Why Play All Hell Let Loose: Great War?

 

The First World War presents a number of challenges for tabletop wargaming.

It was a conflict of enormous scale, industrial firepower, confused command structures and rapidly evolving tactics. The war of 1914 was very different from that of 1916, while the final campaigns of 1918 brought yet another transformation. Meanwhile, campaigns in Eastern Europe, Italy, the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East retained very different characteristics.

So how do you create a game that can cover the entire land war of 1914–18 without becoming overwhelmingly complicated or losing the distinctive character of the Great War?

That is the challenge All Hell Let Loose: Great War was designed to meet.

The whole Great War in one game

All Hell Let Loose: Great War allows players to refight land battles from every year and theatre of the conflict.

You can fight the open manoeuvre battles of 1914, desperate defensive actions, trench warfare on the Western Front and the great offensives of the later war. The same core rules also support the more fluid campaigns fought elsewhere.

The full system includes rules for:

• Infantry assaults
• Trenches and fortifications
• Preliminary bombardments
• Artillery barrages and creeping barrages
• Tanks
• Cavalry
• Gas
• Aircraft
• Strategic movement
• Hidden movement

However, not every battle requires every rule.

The game uses optional plug-in mechanics, allowing you to use the additional rules appropriate to the battle you want to fight. A small encounter can remain fast and straightforward, while a larger offensive can include bombardments, barrages, extensive defences and the other elements that defined later Great War warfare.

Simple mechanics, difficult decisions

At the heart of All Hell Let Loose: Great War are three core mechanics:

• Activation
• Firing
• Assault

There are no written orders and bookkeeping is deliberately kept light. The intention is simple: players should spend their time making decisions about the battle rather than filling in paperwork.

But simple mechanics do not mean simple decisions.

The rules are designed to create situations where commanders must decide when to commit reserves, whether to press home an attack, when to withdraw from a threatened position and where limited resources will have the greatest effect.

Perhaps most importantly, commanders cannot always be certain that events will unfold as they intend.

A battlefield is not a chessboard

Chess is a wonderful game of strategy, but it represents almost complete certainty.

You know exactly who will move next. You know exactly what every one of your pieces can do. You also know exactly what every one of your opponent's pieces can do. Once you have moved, your opponent moves. The sequence is fixed and the capabilities of every piece are known.

A battle is rather different.

A commander cannot always be certain which part of the battlefield will demand attention next. Orders may be delayed, opportunities may be missed and units may perform better—or worse—than expected.

This uncertainty is at the heart of the activation system in All Hell Let Loose: Great War.

Players are not usually certain which side will activate next. Even when their formation does activate, they cannot be sure how much it will achieve. A formation may suffer a Partial Activation, limiting what its units can do. It may receive a Single Activation, allowing it to carry out its intended actions. Or, with a Double Activation, it may suddenly have the opportunity to do far more.

This creates uncertainty for both players.

Will your reserves move into position before the enemy attacks? Will your artillery be able to support the assault at the right moment? Will the enemy have another opportunity to act before you can respond?

And just when you think you have a situation under control, your opponent may receive a Double Activation and exploit an unexpected opportunity.

The result is a battlefield where plans remain important, but no plan can be followed with absolute certainty. Players must react to changing circumstances, exploit opportunities when they appear and prepare for the possibility that events may not unfold as expected.

It is a simple mechanism, but one that can create some very tricky tactical decisions.

As much detail as you want

The First World War was not one type of war.

A battle fought in August 1914 might involve advancing infantry, cavalry and field artillery across relatively open country. A battle in 1916 could involve elaborate trench systems, days of bombardment, creeping barrages and attacks across shell-torn ground. By 1918, tanks and aircraft might also play an important role.

All Hell Let Loose: Great War is designed to accommodate these differences without forcing players to learn a completely different game for each period.

The same core mechanics remain at the heart of every battle. Additional rules are introduced only when they are relevant.

This also allows players to choose how detailed they want their games to be.

Use the figures you already own

The rules are deliberately flexible about figure scale and basing.

