Hedges

I’m pulling my finger out and getting some terrain finished off for the combat patrol tournament. After looking at my collections, I realised that I needed a little more for each of the tables to bring them up to the 25% recommended coverage. For my temperate terrain board, I snagged on the idea of making some hedges. For starters, they look pretty nice on a table, giving it that finished touch. They also open up different tactical opportunities as they are rather different to other terrain. So without further ado, a guide to make some really cheap terrain.

What do you need:

Some green rectangular scouring pads (I picked up a pack of ten for $1.30AU), some square balsa wood rod, lots of PVA glue, scissors and some clothes pegs.

First take your scouring pads and fold them in half to gauge the height. I cut a strip off the long edge about 1cm wide to get the right height. Keep the strip, you’ll use it shortly. Fold your remaining scouring pad in half and place the off cut strip in between the two halves, so that it fills the gap at the end. Cut it off at the appropriate length. Do the same for the other side. Glue these ends onto the edges of the scouring pad on one side, and whatever is left of your strip along the bottom. Now take some short lengths of balsa, and glue them up against your ends. The PVA has problems gluing the scouring pad together, but the balsa give more surface area for the glue to hold onto like so:

Let this dry fully before adding more glue, and folding the pad over to make the hedge. Use clothes pegs to hold it together whilst it dries:

If you want to, you can rough up the hedges a little, but I found it wasn’t really worth it. It just made it look like I’d used the pad for cleaning before turning it into a hedge.

A whole bunch of hedges waiting to dry.

The hedges are high enough for an infantry model to hide behind, but not a tank

A unit of Damo's Terminators take cover behind a hedge row

Comments welcome