Completing Early War German Chain of Command forces ... Hey! Look at this!

So I have been trying to get my Germans completed for Chain of Command. I started off last week making good progress. I managed to finish the basing on an ATR team and a Regular infantry squad.

In order to get the terrain items that I am missing from the Force Lists, I placed an order for some Barb Wire from Battlefield Accessories. I struggled with how to handle minefields. I really did not want to shell out money for the minefields that I see sold by Gale Force 9 or any of the other vendors. The rules call for a minefield that is 6" square. Mark suggested something so simple that I shook my head in frustration that why didn't I think of that. A simple marker for the mine field would be placed in its center. Then any infantry approaching it would potentially be in its grasp from 3" in any direction from the marker. So I broke off a piece of toothpick; cut out a small piece of paper; got glue, sand, a penny, paint and flock; and went to work. And the result it not high art but it works.

So things were progressing quite well last week. I was getting happy with my progress. Then the weekend happened. Somehow, I managed to take another look at a long forgotten piece of Styrofoam insulation that sat cast off in a corner. In my miniatures cabinet my unfinished Early Imperial Romans called out to me. Pulling open the drawer, I started to ponder where was I going with these. Before I knew it, I had out some knives and was putting some work on a section of a Roman Limes palisade.

What I have found is that the palisade fence was made with split logs with the flat side facing the enemy. Splitting anything to get a flat surface is more that I want to try in 15mm so I will ignore that bit. After the fence is a ditch. Beyond the ditch is a earthen wall that rose to the same height or taller than the fence. So I began work on getting this layout together for the piece.

I started by cutting the front section at a slant leading up to where the fence will be.

Next I dug a very rough looking ditch that will be behind the fence. I am not entirely happy with how it looks but I will smear the entire mess in PVA glue and sand at some point so that may fix it.

Next I cut off a piece of foam to shape as the wall that will reside behind the ditch. The angle of the hill is greater than what is shown in the pictures. You will just have to take my word that it looks much less crappy than the picture makes it look.

Then I cut the back side of the base piece to match the angle of the earthen wall and glued the hill to it. I then promptly, with out any prompting from my wife, vacuumed the giant mess I made on the living room floor. No, really!

So this has been sitting in the garage to dry since yesterday afternoon. I hope to find some cheap glue on a back to school sale somewhere so I can mix it up with a little water and sand and coat down the whole mess and let that dry. What I am trying to decide is if I should first make the fence part and then coat away or try to deal with the fence after coating the whole thing. I may go for buying toothpicks and making the fence first and using the glue mess to hold it all in together.

Anyway, now that Rich has released Big Chain of Command, I promise not to stray from finishing my Germans. No, really. I can do that. Oh, did I mention that I found some Centurion figures I like and ordered those over the weekend? Oh yeah, and some dials to go on my Litko flight stands too. But really, I will finish my Soviets and Germans for Chain. Did I see that Donnington has casualties for my EI Romans? hmmmm.......