Whether your Great War collection is in 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 28mm or another scale, the game can be adapted to suit it. There is no need to rebase an existing collection or buy a completely new army.

The emphasis is on getting your existing troops onto the table and fighting battles.

Ready to play

All Hell Let Loose: Great War includes:

• Sample army lists for the major powers
• Three introductory scenarios
• Photocopy-ready counter sheets
• Quick reference sheets
• Rules suitable for solo play
• Rules for smaller games and larger multiplayer club battles

Whether you want to command a small force in a desperate defensive action or take part in a major offensive involving several players, the same system provides the foundation.

The Great War without the staff college course

Ultimately, All Hell Let Loose: Great War is designed to recreate the drama, uncertainty and tactical challenges of the First World War on the tabletop.

The rules aim to give players meaningful decisions without unnecessary complexity; historical flavour without pages of exceptions; and a system broad enough to cover the entire conflict while remaining quick to learn and practical to play.

If you enjoy the challenge of adapting your plans as the battle develops—rather than simply executing a sequence of perfectly predictable moves—then All Hell Let Loose: Great War might be the game for you.

The rules are available now from Wargame Vault as a PDF, softcover or hardcover edition.

Keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller

All Hell Let Loose: Great War - Published and Available Now

After several years of research, writing, playtesting and refinement, I'm delighted to announce that All Hell Let Loose: Great War is now available at https://www.wargamevault.com/en/publisher/18178/all-hell-let-loose.

As we approach the anniversaries marking the outbreak of the First World War, it seemed an appropriate moment to launch a ruleset dedicated to recreating the battles of that conflict on the tabletop.

A Long Journey

What began as a quick question from another gamer gradually grew into a much larger project. We took the fantastic concepts from the World War Two version and added in additional mechanics covering bombardment, barrages, trenches, gas and fortifications. We worked out how to scale the massive variance in artillery, and its effectiveness, whilst keeping the game flowing and rooted on the figures on the tabletop. The game presents players with continual command choices without burdening them with paperwork, bookkeeping or map command lines. .

Throughout the development I've been fortunate to receive support from many people. Playtesters have challenged the rules, suggested improvements and helped refine the mechanics. Many of you have visited participation games at shows, offered encouragement and shared your own thoughts on what makes the Great War such a fascinating period to game.

To everyone who has contributed in some way—thank you. Your enthusiasm has helped shape the finished product.

What is All Hell Let Loose: Great War?

The rules are designed to recreate battalion and brigade level actions across the entire First World War, from the mobile campaigns of 1914 through to the great offensives of 1918.

Rather than concentrating on individual soldiers, the emphasis is on command decisions. When should reserves be committed? Is it worth pressing home another attack? Can the line be held long enough for reinforcements to arrive? These are the questions commanders faced, and they are the decisions players must make on the tabletop.

The rules have been written to be accessible and straightforward, without sacrificing the flavour of the period.

Features include:

• Covers the entire Great War on land, from 1914 to 1918.
• Three core mechanics underpin the entire ruleset.
• No written orders and minimal bookkeeping.
• Flexible figure scales and basing.
• Optional plug-in rules for bombardments, barrages and fortifications.
• Sample army lists for the major combatants.
• Three introductory scenarios.
• Suitable for solo games through to large multiplayer club battles.
• Photocopiable counter sheets.
• Quick Reference Sheets.

Available Now

The rules are available now at Wargame Vault, https://www.wargamevault.com/en/publisher/18178/all-hell-let-loose in three formats:

• PDF
• Softcover
• Hardcover

There are also bundle options available for anyone wishing to purchase both All Hell Let Loose: Great War and All Hell Let Loose. While the two games share the same core mechanics and design philosophy, each has been written specifically for its own conflict and is a complete, standalone ruleset.

What's Next?

Publishing the rules isn't the end of the project—it's really just the beginning.

Over the coming months I'll be adding more content to support the game, including:

• Historical scenarios.
• Battle reports.
• Designer's notes.
• YouTube videos explaining the mechanics.
• Participation games at shows around the UK.

