Building terrain of Doom

Been thinking that the gaming tables are in need of some trees to dot around.

After watching some YouTube videos and looking through some books I decided on a wire armature covered in masking tape to make the trunk and branches.

This is then covered in a pva glue to hold it together and maybe a bit of sand or filler added to the glue to add some texture.

Over the next few evenings my plan is to build some trenches and bunkers for use in epic 40k.

I’m going to use instructions from a white Dwarf magazine from a time long ago when pva and cereal box buildings were encouraged by gw.

I remember building these years ago with the help of my older brother as I was not trusted with glue and sharp things.

The first step was to hunt out a cereal packet then mark out and make the bases, rather than going with square edges I trimmed the corners so I can set the trenches out I  wiggly lines.

I decided to only do one side of the trench line or as the article points out you get rather wide looking trenches that are hard to move your tiny dudes a out in.

I also decided to mount the card bases on some thin magnetic sheet, mainly to add some strength and to help stop the edges curling after painting.

Whilst the glue was drying in the bases it was time to cut out the walls of the trenches and the teeny tiny buttresses. The walls were quite thin so I doubled up the wall sections and used prit stick to join them together as pva made the card curl.

Then It’s time to stick your fingers to everything, found out the hard way that super glue is great for this as pva let’s the card slide around before it drys

Once that was all dry it was time to splodge on some filler that was then coated in modge podge glue to make it nice and strong

The bunkers were made in the same way, think I messed up my measurements as the bunker is supposed to be as wide as a cavalry base, I just gave the bunkers a lip at the front rather than starting again.

Tried to make some imperial symbols for the top of the bunkers, the wings are just card strips and the circles are the little sticky plastic blobs you can use to stop things sliding around.

Once the buildings were dry I painted in the wood sections as well as adding more colours to the mushroom clumps.

The flagstones were drybrushed grey and bleached bone then the edges were painted in a muddy colour. Once that all dried I gave the models a satin varnish coat then gave the mushroom heads  a nice glossy coat.

Finally some flock and autumn leaves were added to the bases.

Painting the houses got my good lady’s interest and decided to paint up a ghost tree that she snapped up at the selwig show as well as a funky halloween house from the works, that she added some details to including rickety roof tiles made from wooden scrabble tokens from the works stuck on with a jollop if hot glue.

They were sprayed with grey then She used the spray gun to paint them white masking off areas with tape to create a brick effect then  uses the gel based paints from warcolours, think they look pretty cool indeed.

Unfortunately the Elder scrolls online witches Festival event arrived so don’t think the models will be completed fir a few weeks, they look awesome as they are and will fit in nicely with the other moonstone terrain.

Thought some mushroom outcrops would be cool instead of woods, so started on some scatter terrain using some scrap Cork tiles I made the basic shapes.

Next I filled out the shapes with filler and as it was drying I glued the mushrooms in place.

Going to let it dry fully overnight then after work tomorrow I’m going to add some grit to the bases then cover in modgepog to make it more sturdy

The plan is to base it on some Cork scraps, add some filler around the edges and a few mushrooms, before painting it.

Hopefully paint sticks to the plastic as it feels a bit oily only time will tell I guess I should have tried some paint on it before sticking it down as it may need a good old soapy wash

This week’s project is going to be seeing how much scenery I can build for a moonstone table for as little dosh as possible.

Last Sunday my better half and myself visited the selwig show that had a humongous bring and buy where we were able to snap up a funky mushroom house and a ghost tree, making a great start to the scenery needed.

Next we visited poundland and the works looking for supplies and came back with a little house shaped box with a draw that should be easily converted into a second house. Rhi has caught the scenery bug and found a Halloween wooden house and is planning on building it and having a go with an airbrush to paint it.

We also found a pile of plastic mushrooms and some other odds and ends.

Now it’s time to get gluing and see what happens.

The last few years I have been working on some rules for a solo vietnam game based on the mobile strike forces in the vietnam war putting you in control of the indigenous forces helping rescue downed pilots in enemy territory and carrying out ambushes on enemy supply lines as well as patrolling around and protecting their compound.

This required a selection of different scenery including village buildings and sections of jungle to help fill out the scenarios. As well as needing a suitable bord or mat with squares on it for movement of miniatures and line of sight.

This is not the first of the boards I have built as the project started in 28mm but is awkward to get out and play the game because of the space needed, so I tried it in 15mm which was super fiddly so now have settled on 20 mm.

Walking around IKEA I found a box frame in the sale section which gave me the idea of a board that I can hang on the wall. So with that in hand I started collecting bits of card and cocktail sticks together.

The bord is made of a fake grass matt from aldi that I squished cheap brown green and red acrylic paint from the works into with a sponge, the muddy track is a mix of filler and sand mixed with plastic and again squished in with a sponge.

Once the paint was fully dry the lines were added with a shape then a selection of grass tufts were stuck down with pva glue for some variety.

• The fields are cut from carpet tiles from poundand stuck to Cork squares. The edges were built up with Millput then coated I sand and plastic before painting in muddy colours, tufts were then added

To make the buildings I made the basic shape from card from cereal packets, then glued cut up cocktail sticks as wooden beams. To give the walls some texture I used a thin coat of filler. The thatch roofs were made from hessian soaked in pva stick to card.

The board all set up for an afternoons gaming

Having a load of terrain on the table definitely helps with the immersion of the game.

