Making a Trench Warfare Table for Warhammer and Historical games

in the history of War trench warfare is perhaps unsurpassed in terms of sheer horror and brutality with each side dug into tough defensive positions trench warfare allows for agonizing stalemates where very little ground is won or lost but it's no less deadly in this video I'm making a trench table to play war games on and in doing so we'll learn something of the realities that real soldiers endured in these hellish conditions let's Dive In my plan for this board is to split it into three parts each one measuring two feet by four feet with its own dedicated video the first part which we'll make in this video will be a network of trenches the middle segment will be a scarred and Horrible No Man's Land and the third will be a more fortified position of trenches and bunkers dug into a hill I'm going to be using this table mostly for battles for Hammer 40k and Horus heresy but I wanted to closely reflect the realities of trench warfare in World War One if you're interested in the history of the Great War and trench warfare then you might enjoy the sponsor of today's video Supremacy 1914. Supremacy 1914 is a free cross-platform PVP online strategy game set during World War One you can play your favorite Nation either on browser or mobile in real time on historic Maps I like that this game puts you in the shoes of the highest levels of command overseeing the movements and production of armies supplies and resources since the game is in real time there's a real sense of tension that builds as you declare war form alliances and use ever-evolving strategies to win epic battles if you click on the link in the description in the next 30 days you'll get an exclusive gift of 15 000 gold and one month of Premium subscription for free now let's get into building this table first thing I had to do was build the frame for the three board sections I did this using some two inch Pine posts for the frame with a Masonite surface the key here is a compromise between weight and rigidity I had them cut the post to length for me at Home Depot on the saw they have in the store but be careful if you aren't experienced with wood before you do something like this if you're not experienced with woodworking you might not know that a so-called two-inch post will not be two inches by two inches because they plane them on each side in The Sawmill leaving more like 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches so don't just do the math in your head don't trust what they're build as in the store always measure anyways with the basic substrate finished I lay out some 2 inch thick insulation foam across the whole board before I sketched my trench layout I did a little bit of research on how trenches are typically laid out a common Arrangement is to have multiple lines of trenches on the front the foremost trench called the front line trench or firing trench has a crenellated appearance from above this is due to the frequent u-shaped detours in the trench called traverses the prevent shrapnel or projectiles from traveling too far down the line and prevent the enemy from easily clearing out a whole trench with the unfollating gunfire if they capture a section zigzagging back from the front line are communication trenches which allow easy reinforcement and communication to the front lines while still providing cover behind are the support trenches which were typically a little bit safer less likely to be hit by artillery and often several hundred yards behind the front line trenches for my design I made a Frontline trench curving across the board with traverses at regular intervals most often trenches would be straight across long frontages but I think this curved shape will be more interesting to play on as I mentioned support trenches are usually hundreds of meters behind but I compressed this design so I could have some of the features of the support trench one of the parts of my support trench here will be visible in cross-section from the edge of my table and it'll allow you to get down a table level and really feel immersed in the trenches it's going to be really cool you'll see I added some communication trenches zigzagging their weight to the front I only had room for one Zig or zag depending on which you prefer I guess but that's okay I also blocked in some bridges these have the dual purpose of allowing Cavalry and cards to easily cross the trench while also providing some shelter from shrapnel coming from above lastly I blocked some of the craters of various sizes representing the blown out areas where shells and explosives had hit I also roughly sketched out some areas that might be good for barbed wire or tank traps when I was satisfied with the layout I started cutting out the trenches with a sharp work knife angling the blades so the trench walls aren't completely vertical the walls of the trench should be covered later so I didn't need to worry about the cuts being particularly clean now real-life trenches are often quite narrow obviously you don't want extra space for shells to fall into your Trench but since I will be using this for wargaming I needed to make sure there was enough room for squads of minis to move into the trench sections so the trenches are a bit wider than real world trenches but not too wide I still wanted tanks to be able to drive right over them that is after all the point of Tanks now once I was happy with the layout I used construction adhesive to glue down the foam sections once they were secure I cut the craters out with a sharp blade now this could be done more easily before gluing to be honest but oh well the deepest one is a flat bottom because I wanted it to be filled with standing water eventually now generally trenches are deep enough for soldiers to stand upright without their heads sticking up over the top which is why the front line trench needs to have a fire step a raised place for soldiers to stand to fire their guns over the lip of the trench in real life this is a small ledge but again I'm widening it to accommodate the bases of Miniatures I used some classic Perry Brothers soldiers shooting their last