Tutorial: Making Emplaced Turret "Bunkers" for FOW

With the release of the Late War Soviet rulebook Red Bear for Flames of War, I thought it might be cool to come up with a cheap DIY turret bunker, like the T34/76 featured in Red Bear (not to mention previous options like the emplaced Renault turrets in Earth and Steel).

To start, you'll need the following:

• A large FOW base
• .80 Plasticard, cut in an L-shape
• .60 Plasticard, cut in a square
• Thin plasticard
• Washer (diameter of your choice)
• Small 1mm-long metal or plasticard tube
• 15mm tank turret (I'm using a spare PSC T-34 turret)

1) Take the .80 plasticard and attach it to the base. This is the first "concrete" base and this will help make the "bunker" look more realistic then just a piece of plastic on the tabletop.

2)Attach the .60 plasticard on top of the .80 "concrete" base. Find the center of this square and drill a hole, large enough for the turret pin to be placed inside. Glue the washer on top of .60 plasticard square, centered on the hole you just drilled.

3) Take a piece of large-grain sandpaper and work over the surface of the "concrete" base, making it rough and rounding off the plasticard edges slightly. This will make the base look more like concrete after painting. You may also want to use an X-acto blade and score along the edges to simulate damage from shell fire.

4) On the protruding piece of the concrete base, you'll now place an access hatch and ventilation pipe. Drill a hole in one corner of the protrusion large enough for the metal or plasticard tube to be placed inside it.

5) Glue the tube into the hole you just drilled. With a hole punch, punch a circle out of the thin plasticard and glue this on top of the tube. Finally, cut a small square of thin plasicard as well as some strips and glue them together, like in the following pic:

6) Add groundwork to the surrounding base. I use a mixture of sand and gravel in acrylic modelling paste, since that holds up better than spackle. The emplaced turret is now complete!