have the ground show through.

Additional Ideas • You could increase or decrease the height to match crouching or standing miniatures, gun teams etc. • You could also cut the base of the entrenchments so they go around three sides of a base.

• The addition of extra drums, gun parts, wheels, bikes, casualties and other general battlefield debris could also be included on your entrenchments. • Also remember to keep the entrenchments similar to the bases of your army or gaming terrain.