There are two date palm groves
marked on the sketch map of
Dilbar (see Post 8). The date palms
were a source of income for the
Tagistanis and as such were
earmarked for cutting down by the
Imperial punitive force. For my
game, the palm groves would
therefore be objectives for the
demolition teams to cut down.
I decided to make three 50mm-hex
bases one objective that would be
treated as a section needing to be
destroyed independently. I
reckoned that nine hex-bases
would be just about right to match
the groves in the map. These
would provide three objectives,
which seemed a good balance –
one would form a palm grove of
its own, the other two would form
two halves of the larger grove. This
meant that I needed nine hex-
bases.
Date Palm Groves
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POST 020
020
The first thing I did was to select a bundle of likely
plant specimens from my collection of plastic palm
trees bought in bulk from a Chinese supplier. A couple
of the designs appeared quite like Mesopotamian date
palms. I didn’t have to worry about the models being
too tall as these palms could grow to over 100 feet – or
200mm on the N-scale tabletop! I decided to use a
selection of different tree types to add variety to the
tree bases.
Date palms at the site of the Siege of Kut, Mesopotamia.
1
I thought I could squeeze three
palm tree models on each base.
I used clippers to clean up the
plastic models by snipping and
tearing off any flash. The trees
all came with useful plugs to
fix them into a base. I drilled
holes in the 2mm MDF hex-
bases and shortened the plastic
plugs to match the base
thickness. The trees then got a
wash with washing-up liquid
to prepare them for spraying.
2
Although I preferred my
miniatures mounted on
3mm MDF bases (to make
them easier to pick up by
their bases), I used 2mm
MDF for basing terrain
pieces. Ideally: 3mm was for
playing pieces that moved
around the tabletop, 2mm
was for static terrain that the
miniatures could stand on.
I used a khaki coloured ultra-
matt spray from Halfords (an
auto maintenance supplier)
intended for use as a
camouflage colour. I was
really keen on losing the
obvious plastic look of the
models and dulling the rather
synthetic greens of the glossy
leaves. In wet climates palm
trees may have luscious green
leaves but in dry deserts they
look very dry and sun-
bleached. I used Foundry
paints, mostly WW2 camou-
flage colours, to give the
models a more natural look.
The models all came with a
nipple on the top of their tree
trunks for clipping on the
plastic vegetation. Although
not necessarily terrible eye-
sores they looked better, I
thought, covered over with
some natural-shaped lumps of
grout filler.
3
4
I used the usual tufts
and static grass on the
bases. Palm trees drop
their leaves or fronds
and a clutter of dead
leaves can easily
accumulate on the
ground. I used a few
plastic aquarium plant
cuttings painted
brown as fallen leaves
to give my palm tree
groves a more natural
look – I didn't want
the groves looking too
well looked after! In
future I might
‘sacrifice’ some of the
palm tree leaves
instead.
LEFT A finished palm tree
grove of three tree hex-
bases.