Blood & Plunder needs terrain so I’m always on the lookout for good pieces to add to my collection. I’ve bought a couple 4Ground building kits before and I really like them so I decided to try one of their tree kits. This is their Young Birch tree set.

The set comes with 5 pre-painted and assembles trees which can be used as freestanding trees and it a base that the trees can be set into to make a tighter grove.

The instructions are simple and you can glue this together and have it ready to use in a few minutes and it would be very functional but I decided to dress up the basses with some more decorative terrain elements.

My daughter helped me punch out the discs and she was a little less careful than she could have been…

I glued the top layer layer of the base to the bottom and my daughter helped me glue the trees to the discs. I used some tough Gorilla Glue for this part since I anticipate removing the trees from the larger base and that will involve pulling by the trunks.

Assembled and ready for me to work on the base.

I’m using Vallejo’s Earth Texture terrain paint to cover all the bases.

The paint is thick and goopy and I’m applying it fairly thinly to everything just to get some texture.

I applied it heavily to the joint between the lower and upper levels of the base.

I plan to cover most of the bases with grass but I put a thin layer over the entire thing anyway so any gaps or thin spots in the grass will look natural.

I put a second thick coat of paint around the joint to hide the hard edge.

All painted.

Before applying the grass I covered the texture paint with a coat of Agrax Earthshade.

Now the fun part. I’m using various tufts from Gamers Grass. In general I like to use Army Painter’s static grass but I ran out of the color I like so I used some gras by Gale Force 9.

I thinned a basic white glue with water then applied it over most of the bases. I tried to leave some base patches so the ground would show through.

Thinned glue applied to the base.

I applied the grass heavily all over the base pressing it into the glue. Make sure to use any grass product in a contained space because it tends to get everywhere!

Let it sit for a few minutes.

Good enough!

I left some of the areas right around the base of the trees bare.

Grass on the tree bases.

I added a couple wood bits from Warlord’s basing line.

Not necessary but makes it look natural.

I’ve been using Army Painter’s grass line for a while but I just became aware of this new line called Gamers Grass and they look great! They have a couple “variety packs” that give you plenty of grass to dress up a lot of terrain pieces.

The grass tufts have adhesive on the bottom of them but it usually isn’t enough so I use some white glue as well.

A variety makes it look natural.

Add some tufts to the tree bases.

The trees fit into the base and with the grass on top, it it looks pretty good!

These trees are still pretty small for 28mm figures and the base places them close enough that you can’t really put many figures in the stand of trees. I’ll likely use these trees individually more than in the large base, but it could be used either way. I’m still looking for some larger trees that look good and won’t break the bank. 4Ground makes some “mature” trees that I will try eventually.

If you’ve found some trees you’re really happy with, please comment with a link!