Small Scale Military Headquarters

Saw a post about a 32x bridge available at Petsmart, went to obtain it but found these fun 18x things instead:

They come in three ways: Single tall tree, single short tree, and riverbed (I pulled the plastic guard out to make the riverbed into a trench).

Small tree was about $7, large tree about $10, MG nest (aka riverbed) was about $29.

I set these boys up waiting for Red's marines to hit the beach.

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Wow, those were at Petsmart!? I'll have to check that out. What section of the store did you find them in?

Grunt,
Great job! Welcome to the board!
Those do look nice with the 1/18 figs.
I did envy the x32 guys and that bridge, but these trees are way cooler!

does the riverbed have a hollow in it that can you put the soldier in? If so, how come?

The trees and trees/riverbed are all made by a company called topfin (sp?).

Anyway, they are meant to sit in the bottom of your fish tank. lol!

Little did they know.. muahahaha...

So to answer Tinman's question, go to the fish tank accessory section (should be where you find all of the made in China resin submersable items like the bridge).

The trench aka riverbed had a small hose connected to it and a plastic cover over the trench. I don't have a fish tank and there were no instructions so I don't know what the original intent of this item was.

I used vise grips to rip off the plastic cover that was over the river/trench section. That created a two inch (or so) deep trench. Then I bent each soldiers' legs all the way back to create the illusion they were dug in. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room for all of those bent legs, so...

I considered putting the whole thing onto some dirt outside or some other base to create additional depth for the troops, but instead just pulled their legs off to create the "sunken"/dug in effect.

Neat ideal of digging in your troops.
I didn't see them at first. I had to take another look at the pic to see the Japanese soldiers. (they are hiding pretty good)

it's a good effect

That plastic cover is for air to run through from the hose to give the affect of running water. If the cover was not there the air would just float to the surface from the end of the hose.

Thanks Grunt, went and checked it out. Found a small bridge ruin I think I can use and a Greek Temple ruin that seems to be to correct scale.

Those Greco-Roman temple ruins would look quite good in a setup with the BBI Romans. They are the right scale for a small classical temple.

Ah, I found the original post about the bridge. It was from Ostketten (sorry I couldn't recall earlier).

viewtopic.php?t=4565&highlight=petsmart

Grunt,
I had to check it out tonight too.
The palm tree with ditch looks good.
It would be nice to catch them on sale (reg price: 29.00)
The trees are better 7-10 bucks each.
They had one with beach chairs- would be nice for a China Beach or MASH diorama...

I think the bridge can work fo 1/18 as well. Here we have foot bridges crossing bayous all over. I can see the ancient ruins of a foot bridge in some little French, Belgium, Italian, etc. village. The bricks are the right size for sure. If I could post pics I would but allas...

I'm going out to take a look tomorrow. Thank you for the heads up, Grunt! I've been thinking about trees for a while....

I picked up the large palm tree today, on sale for $9.99, plus the small one at regular price ($6.99). I can see multiple uses for them. Right now they are in my Vietnam scene.

Another source for jungle vegetation is the local craft store. In NJ we Micheal`s, Rag Shop ect and they sell a line of fake plastic plants for plant/flower arrangements. Many of the ferns and similar plants make decent scale vegetation. You can trim and modify them fairly easily. I like the idea of the aquarium scenery items. They are actually pretty neat. My son has a four stacker destroyer "sunken" at the bottom of his fish tank...

TJ