Suggestions Wanted RE:Hirst Arts for 40K and other Sci-Fi

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

Question/Suggestions wanted:

Long intro:
I’ve just been given (loaned) nearly a dozen Hirst Arts molds. Most are for fantasy or historical buildings (field-stone blocks and walls, castle towers, a small inn, etc.).
There is a sci-fi mold with little to no detail, but nice smooth blocks and large pipes that could be used for anything.
I would love to make some terrain out of this stuff for the local gaming club, but the catch is that they mostly play sci-fi games. The majority play 40K, while a smaller group of us play Infinity.
There is a little Sigmar action but not enough to warrant any more terrain than what we already have. I could also definitely use some of the field-stone and other masonry for Guild Ball, but that game really doesn’t take much terrain.

TLDR:
So… does anyone have any examples of converting more medieval buildings for use in a sci-fi setting?

[sundancer 42933xp 0]

Just google “Steampunk Terrain” and you’ll get thing like this:

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/180777372520587985/

or this

Custom Kingdoms Steampunk Cottage Review

😉

Or just make ruins from it.

[lordofuzkulak 6332xp 0]

Remember the Imperium is a very big place with a diverse selection of world’s that run the gamut from high tech all the way down to Stone Age, so you can use the historic moulds to make stuff from lower tech worlds and if needs be add in some of the pipes and other stuff from the sci-fi moulds to show the Imperium presence.  Also, even on the high tech worlds, outside the Industrialised areas, architecture tends towards the Gothic aesthetic, so if you’re able to make Gothic churches and the like with what you’ve got all you’d really need to do is source some skulls and aquilas and slap those on there.

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

Funny, one of the field stone molds includes a skull to cast for the tops of fence posts… supposed to be a warlock’s stone house.
Plus I’ve already made some push molds I use with Greenstuff to make small Imperium symbols. Got them off some Militarum tanks.
I might have to do the ‘straws as pipes’ thing to complete the steampunk/40K industrial look. Thanks for the suggestions though.  The molds for curved blocks I currently have are the fairly large ones… look more like sewage or chemical pipes at 32mm scale, rather than the industrial steam type. Also, they are quite smooth with no details. I may have to add some details to them at the joints in order to work better for that kind of thing…. Still, it’s giving me some ideas.

Question…
I’ve only ever seen the Gothic 40K terrain in ruins. Why is that? Doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a GW set or scratch built.

The Church and Bell Tower should work well for that, though… If I took the church apart and stacked one side on top of the other, you’d get the typical 40K 2 story corner ruin, in fact.

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

Just occured to me, I’m also getting some Bluestuff sometime soon, so I should be able to mold all kinds of small details.

[Anonymous 0xp 0]

@mbdeyes I assume the main reason we see so many Gothic ruins is simply they are easier to play a game with as they are more accessible for your models.

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

I think it’s a combination of what GW chooses to release as terrain and habit of what people are used to seeing/building for the table. If you’re talking about being able to put models in on multiple floors and the terrain having an open back, that’s more about it being half destroyed than being Gothic.

Bandua has some great MDF city buildings made for Infinity, but they’re certainly accessible for any wargame.

Still, when the terrain GW sells a lot of Gothic style sets, it makes you want to theme your terrain, and throwing some of the Bandua (or other) stuff in the middle of a board with the Administratum or Shrine of Aquila doesn’t make visual sense.

By the same token, it doesn’t make much sense to me to have those GW sets sitting on a T’au border world, or something similar.

[limburger 21683xp 1]

That depends … if the T’au have recently conquered an imperial world  then there’d be ‘gothic’ ruins with ‘new’ T’au architecture.
The same thing would happen in reverse for worlds that were dominated by a xenos species after the Imperials eliminated them.

You see this mix of styles in a lot of European cities, although usually there is an attempt to match the new with the old.
Cities are located near strategic locations so it isn’t *that* odd to see a mix happen especially after centuries of combat.

The only thing that won’t make sense would be ‘new’ / undamaged buildings of both types.

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

So you’re saying, one set should look ruined or rebuilt with another races tech, while the other style should look brand new.
Interesting.
Would you see the new buildings popping up among the ruins, or would they, like in more modern times, just demolish and cart away the remains of the previous buildings? I suppose it would depend on what was reasonably salvageable and what wasn’t really worth rebuilding.

One of my favorite pieces was a little Ork barricade I mounted on a CD for a base. Along with old sprue, corrugated card and a lot of weathering, I carved a half broken concrete piece out of foam. That foam piece had an arched window in it, implying that at some point it had belonged to the Imperium.

Ork are probably the easiest race with which to justify mixing styles.

[limburger 21683xp 0]

Orks would definitely just use whatever is available … with a few of their own additions to make it better 😉
Nurgle and Tyrranids would simply infest & corrupt whatever exists which is its own distinct style.
Chaos probably doesn’t care, but I’d expect them to add a few shrines to their overlords.

Imperials probably will demolish any Xenos structures as it might be unclean / heretical, but there is a chance that they’d pick a practical method when time/resources are limited.

Eldar are tricky … given that they might not have resources to reconstruct/demolish enemy structures they might not do so.
OTOH … maybe they need to do it because they’ve lost so much already ?

That’s just how I’d see it though.

[mbdeyesParticipant 655xp 0]

Now I’m picturing a board with half torn down T’au buildings, Imperium cranes pulling the buildings apart.

Of course, the work is stalled and the workers have fled for the duration of the battle you’re enacting on the table, but it would be an interesting idea, especially in a narrative or campaign setting. It could be done for Orkish or other buildings as well.

I don’t know if there are any examples of the Imperials reclaiming planets. I would expect for Tyrannid or Chaos worlds, they’d simply firebomb the whole place and start over.

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