Another easy-to-make Apocalypse Strategic Assets guide from EmperorsWrath! This guide provides instruction to create one type of tunnel, the sloped hill with man-made culvert opening.
When thinking about how to create some tunnels for Apocalypse battles I figured I needed some variety. I would like some to be natural, some man-made, and some a combination of the two. The Tunnels Strategic Asset says you get D6+3 tunnels, so I needed to make nine different models. I have already posted a guide to create the easiest type to make: Caves.
As you may have noticed in some of my other Terrain Guides I use Woodland Scenics products for terrain building. In addition to ground cover, rocks, and foliage, Woodland Scenics also makes model railroad accessories. Most of these are too period specific to use for fantasy and sci-fi wargames modelling (buildings and people), but some of them can be used without too much difficulty. The product I have used here is the C1263 HO scale Masonry Arch Culvert. Make sure to get the HO scale model and not the N scale, which is too small to make a realistically sized tunnel opening for 28mm gaming terrain.
You get two culverts in the package, I will be using one for this tutorial and save the other one for my next project. These culverts are made of plaster and can either be painted or stained. Staining them can give a very realistic look due to the way the plaster absorbs the moisture of the stain or wash. Very watered down brown, grey, and black paint is all you need to make the washes. Using the washes evenly makes the culvert look new, applying them in a random way – and darker – gives an older and more decayed look.
To start making this project you want to use white PVA glue to glue the two sides of the culvert to the arch. Make sure that the edges are all flush and the bottom surfaces are all even, flat against your table. Some sanding can be done to achieve a flat surface. Set the arches aside to dry (you might as well assemble both of the culverts at the same time).
Cut out a hill shape from two inch thick styrofoam using a sharp knife or a nichrome wire electric cutter. I use the Hot Wire Foam Factory line of cutting tools for hot wire cutting. This shape needs to be large enough to add the culvert, if it is too small it will look wrong. This actually highlights the problem with this particular model, as far as using it for an Apocalypse Strategic Asset: it is very large to place on the table after terrain has been set up. The hill can be used as a normal terrain piece in addition to a Tunnel marker and I will only be make one of this style so I am willing to live with the large size. The hill that I have created is 15″ by 10″ at the widest points.
Place your culvert on the top of the hill and trace the outside edge. Cut along these lines keeping your cuts as perfectly vertical as you can. If you cut a little too wide you can fix it in a later step. Test fit you culvert in the opening and adjust the cuts as necessary.
Once the culvert fits you can trace the stepped sides onto the side wall of your foam.
Using the stepped line on the side wall as a guide, take your cutting tool and trim away the sides at an angle. Only trim down to bottom of the stepped line to allow the retaining walls to look like they are doing their job holding back the earth up to the top edge.
Put the culvert back in the opening to test how you are doing with your cutting. Trace out the tunnel opening of the archway. Cut along this line angling down and towards the table so that the tunnel looks like it slopes down when looking into the opening. The furthest point into the tunnel should meet right at the table surface underneath. Be careful when cutting the tunnel so you don’t accidentally cut too far, the tunnel needs to look like it goes down into the earth and not out the backside of the hill.
Keep cutting and trimming the top surface of the hill to make a stepped or slopped surface on which models can stand. Further instructions for this can be found in the Sloped Hills Tutorial.
Once you are satisfied with the overall shape of the hill you can sand the rough cut surfaces down until they are smooth. At this point the foam hill is nearly complete but requires a base for stability and to hold the culvert securely to the rest of the hill. Put the hill down onto a piece of basing material like MDF or hardboard and trace out the edge. Using a saber saw cut set at a 45 degree angle cut out the base.
Glue the hill to the base with wood glue or PVA glue. Fill in any gaps between the foam and the culvert and between the foam and the base with wall repair compound (spackle) or Vallejo Sandy Paste. If you plan on staining the culvert take care when applying this filler and avoid getting it on the portions of the culvert that will remain exposed when the model is complete as the paste will stop the plaster from absorbing the wash. Once the filler is dry you can paint or wash the culvert and finish the hill as described in the Sloped Hills Tutorial. I painted the inside walls and floor of the tunnel black so that you cannot see that the tunnel really doesn’t go down into the earth.
This type of tunnel was almost as easy to create as the Caves, but took more time due to the gluing / filling steps and the intricacy of making sure the culvert opening was cut correctly.
Hopefully you have found this article helpful. Go ahead and experiment, it is surprising what you can create in just a few hours.
Have fun and good gaming!
-EmperorsWrath