guns to make sure the height was just right I also cut this doorway into one of the trenches to represent a Dugout this is an area where soldiers can take shelter underground for periods of heavy shelling this is one of the reasons that world war one was so deadly it was a clash of new and old Fighting Technologies and philosophies at the Battle of the psalm for example the British dropped a huge amount of anti-personnel shells on the German position before advancing but the Germans were Sheltering in deep dugouts the shells dropped were largely designed for the Warfare style of the 19th century where lines of troops would meet each other in the open Battlefield and were designed to kill people with shrapnel rather than destroy fortifications so once the shelling stopped the Germans simply emerged from their dugouts and manned the trenches the advancing British soldiers were caught in the open charging without cover into nests and machine guns and rifle fire after just one day twenty thousand British soldiers were dead and by the time the battle was over there were over a million casualties in just this one battle it's hard to Fathom the scope of the loss and tragedy involved in World War One in Canada even the smallest towns have a memorial to the Great War often listing the names of the casualties sometimes kids as young as 16 and 17 who lied about their age to enlist and fight for their country I know this is heavy but I bring this up because it's supremely important to remember that even while we make games of War we must never glorify it and we must never forget the horror the tragedy and the utter waste of life that war is war is hell never forget we owe the dead that much anyways let's get back to it for the next step I took a trip to the dollar store to buy some rolls of tinfoil I'm going to use this foil to create embankments around the trenches these are the piles of dirt excavated From The Trenches when they were dug it's piled outside for additional protection using a glue gun I put tin foil around the edge of every trench and the craters as well okay at this stage you can see we're starting to get those built up edges around the trenches which would be all that loose dirt that's thrown out when they they dig those trenches and you can see we've got some loose Earth cast up around the craters as well I'm starting to think the best thing to do is to lay down a layer of mud texture here and then add details on top and then come in with more mod texture at the end to finish it off so let's do that all right we're about to film outside here putting some mud on here you can see I'm wearing my not best clothes let's see if we can beat the rain it looks like a good chance of showers I can actually I can feel raindrops on my skin right now so let's do this quickly so to make a mud coating for the whole board I use a mixture of acrylic latex caulking a splash of isopropyl alcohol to thin it down brown house paint sand and grout I mix that thoroughly until the components are Blended together then with an old paintbrush I slap that mixture on everywhere pushing it into cracks and crevices and laying it on especially thick where there are small gaps and materials I want to fill I didn't take any specific measurements of the various materials but if you guys ever want to ask me any questions about techniques the best place to do it is on my Discord server which is accessible to my patreon patrons I try to answer questions I get in the comments and emails as well but I give priority to my patrons because they're supporting me and they're the best now the caulking has a really strong vinegary smell it's actually quite gnarly but watching it back from the comfort of my editing station it kind of looks like a giant chocolate cake delicious so with the mud on the trenches I'm pretty stoked with how it's looking right now but we can add a ton more detail to this the walls of the trenches need to be supported with what are called revetments to prevent them from collapsing similar to a retaining wall revetments are made from a variety of materials from wood planks to woven waddle to sheet metal I decided most of my trenches would be made from sheet metal because I thought it would be the fastest to construct to make this sheet metal I used some corrugated paper which I painted with some gray and silver spray paint I'll put a link in the description of this paper and all the other materials I use in this project so you can get some of your own if you like I made a pretty big mistake here and I only painted one side of the paper which I regretted later if you decide to make something inspired by this build paint both sides trust me on this now once painted I cut the metal sheeting and braced the walls of the trenches my instinct was to make the grooves vertical but all the reference photos I saw showed horizontal so we'll go with that I let the paper overlap the top of the trench by a small amount and I made some Stakes holding back through aventments with a bit of bamboo skewer if I were to do this again again I would definitely paint the stakes before gluing them on I had to paint them individually later on and it was a real pain for the firestep I braced it as normal but added some small holes in the base of the metal this is to represent What's called the grenade sump a small hole that you can kick an enemy grenade into which contains the blast and could save your life I started adding duck boards using some cut up coffee stir sticks checking with minis again to make sure the heights are looking good it was around about here that I realized how much trench I had to cover and how labor intensive it was going to be sometimes you just have to grate your teeth and get it done you can see here the colors showing on the back of the metal revetments I was talking about obviously this was a big mistake I had to come back in manually try to paint them so they didn't show up I continued laying in some duck boards on the trench floor using coffee stir sticks it was taking a really long time these stir sticks are made from a wood that's pretty hard much harder than say balsa wood for example my hand was beginning