This weekend I'll be taking the Battle of St Julien (1915) participation game to Claymore in Edinburgh, with further appearances planned at The Other Partizan and Fiasco later in the year. If you're attending any of those shows, please do come over, say hello and, even better, take command for a game.

Thank You

Writing a set of wargames rules is something of a labour of love. Seeing them finally published is enormously satisfying, but what I'm looking forward to most is seeing them played by other people.

If you do pick up a copy, I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts. Whether it's feedback, photographs of your games, battle reports or suggestions for future scenarios, please get in touch through the website or join the All Hell Let Loose Facebook community.

Thank you once again to everyone who has supported the project. I hope you enjoy playing All Hell Let Loose: Great War, and I look forward to seeing the battles you recreate.

See you across the tabletop and keep those dice rolling.

Charles

Battle of St. Julien, 2nd Ypres April 24th 1915

I'm running a participation game based on the Battle of St Julien, one of the most dramatic actions of the Second Battle of Ypres, using the All Hell Let Loose: Great War rules. The game will be appearing at Phalanx in St Helens on June 20th, Joy of Six in Sheffield on June 28th and Claymore in Edinburgh on 1st August, giving players the chance to command either the attacking Germans or the defending Canadians.

The Road to St Julien

By the spring of 1915 the Western Front had become deadlocked. Months of fighting had created continuous trench systems stretching across France and Belgium. Machine guns, artillery and barbed wire had made manoeuvre increasingly difficult, and both sides searched for a way to break the stalemate.

On 22 April 1915 the Germans introduced a terrifying new weapon. Along the northern edge of the Ypres Salient they released thousands of cylinders of chlorine gas against French Territorial and Algerian troops. The gas cloud created a gap several miles wide in the Allied line and threatened the capture of Ypres itself.

The Germans had achieved a remarkable breakthrough, but they lacked the reserves needed to fully exploit it. As Allied commanders scrambled to plug the gap, the Canadian Division found itself thrust into the centre of the crisis. Over the following days the Canadians would be called upon to hold an increasingly fragile front under artillery bombardment, repeated infantry attacks and further gas assaults.

The battle around the village of St Julien on 24 April would become one of the most famous actions fought by the Canadian Corps during the war.

The Challenge for the Canadians

The Canadian player begins the battle in a difficult position.

The front line is thinly held and under intense pressure. German artillery pounds the defences while poison gas drifts across the battlefield. Front-line units must somehow continue fighting despite mounting casualties and deteriorating conditions.

Simply holding the existing trenches is not enough. Reinforcements must be rushed forward from the rear, gaps in the line identified and plugged, and a second defensive position established before the situation becomes critical. The Canadian commander must balance immediate crises against the need to preserve a coherent defence.

The Challenge for the Germans

The German player enjoys the initiative but faces problems of their own. The gas attack and artillery preparation create opportunities, but victory is far from guaranteed. The attackers must cross No Man's Land under fire, assault trenches defended by determined opponents and maintain momentum throughout the battle.

Success depends upon identifying weak points in the Canadian line and exploiting them quickly. Local gains must be converted into wider opportunities before the defenders can establish a new position.  Concentrating force at the right point, maintaining pressure and recognising when an opportunity has appeared are all vital to success.

Rules

The All Hell Let Loose: Great War ruleset has been written by myself and David Wasilewski following on from the success of the original World War Two ruleset. Using 6mm figures players will be able to take on the roles of the Divisional and Brigade commanders committing troops to battle, co-ordinating artillery and gas barrages, allocating reinforcements and judging the right time to strike or pull back.

The rules use a dice-out-of-the-bag activation system so every turn is unique and players never have initiative for long. A variable activation mechanic means that players can never be sure how well, or badly, troops will perform. The three core mechanics are easy to learn and keep the game moving quickly. The plug-in options for barrages let players control large amounts of artillery in a simple, quick way that doesn't dominate the game. Trenches and fortifications ensure that a small number of defenders can delay or hold even determined attackers. Armies lose momentum as their casualties mount. The rules are designed to present command challenges every turn, tactical opportunities for each formation and the scenario offers tricky strategic choices that players must evaluate several turns before their impact will be felt.

