[Ramblings of Rictus] Terrain - Minefields

Welcome to my first article on MWC, I thought I would start with a small and straightforward one to ease us all in...

...so I shall begin with some minefields.

These are mainly for use in Apocalypse games where the Minefield Strategic Asset allows you to take up to 36”x6” of minefields.

The first thing I needed was of course the mines themselves, both anti-infantry and anti-armour. Rather than spending a small fortune on mines from Forge World I made masters and then cast them.

The masters are made from 1/35 scale wheels and fuse wire for the anti-armour mines and another 1/35 scale piece with styrene rod for the anti-infantry mines.

Once the mould was done it was quite a quick process to knock out as many mines as I needed.

I decided to try out a new material for me for the bases, 3mm thick Finnboard which is a material commonly used in architectural modelling and similar applications. It is strong yet light and very easy to work with. It can be cut with a knife thus avoiding any sawing and sanding while it suffers almost no problem with warpage – it can simply be bent back into shape if it does.

I cut two 12x6” and two 6x6” bases to allow me to arrange the minefield either as a continuous 36” strip, two 18” strips or as three 12” strips as per the Strategic Asset rules.

On each piece a small number of mines were added, the backs of them were sanded down to remove excess resin and also to vary the height, some mines would be clearly visible while others would be half buried or only just showing. Sand was then added along with some (clean) cat litter for rocks to break up the sand.

How the minefields looked prior to undercoating.

A few larger rock pieces were also added. On one base I added some razor wire along with a couple of craters made from modelling clay for variety and visual interest. After undercoating in black it was quite a simple job to paint the minefields.

I painted the minefields to fit in with my gaming board, so various browns for the earth and greys for the rocks. The mines themselves were painted metallic but muted down with washes so they were not shiny. I wanted them to be seen so everyone knew what the bases represented while not standing out too much.

And in position on my gaming boards

And that is just about it. I hope it was interesting enough for a first article. If you have any comments or questions I would be delighted to hear them.