to hurt from snipping so many small sticks with my clippers I decided to shift to a different material to save time and energy this time I used expanded PVC board it's about the same thickness and once painted it should look roughly the same I texture it with a wire brush then cut it in a grid pattern to the desired Dimensions this approach is much faster than cutting stir sticks I then started assembling sections of duck board outside of the trenches this is another adjustment that makes them easier to paint I laid the duck boards into place gave them the corresponding numbers so I would know where they went and then painted them with some spray paint on the trench that's exposed in cross-section I wanted to show a bit of what life was like for soldiers living in the trenches so I made some Little Shelter spaces that I imagine the soldiers would have dug out to be able to lay down for a brief minute of fitful rest between the watches I varied the revetments here making some out of planks I looked at a ton of reference images while doing this soldiers often had long hours in the trenches little to do but wait and many of them did some interesting things look at this little bar that these German officers made for example or the brickwork on this communication house or my personal favorite this little miniature setup this one kind of messed me up because I have no doubt that that's what I would be doing I can only hope these guys made it back to their families safely anyways after painting all the exposed brickworks I decided to add another labor intensive detail that was a common feature in my reference photos sandbags using a two-part epoxy sculpt putty I laid sandbags along the top of my section of revengements this not only makes the firing Bays look right had the added benefit of creating a hard and durable Edge to the sections that got this detail I was going to do some walls that were totally braced with sandbags near the bridges and other areas but this one tiny wall here took me almost half an hour to make just by itself so I had to abort that all in all I didn't do as many sandbags as I would have liked but it was really labor intensive and I wanted to get this first section done and I think it looks pretty good for whatever reason I didn't add all the bridges at the beginning so I added the final two Bridges and then like before I filled in the gaps and did some landforming with tin foil added some spackle to the sides to smooth out the edges with a palm sander I sanded them somewhat smooth I'm glad I did this before the next step because I got fine white dust everywhere doing this so the next step was another layer of mud using the same mixture as before but with a little bit less sand has helped add more coverage covering up some of the tin foil that was peeking out from the first coat and it gave everything a nice glutinous sticky muddy appearance which is what I wanted now I'm not intending to put grass onto this table I've seen some trench tables that have that and yes at the beginning of a battle there will be grass everywhere but I want this to be like deep into the war where the Earth has been churned up by shells and mud has flown around everywhere and there's nothing living in sight this is a grim dark Barren Wasteland and that's exactly how I want it while that was drying I painted the edges with black house paint [Music] back inside I painted the sandbags with a nice tan color to mimic the cloth bags the sandbags are made from I then dirtied the whole thing up with some dark washes starting with watered-down black acrylic paint to complete the look of the ground outside the trenches I made some simple structures out of bamboo skewers these are called knife rests or frizzian horses and their frames designed to hold barbed wire barbed wire was a pretty new innovation in World War one it was invented in the late 19th century as a cheap way to fence in livestock but it proved to be an incredibly effective tool on the battlefield making it extremely difficult obstacle for infantry that couldn't be easily destroyed by gunfire and was cheap easy and fast to replace if it was targeted with artillery with my knife rests painted I had some coils of army painter razor wire I wrap it around a brush to get that sort of coil-like appearance that razor wire has it comes in these big spools and I apply it just by sort of squishing it on in a very unstructured way all my reference photos showed a pretty crazy tangle of razor wire this stuff was often deployed in the middle of the night by a soldier who was probably really hurrying and scared for his life so I think it looks right I'm gonna leave these pieces loose so I can move them around the battlefield take them out when a tank moves to where they are and also so I can tuck them in the trenches for ease of storage now with those final details in place calling an end to part one I'm really really happy with how this has turned out so far and I'm really excited to make the second part I've picked up a few heavily damaged vehicles that I'm going to place in no man's land to act as cover and I have a bunch of other cool and interesting things I'm going to do including resin water that will fill the crater section as well make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it if you enjoyed this video please consider joining my patreon the support is invaluable I want to thank my current patrons again you guys are the absolute best and finally thanks again to the sponsor of this video Supremacy 1914. if you're interested in a free online PVP strategy game set during World War one click the link in the description for an exclusive gift choose your country and fight your way to Victory we'll see you next time on Eric's hobby Workshop

Channel: Eric's Hobby Workshop

Views: 1,070,785

Keywords: warhammer 40k, wargaming table, gaming table, bolt action, wargaming terrain, how to make a wargaming table, how to make, wargaming terrain building, warhammer 40000, 40k trench board, world war 1, historical wargaming, trench warfare, horus heresy

Id: 5gTE8VhOx2U

Length: 17min 6sec (1026 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023