If this sounds like the game for you why not register interest in the rules here,

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAN__sos4xRUQ1dWWFFFUFZYUko1T0RHQ0hSSEs1VUFTSi4u 

I have added a FAQ page to this blog, which can be found here, which explains a bit more about the game and rules.

If you make it to any of the shows please pp over and say hi.

Keep the Dice Rolling!

Charles

All Hell Let Loose: Great War FAQs

Now that we have announced that we are in the final stages of drafting and publishing a new version of All Hell Let Loose covering the First World War there has been great interest from wargamers and lots of questions. We’ve collated the most frequently asked questions and answer them here. This post will be periodically updated as additional questions and answers are added. If you are interested in gaming the Great War then please consider registering your interest by completed a short survey here which will allow us to keep you updated on publication dates.

Now on to the FAQs.

What figure scale do I need to use?

    The rules have been designed primarily with 6mm figures in mind, however they will easily work with 3mm or 10/12mm figures without any needing any changes. 15mm or 28mm figures on large bases can still be used for the game but will require some tweaks to ranges, move distances and area of effects. If, however, these figures are based individually then the game should work just fine as it is.

What base size is used? Do I need to rebase my figures?

    The default assumption is that figures are based on bases 30mm wide by 25mm deep, or 1 1/4” by 1”. However, as long as both sides are based using a similar sized base and some thought about the size of area of effects and zones of control any base size will work.

What does each base represent? What scale of game is being played?

    The game works by using manoeuvre groups, called formations, that consist of units, a stand with figures on it. There is no specific ground distance or duration specified for a turn. Therefore, a formation can represent a brigade, a battalion, a company, a platoon or even a section, with each unit representing, respectively, a company, a platoon, a section or even individual men. The game works at all these levels because of the flexibility of the activation system. Although the game is designed for 6mm figures with a formation as a brigade sized element we’ve played games using 28mm figures at a 1-2-1 scale and had tremendous fun.

How long does a game take? How big a table and how many formations or units do I need?

    As a rule of thumb, players controlling between 3 and 5 formations comprising between 60-80 units can finish a game of 6-10 turns in 3-4 hours. Multiplayer games can take a little longer. Really large, complex battles can be fought over a day or weekend. Games can be fought on small tables of 3' by 4', or on multiple tables of 8' by 6'.

    At Partizan, as a participation game, I guided 4 players who had never played the game before through the battle of Neuve Chapelle, with 5 formations and 83 units on the British side against 6 rising to 9 formations and 58 units on the German side, lasting 9 turns before we called it, in about 5 hours.

How similar are the rules to the WW2 edition of All Hell Let Loose?

    The Great War version uses the same key mechanics and concepts as the WW2 version. Players familiar with the original edition will find that most of the game is very similar. However, the Great War version has a number of expanded mechanics that bolt on to the core rules - specific rules for preliminary bombardment, barrages, fortifications, gas, mines and trenches have been developed. Some elements have also been adjusted to reflect the limited capabilities of a WW1 army. 

How much bookkeeping is required? Do I need detailed maps and written orders?

    We have worked very hard to keep any bookkeeping to an absolute minimum. You just need to know how many units a formation had when it started the game, and how many it has lost. A couple of minor choices such as the location of mines and target points for future barrages may need to be noted but that’s about it. The rules work with an activation roll that determines how well, or badly, a formation performs and consequently there is no need for written orders, command line arrows or detailed maps.

Is it I go, You go?

    No, the game uses a dice out of the bag activation system, although there are specific rules for ‘Going over the Top’ that allow one army to activate a number of formations in sequence.

How complicated are the rules to learn? 

    We have deliberately tried to keep the game as straightforward as possible. There are just 3 main mechanics with additional mechanics that plug in for specific elements that may, or may not, be present at a particular battle. Playtesters usually picked up the basics in their first game and players with a bit of support can often play most of the game after a couple of hours.

