Building the Bois des Caures for Partizan updated 27th May

[James Morris]

With 9 days to go til Partizan I thought it was high time I started getting the scenery for our game done.  We're hoping to do a small section of the German attack on the French positions in the Bois des Caures on 21st and 22nd February 1916; the start of the Battle of Verdun.

Having now spent a few months reading about the battle, I find the terrain required quite haunting; the shattered woods in particular have grabbed my imagination.  The accounts of the bombardment are, naturally, harrowing, and the destruction in the Bois des Caures was huge and to many soldiers' eyes, unnatural.  I remind myself that the descriptions of Tolkien's Moria probably took shape in the trenches of the Great War.

Anyway, enough waffle, here's some of my inspiration:

Images of the Bois des Caures during the battle:


Quite reminiscent of John Nash's 'Oppy Wood 1917':




The first step was, unsurprisingly, several walks round the woods with the kids, though it's unusual for Dad to bring home quite this many sticks!  After some selective chopping and breaking I ended up with enough wood to make around 50 trees and some stumps.  Armed with the trusty hot glue glue I set about gluing these onto rough bases:



Shell holes have been added from the sheet sold by Early War Minis.  I also used numerous washers and coins to help weight down the trees; in my experience tall trees have a habit of crashing down in an unexpected manner.



Having done all this, I plastered the bases with filler and glued on sand and cork chippings for some extra texture:





Next up: painting.  Brown, brown or brown?

[von Lucky]

A nice start. Definitely giving me ideas to get away from the typical trench table.

[Marine0846]

You are off to a good start.
Look forward to what is next.

[Anna Elizabeth]

I like this. Waiting for more.

[Legion1963]

Indeed. Very interesting and i will watch this one closely. ;-)

[The Dozing Dragon]

Looks great so far!

[Captain Blood]

Good start. Love the Nash painting. If you can capture that feeling in your layout, you'll be onto a winner.

[tin shed gamer]

I'll keep a lookout for it at Partizan.Any idea which hall you'll be in?
Mark.

[janner]

Intriguing start 

[Atheling]

A lot of John Nash's sketches from WWI have survived James. I've seen them in a gallery but I suspect that seeing as Nash's art is seen as such an icon of WWII in the UK that they may well be worth looking for online.

Just a suggestion old bean 

Darrell.

[Sendak]

Looking good.

Shattered and very convincing.

Hope to see more.

Regards,
Sendak

[Atheling]

Really looking forward to seeing this game this weekend 

Darrell.

[James Morris]

Thanks for all the kind comments.  I'm now working on painting up the bases of the trees:

Before and after shot.  The base has been given a rough dry brush over the original brown; shell hole painted in Vallejo Flat Earth, then some black wash applied to add depth, finished off with a coat of brown ink, then finally a coat of yacht varnish.
It's not exactly modelling masterclass but it does look effective en masse.
I also added a few splashes of black wash to the tree and the base to add a bit of variety.



To take a break from the trees, I had a go at some of the vacformed pieces I bought at Salute.  The fortifications in the Bois des Caures were not continuous trench lines, but a network of mutually supporting dugouts and bunkers, so thes eneed doing for the weekend's game anyway.  I wasn't happy with my (rather rushed) paintjob on the Amera bunker that featured in one of Scrivs' battle reports and spent a bit of time trying to get a better finish.  The vacform is cheap, but by its very nature, very smooth, which means you need to put a bit of work into adding texture or painting it on.  I sponged on a couple of highlighting layers and am happier with the result, as well as lining the edge with some black. 




Where I am really struggling here is with the lack of foliage I have committed myself to using - in a usual basing job I'd be adding all kinds of tufts and bushes which add another dimension to the texture.  I may visit Arcane Models tomorrow and see if they have any brown flock and tufts I can add to make myself happier with this.



I do need to remember that these will be appearing under a dusting of snow at the weekend too!

I also had a crack at improving a hill emplacement, again another bargain from Amera.  Like the bunker, I added texture to the groundwork using filler and sand, and raised the level of the emplacement to allow my Hotchkiss team to be able to fire out, before painting.  The sandbags had come out very flat in my initial paint and wash, so I decided to paint them in using layers.  They're slightly cartoony but certainly have more definition now.  Like the bunker, this is waiting for a final layer of flock/weathering/tufts, whatever comes to mind before Sunday!



Coming next will be some other vacformed bits & pieces from Salute; all these I have only textured and undercoated so far.

New from Kallistra, the largest piece in their 'non-hex crater set'.  This is a monster!



Amera's craters:



And a dugout from Early War Miniatures.  This is a thinner plastic than either Amera or Kallistra so it does have more surface detail - the wickerwork seems very appropriate for trenches of this period.



Finally, one more from Amera:

[Anna Elizabeth]

I need some of these. I think a little more wash, drybrushing, and flock and these will do the business.

[rebelyell2006]

For adding texture, would stippling a plastic bunker with tiny amounts of plastic cement melt a concrete texture pattern?