Fast and easy hedges

This post originally appeared on my "Burning my Fingers" blog which is no longer around.

Hedgerows in FoW are great, they slow things down, provide concealment and generally help a table feel more 'real'.  Not to be confused with Bocage which really mixes things up on the table with a slew of rules attached to it hedgerows are covered by the basic terrain rules in the rules books.

And even better I have a quick way of making them so I can cover tables even quicker.

As you can see fairly effective looking, in fact the only step I would add is to flock the edges of the basing materials.

So to start I grab the following;

• My trusty Hot Glue gun, you could use PVA or tacky glue, but this is faster.
• Tongue depressors, the thing doctors stick in your mouth then get you to say 'Ahh'.
• Clump foliage, a spongy green material, mine is made by Woodland Scenics.
• Left over fences from the paper terrain Russian buildings I made a while back.
• Army Painter Rat Fur Brown spray, though any brown spray would do, this is what I had to hand.

First step was to paint a handful of tongue depressors with a brown spray, you could brush paint them but I'm all for getting scenery on the table fast, so I can play more and paint more minis.  This helps disguise the wooden sticks.  Tongue depressors are readily available on eBay in boxes of 100, think lollipop sticks but broader, I also use them to stick infantry to for painting.

Then run a strip of hot glue along the length of the stick (Waiting for the paint to dry of course.) and stick the clump foliage into the hot glue before it sets.  Clump foliage is great, 100 times better than Lichen and comes in a variety of colours, I bought 3 large bags in 3 differing shades of green and haven't made a dent in it yet so I think I have a lifetimes supply for a little over £30.

It's easy to tear larger clumps into smaller pieces and the irregular shape gives a more natural look, I mixed the colours together and don't make any decision when pulling it out of the box and it breaks up the line of hedges nicely.  Giving me a line of foliage on a stick that looks like this.

Pretty neat and does the job.

'But what about the leftover fences?' I hear you ask, simple, hedgerows need breaks, both aesthetically and game wise.  (A path of unrestricted movement.)  So a few gates are needed, I put a gate in every fourth line of hedges quite simply by cutting up the left over fences.

And hot glue them to the middle of a stick.

Then glue foliage either side.

So there you go, a simple, quick method of making hedgerows, I may make some 1/2 size pieces if I decide they are necessary in the future and as mentioned above, some flock/static grass on the edged of the sticks would help improve the looks.  Going now to make a couple of tables worth.