Sandbags
A sandbag or dirtbag is a bag or sack made of hessian (burlap), polypropylene or other sturdy materials that is filled with sand or soil and used for such purposes as flood control, military fortification in trenches and bunkers, shielding glass windows in war zones, ballast, counterweight, and in other applications requiring mobile fortification, such as adding improvised additional protection to armored vehicles or tanks.
The advantages are that the bags and sand are inexpensive. When empty, the bags are compact and lightweight for easy storage and transportation. They can be brought to a site empty and filled with local sand or soil.
Given the advantages, it should be easy to explain the usage and presence of sandbags even on remote planets, and battlefields in cities, jungles, deserts, and the most common use case in a wargame is to make a fortification for protecting the infantry, or as additional details for bigger models, on bases or dioramas.
Sandbags for warfare are relatively modern, so they would feel out of place in games set in the past; it would not be unreasonable to have them in a fantasy setting.
Ingredient list
For building:
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cushion paper/wrapping paper
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toilet paper (it has a small dot pattern on the surface)
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scissors or cutters
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PVA glue / white glue
For painting:
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spray can for priming
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acrylic paints
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brushes
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stencil for additional details
Building instructions
It is easier to describe the whole process with a couple of pictures.
The cushion paper I had was not high enough for my taste, so I folded it once and glued it together.
I’ve cut some stripes, approximately 3cm long, and wrapped them in toilet paper.
Once you have the single sandbags, bend the ends to simulate the closing of the sack, and press on the long sides to make the sack less flat and more rounded.
Note that sandbags used against flooding 🗄️ are filled up to only one third.
Once you have enough pieces, make a small wall.
Depending on the size of the miniatures, the height of the wall will be different.
Note that even in the same game, there might be different heights; for example, in the following picture, there are 2 models of a 28mm game, and yet the model with the cannon is much bigger than the model with the sword (granted, none of them stand perfectly straight).
In that picture, I’ve even tried to measure some different models consistently, so I had to raise some models, as the one on the left is on a rock on a higher base, and the one in the middle is also on a base higher than the model on the left.
If one measures all models from the bottom of the base to the eye, the difference is even bigger.
In some games, this can make a difference, as the line of sight 🗄️ might be defined as "true line of sight", which usually means a model sees another if it is possible to have an unobstructed imaginary line from the model’s eyes to another model, or not. In addition to that, if the game defines covers, it might state that a model is covered if a given percentage is not visible from the other model, thus making the wall too low would be useless.
Either way, making a wall where you are supposed to stay behind to protect yourself from enemy fire, and at the same time being able to fire back, would look bad if it is too high or too low.
After stapling and gluing some sacks, the wall would look more or less like the following:
To make the fortification more robust, I glued the sandbags on a base of cardboard, which means I also had to decide what type of terrain to make.
Since it is a sandbag, filled with sand or soil, I decided to use some soil that is presumably also in the sacks.
I took the opportunity to add a broken sack (just folded toilet paper, no cushion paper inside) and put a little bit of terrain over another one, as if it were losing some of its content.
Adding glue, water, and soil to the cardboard makes it buckle as it absorbs the water. Once the glue dried up, I added some water on the other side to make it even, but next time I’ll search for something more robust that absorbs less water.
Painting instructions
The idea was to begin with a dark primer and highlight with the dry-brush technique all the details immediately with white.
I wanted the bags to be beige-ish, and since I do not have it, I thought to make it by mixing yellow, brown, and white. Since yellow is a very transparent color, having the details highlighted in white should help to make them stand out better.
I am actually not happy with how the colors turned out; they are too yellow, and the black underneath is still too visible. I suppose that a brown layer on the sack would have helped to create a better effect.
I guess that money is well spent on a higher quality yellow color, or maybe it’s just my lack of skills to paint with it.
To add some additional detail, I painted some green stars on the sacks on top with the help of a stencil.
Contrary to the surface of the containers, the sacks were flat enough that the end result is acceptable.
Game rules
The main intention of a sandbag is to offer protection and support when shooting. If the game has rules for pieces of terrain that offer some cover, that’s it.
Since empty sandbags are easy to transport and can be filled with sand or soil on the battlefield, it would be conceivable that when deploying an army, a player chooses to position a sandbag fortification in its deployment area.
A minor variation would be that some models can have a sandbag fortification as an upgrade, which makes most sense for those units that generally do not move at all or very little, like artillery or units armed with ranged weapons
Another possibility would be to create sandbag fortifications during the battle, especially if a machine for filling the bags is involved.
If you have questions, comments, or found typos, the notes are not clear, or there are some errors; then just contact me.