JasperO: In the Dutch countryside (80 points)

For PolderCon this year, I ran a Chain of Command scenario together with Nick Skinner of TooFatLardies. We'd decided to represent an attack of the Unterführerschule Arnheim, part of Kampfgruppe Von Tettau, on the positions of D Company, the Border Regiment, along Van Borsselenweg in western Oosterbeek (for the full scenario, see WSS 107). Terrain-wise, this was pretty easy. A Dutch farm building, lots of trees, a stretch of road. I wanted to make it look 'proper' Dutch though, which means lots of barbed-wire fence lines (they're useful for all of northwestern Europe actually) and for good measure a Dutch haystack to accompany the farm. For purposes of rolling in, of course...

Haystack and fencing with some 28mm Empress Germans for scale.

The fencing was made from the slats of an old set of wooden window blinds, which were rather perfectly sized at 1.5" wide and the 'outside' parts (each side of the hole for the guide rope) about 6" long and the inside part about 12". I drilled holes for 1" tall sections of shish kebab skewers and hot-glued them in. I then used a rattle can to spray the lengths brown, applied my standard basing mix and applied Gale Force 9 barbed wire. I found it easiest just to bend it around the end posts and apply some glue there. I then finished the fences with static grass and some tufts under the wire. I figure it's harder to mow the grass there.

6 6" and 3 12" lengths of fencing. Labrador not to scale.

The haystack started as a piece of 3mm cardboard (binder's board to be specific, which doesn't absorb moisture and warp) of about 4*4" with a 3" cube of blue foam stuck onto it. I glued 4" lengths of more of those skewers to each corner and then used an online pyramid calculator to figure out the card triangles I needed for the roof. I glued those together with lots of hot glue on the inside so, once dry, I could drill holes for the posts without the roof separating under the pressure. Somehow, it worked! The roof tiles are from Charlie Foxtrot with lead sheeting out of paper. I glued a few layers of static grass to the sides to make the foam look 'fluffy', and then airbrushed the base coats for the various colours. The wood and roof were dry brushed, the hay was airbrushed with very light coats of successively lighter shades of yellow. The green of the static grass shines through, which I decided makes it look like fresh grass. It was then finished with some basing material and tufts on the corners. Points-wise, I guess this would fill about 1 6" cube and a bit? I'll leave that to the mercy of the Lords of Pointing.

------------
By Paul
I do like nice terrain and this is Lovely! I'm sure the players really enjoyed playing on such a nice table. Those lengths of wire obstacles roughly have the same floor area as 3 terrain blocks so added to the haystack we will call that 4 blocks total for 80 points. Nice work!