Managed to get a small game of shatterpoint in at the weekend using one squad each and a smaller table with the three objectives across the middle on different levels. The highest objective was worth 2 points and the remaining 2 were one point each.

We set up the table on a 2′ x 2′ necromunda mat, I’m pretty  pleased with how it turned out, the multi level buildings joined up with walkways look pretty cool on the table top.

Rhi took the initiative and flipped her first card activating ventris who using some force tokens was able to advance and force jump onto an objective that as it was the first turn would gain no points but would in the following turns.

Next it was Rexes chance to advance on an objective but due to my poor setting up of the ladders on my side of the table this proved more difficult than it should be. He did manage to order his fellow clone troopers forwards putting pressure on the central objective.

Kalani use one of his special rules to advance the b1 droids on to the second objective.

Anakin snuck around the corner of a building trying to scupper ventris’s plans of taking the highest objective.

The first struggle was won by the seperatist as no matter how hard they tried the Republic force was not able to push the droids off and take hold the objectives.

The second struggle started well for the clones, by moving into the open they were able to take an objective early on.

However a fight over the highest objective between Anakin and ventris sealed the deal for the separatists snatching victory from the republics grasp and winning the struggle and with it the game.

Ventris took the initiative early on and using a force point jumped up to the highest objective gaining more points.

Anakin try to stop this in the vein hope of wounding ventris so he coukd take controll of the objective for the Republic.

My grand plan was to use his two activations to move across the table and up the ladder knowing that I still had a shatter point card to use allowing me to activate Anakin again.

If only I remembered Rhi still had her shatterpoint card in the deck and it was the next to be revealed.

Ventris  with a wicked smile jumped into action and attacked Anakin with a flurry of blades which he defended well and was even able to score some damage back even when defending by using a special rule he has in defence, unfortunately ventris had enough hits to force push Anakin off the top of the building and the objective sealing  victory for the seperatists

Final thoughts.

Playing a game on fully painted scenery definitely makes a nice change, I found that it draws you into the game and makes it easier to create a narrative for the tiny fighting men.

It was also fun trying out different techniques on the scenery to see what effects can be achieved with a little bit of time and not much effort.

As far as shatterpoint as a game goes it was great fun. I wish the rule book was a bit easier to find things in and the use of symbols instead of words can be annoying but I’m sure that will work itself out the more I play.

The game itself definitely works well with multi level buildings and walkways, the forces are very fluid in there movements whether it be a leader moving units forwards or enemies forcing your units back with heavy blaster fire.

All in all its a fun rule set and the buildings and walkways included were fun and quite quick to build, as well as being full of details that add some background to your gaming table.

No table top is complete without line of sight blocking terrain and some ladders to allow the tiny fighting people to move about.

I Painted these bits and bobs up with the sponge technique followed by an acrylic wash for a grimy effect.

They were very quick and easy to get done and think they look pretty cool

I wanted the buildings to have a bit more texture so thought I would have a go with an acrylic wash to see what effects I could create.

The first step was to coat the buildings in varnish, I found satin worked  best as matt did not allow the wash to flow as well when I moved it with a damp cotton bud and gloss looked very shiny.

Once that was fully dry I coated the model in diluted wash and let it dry for a bit before removing the excess with a cotton bud, drawing it down the model to create streaks and dirt.

I tried diluting the wash with lahmium medium but found this created a skin that made the wash hard to manipulate later so just stuck with good old water or in dirtier bits just added it neat.

With this building i started by running a line of neat wash along the top then brought lines down with a damp brush creating streaks, then removed wash from parts I wanted to stay clean with a cotton bud.

For this building and the ladder  I coated the whole side and let it sink into all the details let it dry for a bit then cleaned it up with a cotton bud

Having a few buildings left to do I thought I would try to speed up the process by investing in an airbrush.

Turns out they are pretty expensive so I took a look about on the interwebs and came across rechargeable airbrushes used for make up with a built in compressor.

So for the price of about 2 rattle cans I thought I would give it a go at the very least I can give my self a spray tan if it does not work.

The first thing I worked out is that although acrylic paint is not smelly airbrush cleaner is so I went out to the shed with my cardboard box spray booth to experiment with the spray gun, cool thing is because its rechargeable I don’t have to worry about getting power to it.

Things I learned today…

Airbrushing takes a bit of practice to get a cool result but is fun to mess about with.

This brush is pretty cool as long as you only want to base coat or create zenithal highlights and am looking forward to messing about with stencils in the future.

I have not found a way of making the spray fine enough for smaller details but think that may be due to the uneven pressure produced by the small compressor.

I used vallejo paints with airbrush thinner and flow Improver mixed in I learned pretty quickly that there is a sweet spot of both not enough and the paint splatters in blobs like a morning after a curry, too much and the paint beads off the plastic.

Once I worked it out the buildings were pretty quickly painted.

1. I kind of want to get a stone like texture effect on this building.

Kind of thought using a bit of sponge to stipple a sandy colour over grey may give me a cool effect so gave it a go.

The core set for shatterpoint comes jam packed with spruey goodness allowing you to build up to 2 chunky buildings and 2 multilevel towers with funky walkways to join them together. It’s almost as good as the old cardboard necromunda terrain from 1995.

It took an afternoon of chopping scraping and gluing but the results were worth it you get a table full of very sturdy buildings and walkways as well as a load of crates that can be piled up to create cover or to add to the story being played out.