Is the game suitable for solo play?

Yes. The dice draw system and the variable activation results mean the game is very suitable for solo play. Players are often forced to react to unfolding events rather than perfectly execute a plan, which helps preserve uncertainty even when controlling both sides.

Does it feel like the Great War? Can the rules handle early war and late war battles?

    The rules support rapid movement and fog of war - perfect for the battles of manoeuvre of 1914 or the Eastern and Mesopotamian theatres. With plugin rules for preliminary bombardment, barrages, trenches and fortifications the western front and other trench battles can be simulated. There are also options that vary the effectiveness of trenches and artillery fire that provide the flexibility to simulate the differences in capability of armies by theatre and year of the war. This allows the same key mechanisms to be used in every battle but for each battle to feel different. Trench battles in the game in 1915 play out very differently from battles in 1918. The game is designed to help you recreate the drama, uncertainty and brutal spectacle of the First world War on the tabletop but without requiring you to go to staff college first.

Is it just about trench warfare?

No. Although trench warfare is an important part of the Great War, the rules are designed to represent the entire conflict. Early war manoeuvre battles, cavalry actions, mobile warfare in the East and Middle East, and the more fluid battles of 1918 are all possible using the same core system. 

Do you provide army lists? Can the rules be used for other periods?

    Yes, absolutely. Whilst we provide some guidance and army lists we have limited this to the main actors in the Great War, and provide only outline information on force composition. There were so many changes and developments and reorganisation of the various nations armies that it’s probable that several books would be required to cover it and consequently we do not have the space to detail it in the rules. 

    The stats for all the different units are very straightforward and easy to adapt or clone. This makes adapting these rules for the other conflicts very possible. These rules should support players wishing to refight the Balkan wars, Greek-Turkish war, the Russian Civil War, the Polish-Russian and Polish-Lithuanian wars. It may also possible to adapt these rules for the Spanish Civil War.

Do you include any scenarios? 

    Yes, the rules include 3 starter scenarios. There is an early war encounter battle, an early war trench battle and a 1917 battle including tanks. All are intended to be played by one player a side and completed in an evening. Each introduces more and more of the rule elements and present a challenge for both sides. We expect to publish a number of additional scenarios to further support players with these rules.

    Once players are familiar with the rules adapting existing scenarios, or developing your own, should be  fairly straightforward.

Is wargaming World War I fun?

    Yes, it absolutely can be fun and rewarding. Whether you are recreating the uncertainty of manoeuvre warfare of the industrial carnage of trench warfare these battles were fought by generals and soldiers with skill and expertise. This game presents you with tactical challenges, dilemmas, decisions and usually pressure and uncertainty.  This game, like the Great War, is a lot more than throwing your soldiers into no-man's-land and hoping some of them survive.

When, and where will they be available to buy?

    We expect to finish drafting and laying out the rules by the end of May 2026. They will then go to the publisher’s for approval. We hope to have them published and available by the Joy of 6, on 28th June 2026. They will be available in hard cover, soft cover and PDF from Wargames Vault.

I will add additional questions and answers to this FAQ as they come in, so it may be worth bookmarking this page.

If this sounds like the game for you then please register your interest here or join our Facebook group.

As always, keep your dice rolling!

Charles Rowntree 

All Hell Let Loose: Great War - coming soon!

I am pleased to announce that after a long period or development and rules writing that a WW1 version of All Hell Let Loose will shortly be published. David and I are in the last stages of tidying things up before we hand over a version to the publisher. We will be running participation games at wargames shows across the UK over the next few months starting with Partizan at Newark on May 17th.

I will be posting more information about the rules over the coming weeks. Today I will limit my post to a very quick summary and high level overview and some pictures of games in action.

We have a very short form to enable those players interested in these rules to register their interest that will enable us to keep you informed on progress and publication. It only takes 30 seconds to fill in and can be found here.

The First World War presents a unique challenge for tabletop wargaming. It was a conflict of enormous scale, industrial firepower, confused command structures, and rapidly evolving tactics. Many rules struggle to capture this without becoming either overwhelmingly complicated or losing the distinctive feel of the Great War altogether.

