in this age of defences I've discovered a very cheap and easy way to make anti personnel fortifications, in prep for a game I'm having tomorrow, we have lots of buildings and thought it would be good to add a bit of other cover and the like.In total I spent £3 on materials, I bought a roll of 1.25mm strimmer wire, 50 lollipop sticks and 38 felt tip pens (cheaper than buying plastic tubing!). Here's what I did:
1) Chopped the lollipop sticks in to 50mm lengths (you can get two per stick) then glued them together in a cross, repeat this step for as many as you need! I found aligning them on a cutting mat gave the most even shape.
2) Cut the felt tip pens in half. If you cut carefully at the points in the pic below you're left with two 50mm tubes which you can use to join the crosses together
Then boiled the kettle and dropped the pencil into it to heat up the plastic to make it accept its shape more, left it for 10-15 seconds tipped it and the water out and immediately dunked it into cold water, making the plastic fix into its new shape. After taking the plastic off you get this:
Cut it to required length and run between you finger nails, straightening it totally, this pulls out the tight wind, then its ready to use. Simply fix to the frame there you go! Not totally realistic, but it works for a budget!
I figure out that if I used all the lollipop sticks to make frames, then I'd got about 18 of the larger defences. Which having only spent £3 on materials puts them at about 16p each.
They're just smaller than a Space Marine and work quite well I think. Obviously need painting and perhaps weathering too! Well as always, if you have any comments, good or bad, please feel free to leave them below!
Zebulon
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