Building Wattle Fence Stands

June 4, 2024 | Kreighton Long | Black Powder, Bolt Action, Gaming, Miniature Games, Models and Painting, Pike & Shotte, Tutorial, Warlord Games, Warlords of Erehwon

By Kreighton Long

Slowly but surely I’ve been working on improving my terrain options with the focus on Bolt Action.  My primary army project for this year is overhauling my Soviet forces.  Accordingly, my terrain optics have been focused on the terrain pieces that will best fit the Eastern Front.

While I have been adding to my collection of Soviet houses, shout out to Sarissa Precision for some lovely kits, I felt I needed some fences to fill in some gaps, create Soft Cover opportunities, and make my table looked more lived-in.  With flexibility in mind I schemed of building sections of wattle fences that would fit the aesthetic of the Eastern Front and check all three aforementioned requirements.

I quickly came across a sprue of plastic wattle fences from Renedra Ltd.  With the fences themselves identified the next question was how to base them.  I wanted to find a basing material that would fit the size of the fences so I could line them up as needed as well as thin enough that the fence pieces would better blend into the table.  After too much head scratching I decided to take the easy way out and order custom bases from Litko using their Base Maker option to create custom bases for my fences.  I measured out the fences, made some paper mock ups, adjusted the dimensions accordingly, and submitted my order.

The specifics I went with were Pill Shaped (to allow the fences to fit together at angles), 1.5mm Clear Acrylic material (thinnest plastic I saw), and 12mm wide by 124mm long.  With the fences and bases in hand, I set about testing my idea.  I primed both the bases and the sprues, painted the fences on the sprues to make dry brushing easier, scored the bases, glued the painted fences onto the bases, then added my standard basing materials.  My full basing process is detailed here.  For these bases I skipped the water putty step but the rest is the same.

 

The paints I used for the fences. I used Apple Barrel Black, Pewter Grey, Territorial Beige, and Khaki as well as Vallejo Iraqui Sand.

 

After priming the fences I base coated them with a 1:1 mix of Territorial Beige and Black, dry brushed a layer of Territorial Beige, dry brushed a slightly lighter layer with a 1:1 mix of Khaki and Pewter Grey, painted the ropes on the gate with Vallejo’s Iraqui Sand, then applied a thin black wash to the whole thing.  After painting the fences on the sprue I cut them out and glued them onto the Litko bases I ordered.

 

After attaching the painted fence to the base I glued a layer of sand then painted the sand with Apple Barrel Black then dry brushed layers of Nutmeg Brown and then Trail Tan.

 

After painting the sand I added patches of static grass, foliage clusters, and vegetation tufts.

Happy painting!