All Hell Let Loose: Great War has been designed from the outset to balance historical atmosphere with practical tabletop playability.

The rules cover the entire land war from 1914 to 1918, allowing players to fight everything from the open manoeuvre battles of the early war to the heavily fortified offensives of the Western Front, as well as the more fluid campaigns fought elsewhere. Infantry assaults, creeping barrages, tanks, cavalry, gas, fortifications and aircraft all have their place within the system.

At the heart of the game are three core mechanics;

• Activation
• Firing
• Assaults

There are no written orders and bookkeeping is kept deliberately light, allowing players to focus on battlefield decisions rather than paperwork. The activation system creates the uncertainty and disruption so characteristic of Great War command, while remaining straightforward to use.

The rules are intentionally flexible. Players may use a wide variety of figure scales and basing systems, making it easy to adapt existing collections.

Optional “plug-in” mechanics allow groups to decide how detailed they wish the game to become, including expanded rules for preliminary bombardments, artillery barrages, and fortifications.

To help players get started quickly, the book includes sample army lists for the major powers, three introductory scenarios, photocopy-ready counter sheets, and quick reference sheets. The system is equally suited to solo play, smaller friendly games, or large multiplayer club battles.

Ultimately, All Hell Let Loose: Great War is designed to help players recreate the drama, uncertainty, and brutal spectacle of the First World War on the tabletop — without requiring a staff college course to play it.

If that sounds like your kind of game then please register your interest here.

Keep those dice rolling!

Charles Rowntree

Battle of Scarif - All Finished

So in my last post I said my next blogpost would be on building the citadel tower. Well I am so far behind in posting updates on my blog that not only have I finished Scarif, I’ve finished the model project after Scarif. I’ve therefore decided to shake things up a bit. I’ll now post pictures of the finished model first and then follow it up with posts on how I built individual elements of it. Therefore here are the pictures of the fully finished model. Hopefully shortly, I’ll post on how I made the tower.

That’s me on the left umpiring with two wonderful chaps
 who had so enjoyed my Imjin game they wanted to play Scarif too.

One of the earliest shots of the finished board in my work room

Test rig of the star destroyers colliding

Star destroyers colliding above the shield gate

Brutal game in progress shot

Full tower and base

Plenty to think about in this game!

AT-ACT’s gang up on some unfortunate rebels!

All set up and ready to play!

I was very lucky and delighted to win two prizes at The Other Partizan 2023.
I was awarded Best Participation game and Best Small game. 
Here I am receiving one of the awards from Henry Hyde.

So that will do for now. I still envisage putting up posts on the tower, the aerial and space battles, the miniatures and the construction of the game itself. Those who can’t wait for my snail like posting pace may be interested to listen to my interviews on the excellent Hobby Support Group podcast where, over two episodes, I talk about the build and the battle. 

Episode 123 - building scarif

Episode 124 - designing the battle

As always, keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller 

Battle of Scarif - adding all the bushes and trees

In previous posts I’ve covered the building of the boards, the seas, the islands and the transit systems for my battle of Scarif board. In this post I’ll talk about how I added the foliage required for the distinctive look of the planet.

So my starting point were images from the movie. I concentrated on the images we see when looking at the ground from either Rogue One itself or from the x-wings of blue squadron. I was building the battlefield at a small scale and so it was very clear that I would not be moving figures through foliage, instead I would be moving them over foliage. This meant that the trees would need to be robust enough for stands of troops to rest on top of them and numerous enough to not be significantly uneven.

As the trees would be the last pieces of foliage inserted I started with the grass. This was very straightforward as I began with the woodland scenics fine turf grass products, these are my standard go to product for grass. I mapped out some trails and other routes and places that I wanted to clear as there are sections of the battle that take place in the open and then just scattered a thin covering of multiple grass shades. This was secured in place with diluted PVA.

