Soldado’s Burrows and Badgers terrain – Part the second! The Mansion of Marneous Blackwick!
Recommendations: 914
About the Project
This project started out as me building some terrain for use at home to get my wife and daughter into gaming, now its become a bit of a monster part one (the village of Nutting Hill) went to Salute '19 and because people liked it, it has spawned part 2 "The Mansion of Marneous Blackwick!" Im hoping that I will again be able to take this to Salute for 2020.
Related Game: Burrows & Badgers
Related Company: Oathsworn Miniatures
Related Genre: Fantasy
This Project is Active
To Salute! and beyond...
So while the salute table is complete, this terrain wasnt ever really meant for this which is why the buildings were such a faff to get to sit in the boards properly. So moving on Im thinking what other building will be of use and so Im doing an Armoury/ Watch house from which Billy the stout, valiant town watchmouse can sally forth and crack some heads when they need cracking…
armoury, cut and carved, and the main bulk of the doors are in place.
Jump to its sort of assembled and the watch tower is built and a lot of woodwork is in place
rear shot showing the stairs to the watch point at the top of the tower.
The Kingfisher Darby Finbiter from the latest KS is now done as well.The chosen have arrived!
So after sitting down and looking at what minis I had in the collection (and tbh what actually could pass muster for a participation game!) I have chosen the 4 warbands.
So these bands add upto around 350 pennies each except the kings guard who come in closer to 400 but they’ll be the target of 3 other warbands so I felt they might need the extra oomph, we’ll have to see.
6 local villagers, for a very local village
Piratical beasts who haunt the rivers, shiver me whiskers!
Outlaws living in the woods, they smell like it too!
Kings guard. Without a King to guard, have they lost their way?Saying it with flowers....
So I was making some more tufts as im running out, and I was thinking about how to make taller flower stems.
The idea I came up with was nylon thread or fishing line if you have it.
Trim to length, coat in pva and wave over the magic box, all there is to it really. once its dried dab with glue and add coloured flock.
Once ready, add a spot of super glue to the end and jab it into an existing tuft to hide the base.
first stage waiting to dry.
and flocked and added to the sign post. these are too large to add to a minis base but a cm long one would look fine.The Village People
These Citizens of the World…
So the Villagers warband is complete, all of these comes from the latest Kickstarter including the little scenery pieces.
This is a local village, for local beasts!So just need to finish the minis for the Pirates, then gather the other warbands together and photograph them.
what do you reckon?
Stone the Crows!
Well maybe not given the size of Ravens in B&B unless you happen to have trebuchet!
To provide some variety on the non salute game table I have been making some stone walls.
These arent my idea I used the tutorial at the crooked staff blog here
http://crookedstaff.blogspot.com/2015/06/cheap-and-easy-to-make-stone-walls.html
Mine dont look quite so nice as theirs I think because the gravel they used is finer chips than the stuff I have. ho hum Im happy with mine, and I’ll be building more soon enough.
Undercoated mini for scale, burnt umber undercoat, heavy dark grey drybrush, black wash, mid grey drybrush, thin brown wash, light grey very light edging drydrush.Flocking heck!
I was asked elsewhere about the flower tufts as I make them myself (Im way to much of a cheap skate to buy them, and yes it shows :D)
Ingredients: cheap kiddies paint, dried tea (wash and empty out used teabags and leave to dry in a tub on a radiator), a mixing pot and stirrer and baking paper, User the cheap poster paint rather than artists acrylic as thats to thick and glues the dried tea together into large balls which cant be broken up.
Some tea and a large glob of paint
Mix it up, my missus frowned at me using the knife so I used a coffee stirrer, it broke so i went back to the knife :)
Once mixed spread out on the baking paper try and spread it out and keep doing that as often as you can over the next 24hrs until it dries
And heres the result ready to make flower tufts or add to bushes, are gorse bushes counted as difficult terrain?Use any colours you like, Ive made Yellow, Red, Blue and purple dont be put off that while its being mixed and while its drying that it looks a little brown, the pigment will be dominant once the paints dried out.
Does it work for you?
ooooh, look whats turned up!
Oathsworn have delivered the most recent KS.
Also included are a couple of older minis I need but mostly its the latest KS.
crisp casts, and the resin badger and beaver are stunning, very little flash and no mould lines at all.
This gives me all the minis I need to complete the 4 warbands I need at salute.
minis, cleaned and based, I used hard as nails to " fill" the bases, its cheaper than milliput and I had some to hand. the signs and anvil were put on mdf 25mm bases and the anvils base was textured to look like a log plinth.Its done!
eh, how’d that happen? so after faffing around for so long, the table came together in such a rush that I didnt realise it was so close until I sat back and thought “what next? Oh, thats it then!”
Nutting Hill is ready for Salute 19, now theres a scary thought 😀
Whats left? well I need a few more minis from the latest kickstarter that Oathsworn ran and the main objective cart. but other than that im good, I can sit back and read the rule book and even get some games in so that I dont look like a real pleb in front of everyone on the day.
A high view of the whole board
A view from the river
It must be market day
uh oh, here comes the fuzz!
Village squareWhere next?
After salute I may well start expanding the terrain types, theres also the treehouses to finish, ideas of what to build next are always welcome.
Another day and another step closer to..
..sort of completion.
Whats left? well trimming the board edges so they sit neatly, tidying up the edges around the terrain elements so they sit nicely. Then start on the greenery.
Oh yeah and paint the river section!
