Trench Hills for Trench boards (Part 1)

Hey there!  

In the Quar trenches, the Royalists see that the opposite trench is almost deserted but for 1 Crusader soldier.  They demand the Crusader surrender but the Crusader replies, "Ha!  One Crusader is worth 10 Royalists soldiers."

So the Royalist commander sends over 10 soldiers to get the Crusader, and after a minute of fighting noises from the trench they hear the Crusader say "ha! One Crusader is worth 50 Royalists!" 

Now pissed off, the Royalist commander sends over 50 soldiers, and after a couple of minutes shouting and cursing, nothing but silence is heard.  Until the Crusader calls out again "Ha!  One Crusader is worth 100 Royalist soldiers!" 

"That's it!" Says the Royalist commander and sends over 100 of his soldiers and fierce fighting is heard from the trench.  After the dust settles a lone Royalist survivor crawls back.  "What is going on over there?" questions the Royalist commander and the soldier replied, "Commander, it's a vicious trap.  The Crusader isn't alone; there are TWO of them."  

(/snickers) Trench humor.  Now let's get on with the post:

Trench Hills

The next phase of the Trench boards is to build some trench hills.  By Trench Hill, I mean a bunch of static hills that kinda look like trenches on their sides.  Stand alone hills.  If you build enough of them in varying shapes and sizes you and lay them all out on a table one could build a fairly convincing trench system.  Oh! that's a thought. Save that for the future.

But let's just build a few for a start.  Just enough to add some more variation in height.  The plan is to make these all two inches in height and in some generic shapes.   

Carving It

To start with, I'm gonna gather all the foam pieces that I had lying around...

When did I become this guy?  
The guy that just has foam pieces just lying around in the garage?
Like a foam hoarder.
Lucky the wife will never find it.  Stored in the garage under her hoards...

One spot in the trench boards where a trench hill should go is this section riiiight heeeere.

Where one side is much closer to the main trench-highway than the other.  Indicative of a Poor job of construction and planning I reckon.  So a big trench hill that slows down movement would be ideal.  

Being intellectually impaired, I cut a piece of poster paper (just thick card)
to a size of a hill that I wanted.  Just needed to see how big it was going to be. 
I could not rely on measurements.

The future trench hills.
3 interestingly shaped off cuts and the poster card stand in.

and it's a simple matter to use the poster as a template and cut out the hill on the foam cutter..

This here: is a very exciting photograph. 

Then, in a flash of inspiration, I cut the poster board and lined the hills all the way around the base in order to give a little shelf.

The idea is that this little base will give me something on which to line up the sticks of the trench walls, and give an area for some ground texture as well.  Maybe I'm brilliant. Maaaaybbeee.

But I forgot that I wanted to carve in some stairs into the bigger trench hills, to match it up more with the trench table.  Because nothing brings a terrain project together like consistency.   So I had to tear off the bases on one side...

And used the Proxon to carve out the stairs. 

Then added details to the stairs like I did with the terrain boards.

Stickin' It

Then it was time to start sticking on the sticks that will form the planks of the trench walls.  Now last time when cutting the planks I used a pair of clippers and tediously measured out each cut.  I could do it again, but that is not befitting my status as an Bootylicios Bodacious Terrain Board Builder.  

This is a self-awarded title. And like all self-awarded titles is largely meaningless, no matter if I made my wife call me it or not.  

But as a B.B.T.B.B. (as we in the biz call it) I deserved another tool, so enter my new weapon in the arsenal of terrain making... The Chopper.

Side effects include saying repeatedly
"Get to da Choppa!"
(you get it, or you don't)

Which is exactly what it looks like.  A blade on a stick on a base. 

But it does allow for easy cutting of the sticks.

So while watching TV, which is another tedious activity, I cut several coffee stir sticks to length.  I varied the length at somewhere between 2.5" and 2.25" so that the boards would not be all even.  

Special thanks to The Tactical Painter for showcasing the tool on his blog, on a post about building a house, which is how I learned about it.

And then glued them down...all the way around....using the poster board as the ground...

But I ran out of sticks to completely circle all my trench hills, so I have to,,,

And return later with the next steps.

Thanks For Reading.
Double Thanks for Writing a Comment.
Till Next Time.