How To: Make Quick Forest and Bocage for Your Battleground!!

Today we are going to show you how to quickly make some trees for a small forest or create bocage for your tabletop battleground.

We picked up this artificial foliage at a local hobby and craft store. Each one of the yellow flower portions is approximately 6 to 7 inches tall. These come in several colors, we went with a yellow for fall foliage. They retail for about 9 to $12 depending on the store. Wait for the 50% off sale and then pick up several. We got ours for about $5 a piece.

First you'll want to clip off the flowery portions. Be sure to leave enough room to be a trunk. We left approximately 2 - 2.5 inches of brown stem to be our trunks. Beach peace contains five or 6 flowering portions which will be our trees. Shape your trees by clipping off various pieces to give them a nice form. Keep those clippings for later.

Using a hardboard or dense foam core, cut out shapes to suit your table top. Drill small holes into the bases and insert your trees. Once you know they fit nicely and are where you would like them to be, hot glue them in place.

We then added rocks around the bases of the trees. This will add support plus add extra dimension and cover for your troops.

Here are our two larger bases plus our thinner basis to make up our bocage or walls. We hot glued everything into place. The one tree base will allow vehicles to drive through the other one is a little thinner for foot traffic. The reddish piece of foliage also came from a large floral piece. We got over a dozen off of that one and they make great smaller trees or bushes.

Next we based everything with a dark green paint with some debris mixed in to add texture. We mostly avoided the rocks.

Next week did a dry brush of a light grey green to pull out our texture.

Then take your clippings and glue them into various places between the rocks to be smaller trees and bushes that are growing on your bocage. We also added ground cover and various other bits for bushes.

And there you have it in a matter of a couple hours we have a small forest and bocage pieces for our table top battleground. You can go heavier on the bushes and foliage for true Bocage or leave more rocks for field stone walls. Whatever you decide, be sure you have fun doing it.

Have a Great Battle,
The Old Crow