The next steps were adding the underbrush, bushes and foliage beneath the tree canopy. As its a tropical forest it needed to be densely covered. You can see from the aerial images that basically most of the land of Scarif is covered with foliage. I then went to my accumulated collection of tufts to create this. 

I have some crop strips, some held over from my Brécourt Manor build, these were cut lengthwise into thin strips which were then glued up against the side of the transit lines helping to hide the base and joins. I interspersed different bushes and tufts to break everything up. 

In the more open sections I randomly placed bushes and tufts, including things like bulrushes that were designed for bigger scales but look suitably sci-fi at a smaller scale. The key was to have about ten or fifteen different options and to mix them up. I didn’t need to place them tightly next to each other as the trees would provide most of the coverage, I just needed enough for it to be obvious there were bushes underneath.

The trees proved to be quite tricky, not so much in production, but in identifying a suitable way forward. I knew I needed a lot of them so I needed a solution that was scalable and easy to make. My starting point was a Facebook post I’d seen some years ago by Trev of Trev’s Workshop. He was creating palm trees for a desert game. He stuck 25mm nails into polystyrene, used texture paint on the nail make the truck and placed some PVA on the head and sprinkled static grass over them and was able to quickly and simply make several hundred trees in a couple of hours. A brilliant solution but wasn’t quite the look I needed as the trees on Scarif have much more foliage. However the use of nails as trunks seemed like the way to go as it would definitely support my figures with no problems.

Next I looked at using paper leaves but this was swiftly discarded. I used the green stuff leaves product but cut them much smaller. The end result was fairly pleasing but the prototype took me quite some time to produce. The pieces struggled to stay glued on and I could make only a few trees from each packet which came at quite a cost. I also tried buying a plastic fern and cutting pieces off it but this had the same time issues as the paper leaves.

I scoured the internet for options and came across a post on The Miniatures Page message boards from Mark, aka Mark I, suggesting using lengths of pine tree garlands most commonly used at Christmas. These are lengths of wire with strands of paper wrapped around it made to look like pine tree branches. I snipped the wire roughly every 25 or 30mm and the used scissors to shape the paper forms and teased them to make a suitably tree shaped canopy. It took me a few minutes to create each tree. However they were a uniform colour and would need painting and the appearance was OK, not bad, but not great. I left these on the back burner while I did more work on the model.

With only about a month left before my first show I still had the problem of my trees. However, necessity is the mother of invention. I returned to the method used by Trev but, instead of using static grass I used woodland scenics foliage. This stuff is their standard foam but on a nylon net. I cut very small pieces and then superglued it onto the top of a 25mm nail. This worked well. 

Then I tried mixing things up. I cut a small piece from the light green foliage and crimp it flat. I used superglue to stick on the top of the nail and pressed it flat. The superglue melted the nylon and stuck it admirably to the nail. I then cut another piece of a darker foliage, slightly bigger than the first and squashed it into a kind of pyramid shape and the glued this on top of the first. This then produced a palm tree shape I was really pleased with. At this point I should add a warning regarding the use of superglue in large amounts or repeatedly over a period of time particularly in enclosed spaces - don’t do it this way, proceed with caution, do your own research and stop if it is affecting you.

I was then able to put this into production. I made 100 trees at a time. I stuck the nails into polystyrene and painted them with texture paint. Once dry I cut ten pieces of light green foliage and glued them to the top of the nails and repeated this until all the trees had light green foliage on top. Then I cut the darker foliage, half mid green, half dark green and then glued those onto the first layer. It took about 90 minutes to make 100 trees.

I figured I would need about a thousand trees. So once I had 400 trees I took them to place on my board. I began close to the tower and started to work outwards. Once I had the first areas done I was delighted with how they looked but it became clear that a thousand trees wasn’t going to be enough and it would be 1200 or so. This underestimating became a regular feature. Once I placed 800 I realised I needed 1600. Once I placed 1200 I realised I needed 2000. In the last week I was making trees every night and I finally added the last of my 2163 trees the day before the show.

The trees really finished the board and gave me a result that looked like Scarif.

In the next post I will look at how I built the tower itself.

Until then, keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller