Field of dreams

 As with reconnaissance, time spent on terrain is rarely wasted. I 'needed' to make an airfield for an upcoming game, and thought I may as well do some other fields while I was at it.

My template for the airfield was this one I already have, courtesy of the seemingly limitless collection of stuff Tim has. In larger operational games it is nice to have an admin hub for the air assets, and something like this works rather well as a holding zone for planes and you can move them around to simulate the various stages of refuelling and re-arming.

First step was chopping up some 2mm MDF. I am always careful handling this stuff and do the cutting up and sanding down outside and up wind to avoid the carcinogenic dust.

The airfield is 8" x 8" and as I was cutting up the MDF anyway, I made some field templates 6" deep and between 5.5" and 2.5" wide based on my existing fields. The wierd dimensions accommodate my 6" hedge and wall sections to enclose them. All the boards were sealed in PVA on both sides and left to dry overnight.

Now, I used to have some semi circular dowel which I was going to use to make some Nissen huts but I couldn't find it, so instead I made up a couple of dispersal areas out of foam core and stuck them down, similar in design to the resin model on the existing airfield. I can always add some buildings later if I find something suitable. 

I've had this Noch wheatfield mat in stock for well over ten years, possibly fifteen years (I bought it from Timecast at Triples years ago). Like many wargamers my current 'wheatfields' are cut up doormat, which looks OK but takes up tons of storage space, whereas this has a much sleeker profile.

I cut out various strips of wheatfield (it is stuck to thin plastic backing) to fit the MDF templates. The creases in the mat are horrible but will drop out when they are stuck down. 

Then glued it all into place with PVA. The creases have gone now. 

Once the foamcore had dried for a bit, I sprayed the whole airfield mid grey, then marked out the runways and hard standing and painted grass green craft Acrylic around the 'concrete' which also gave the impression of depth. 

I also daubed dark brown paint over the earth berms around the concrete dispersal areas. I'll add some flock later.

This shade of green is a fair bit lighter than on the original, but it produces more of a contrast so once it dries I'll maybe go over the other one in the same colour.

Once the wheatfields had dried, I edged the bases with builders sand. This had the curious effect of edging the crop sections too as the glue made the static grass stand up. It looks rather neat and was entirely unintended.

Finally I added a bit of Noch grass green flock to the field edges to break them up a bit.

Once it was all dry, into the terrain storage box it went. These six sections of field took up as much vertical space as a single piece of cut up floor mat. Result!

The extra airfield will be seen in action in due course, watch this space.