Bolt Action! Scratch Built Terrain, Part 1!

After building a Village board for our games, I needed to make some terrain as well. Follow along!

Over the last 4 weeks I have having fun sharing my love for Bolt Action on BOLS. Lasercut terrain is expensive and plastic card and some labor is a lot more fun anyway!  This is the first part of a MULTI part series, have a look and see if any of it inspires you to make some buildings yourself- it’s easy!

This was the first thing I made. Like with all terrain I make, it has to be functional in the game, not just an ornament. The damaged walls have been opened enough to let a squad move in and hide. There are enough windows to give all models views to all sides. 

The windows are at perfect height to give most models a realistic looking view out of the window. I built the corner low enough so a sniper or a machine gun team can also look out – it’s important to make it functional for lots of models.

Here’s the paint job, on the darker side. Note the black soot around the damaged walls and roof tiles, it makes it look a bit more realistic. The paint scheme was straight forward: black primer, fortress grey drybrush, brown wash, mid grey drybrush, light grey drybrush, brown staining with very dry brush.

The roof: dark brown, brown wash, red drybrush

the corner, low enough for a sniper

The back, with door, so units can move in and out

Here’s a scale comparison with a Tamiya 1/48 scale sherman. It looks well.

Materials for this building:

walls: balsa wood sheets

styrene roof tiles: wee scapes

styrene field stone work: wee scapes

sandwork: beach sand. Make sure to also add the sand on the sides of the broken walls, it looks much better that way 

Hope this inspires!

Part 2 coming soon! Follow my at Santa Cruz Warhammer Historical.