The Last Transformed Trench War Crusade

Yesterday was mainly about bringing the other boards up to speed in terms of a first coat of paints, I also made some extra cuts into the foam on a couple of boards.

This is the current state of the first two boards. Need to decide how to colour the inside of the trench, still considering dry brushing.

Another thing to consider is barbed wire, do I integrate it into the board, in which case, how will it hold up to being stored. Or, do I make something separate, whereby it will entail a flat base sitting on rough terrain and won’t look quite as good.

I also found time to prime my shipwrecks

Processions are a support unit which does not fight, but gives a bonus to units around it, especially in close combat. Optimal base size is up to 75mm , so I will be bending the rules a little with mine, all in the name of creative fun.

I started with my French unit, originally destined for Verrotwood and my cultist army (but that’s another project for another day).

Having started on four boards at the same time, I dropped down to two. I used a mix of cheap brown acrylic and PVA, more to seal the grout down. I had taken the Big G’s advice and done a washing up liquid and watery PVA blend coating prior to that. I left one board at this stage and focused on developing a solitary board. Just to make sure my ideas would actually work.

I then started to add planking for the floors but the PVA glue I used was hot garbage, so I re-layed it with slightly diluted mod podge. The plan is to spray over it all and drybrush, then add shading, details and greebles.

Day 2, hot glued the xps to the mdf. Added sculptamold, need to order more!, threw some grout over the boards and wetted then, that’s enough for tonight, no idea how these will turn out, keep second guessing the layout, the best way to do it. Also mulling over when to add the printed details, paint first then add? I plan to paint the whole thing brown with acrylic paint and pva.

These are some of the bits I have printed off to integrate into the boards, I’m going to need a lot more sandbags!

Also a piece of purchased terrain arrived, I’m really impressed with the quality of the fdm print

I had been quite intrigued by the idea of building some trenches but never really vibed with the idea getting into another historical game. I had vaguely heard of there being a variant of Turnip28 with a slightly more modern twist, Sludge or something and there was the Last War Forbidden Psalm variant and of course A War Transformed.

Fortunately the day was saved when Trench Crusade came along and invented World War One and everyone got really excited because there was nothing else like this, like ever before .

Snark aside there are great ideas and communities around all these games. Time to dive in

The first rulebook (AWT) arrived and came with a sprue of Frostgrave wizards, I couldn’t resist kitbashing these with my Wargames Atlantic kits

Before I started cutting any foam I wanted to get a basic trench shape down, so I created a template. I’m going for playable, more than historical accuracy with this build. This template actually worked pretty well as a crude jig for the hot wire cutter.

To make the template I taped 3 pieces of A4 together and drew out my trench on it, I actually used a pack of rennie to keep the width consistent. I them cut the middle out to make two templates.

I then pinned the templates to the foam and had at it with the foam cutter.

Also cut the wood sections to size, a little crudely, being a person who only thought they owned a saw. I might dig out the hot glue gun  and get the basic shapes down tonight.

To get things rolling in time for the first of October I started gathering materials and miniatures. I am quite excited about some of the miniatures coming in, but I need to focus on terrain dagnammit.

My plan is to make six 12×24″ sections of trench terrain, this will allow for opposing trenches on a 6×4′ table. The backs will be designed to go against the edge of the table, or back to back to make a double row of trenches. That’s the theory anyway.

I intend to use mdf, matchwood, plasticard , scupltamould, xps foam and 3d printed elements in all areas of this project.

As well as materials I had started collecting miniatures and going through my existing collection to see what was usable. More on that later. I also picked up some vehicles from Skytrex and put them together while waiting for materials , and the actual rulebook, to arrive.