—————————————————————————
Were baking now!
So the forge/ bakery is all done…
Here it is from the front, just awaiting a baker and a smith oh and the anvil :)
and the obligatory gratuitous rear view
and a new bridge or the salute table, for 2 reasons 1 the original is to damn big and 2 it got damaged in the house move, not badly but i dont think its fine for the show also see point 1 Its been a while....
5 weeks give or take…
between xmas and another project taking over this needed to be sidelined, but here we go again.
Sorry, This entry has been edited for typos and putting the correct description below the fotos, really should proof read what I write when Im half asleep 😀
drybrushed the stones a light grey and highlighted random ones to add interest.
Started adding various coloured inks, Red earth, burnt umber, raw sienna and antelope brown.
painted the slates, blue, purple and green washes, came out better than i expected :)
A dark oak varnish covers the whole thing,then dried herbs mixed with pva to create the vines. and then hot glued to a poster board base. The signs were made in Word (other word processors are available) printed out and stuck on with PVA (I cant freehand for diddly)
sand added to the base and painted, hot glue drips added to the vines as fruits.Hmmm, chocolate...
well not really..
Chimney all done
Forge roof all complete
And a very chocolatey looking base coatIts going up in smoke!
So the roof is done, in the same way as the well, but without the rounding provided by the nail clippers
And onto the chimney, instead of the daub effect for other chimneies in the set, Ive gone for a rickerty stone effect, The form is off cuts of foam board and a milliput skin again textured with a real stone and carved with a sculpting tool.
Now all that remains on the cimney is to put some support collars onto it once all the other bits are done.Buildin on up...
Progress continuemmms
Adding a first floor
still the first floor
The forge is complete
But will we be able to see it when the roof is on?Forging on...
And beating about the bush….
So while I prevaricate on how to do the terrain board itself heres some bushes
Heres what we end up with
Start by cutting a scouring pad into strips, Ive cut these to be about 10mm wide
Then cut into not quite squares, the bigger the bushier but over 20mm and theyre awkawrd to keep upright while the glue dries
Tease the squares apart, you'll need about 3 per bush
Hot glue the 3 bits together and the to a base.
coat in pva and sponge bits, then hang them upside down so that the weight of the PVA doesnt leave them flat, I did this in a box so that anything that dropped off wouldnt make a mess on the floor.
Once dry, paint them in the same way we did the hedges and then add some coloured flock.
And Ive added some stone texture to the forge itself, milliput and a small stone and a carving tool were all that was needed.Hammer time, duh duh duh do do....
So plans for the salute board continue and Im thinking to field one warband as the villagers from the latest KS. 2 of which are a baker and blacksmith, I have neither a bakery nor a smithy so why not make both? or indeed combine them into one piece? so I have (or am as its not finished 🙂 )
So all the walls are made, and the display window for the baked goods is added.
Some woodwork added, coffee stirrers naturally :D
I have started the forge "form" I will texture this in the same way as I did the well with milliput to create the stone texture. The coal stuff in the pile and the forge is called "foam clay" marketted towards kids but it smells horrendous and my daughter wanted nothing to do with it, so now its mine :D useful for coal or even fruits etc.Long way up, short way down....
Well heres news, my terrain and painted minis will be making an appearance at Salute 2019! yikes….
“The Nutting Hill Job”: The Kings guard are transporting a paychest, they’ve got it, you want it! 3 players must compete to get the paychest off the table, The guard will fight to keep you off!
So an initial layout, I might yet replace the ruin and the building next to it with a Blacksmiths/ bakery building.
And the well is completed, which is one less thing on the list of stuff to do for Salute :DWell, well, well...
On one of Oathsworn’s KS they offered an “arcane circle”, a lovely piece that had 3 inserts, one had runes, another was bubbling liquid and the third was an altar. very nice, but not a lot of use to me (except in pulp games). Now I want to use the circle as the village center piece (think of it as a roundabout outside the inn) but with the above inserts still not a lot of use so I decided to make a well…
So initial build, I made a circle of milliput the right diameter and textured it and created the flag stones, then while still wet I placed the well wall form (an old bottle cap) and the coffee stirrer uprights.
Well walls done, again with milliput, more of the wooden structure done and the roof blank is in place, minis for scale HF figure on the left and Oathsworns Platypus on the right.
Roof shingles done, slight curve created by using nail clippers, because I couldn't be bothered actually doing shingle curves with a knife :DA bird in the bush .....
So after managing to find the time to progress the rest of the hedge sections I decided plain green wasnt interesting enough, so I added some coarse Red Flock to represent berries etc.
And how it looks with one of the houses
I even managed to find time to paint two more minis :DAnd the results are in.....
I think it works quite well, certainly better than the last versions. sorry for the rubbish lighting What follows is a little how to, its not exhaustive, if youd like more detail on something, drop me a comment and I’ll get back to you.
Basic ingredients, tongue depressors, coffe stirrers, scouring pads and square bamboo rod
with super glue stick a coffee stirrer to eac side of one edge of a tongue depressor, glue that edge to another TD gining you a stable foundation.
the scouring pads I have are 10cm wide and almost exactly the same length as the TDs (sheer luck) cut the SP in half so that you have 2 5cm wide sections, using hot glue attach to your foundation, BOOM! basic form done.
3 different types, back, basic solid hedge, middle a broken through section (man that badger was miffed!), front a gateway section sans gate.
how they look together
add some filler to make the ground, I use poundshop pre mixed stuff, cheap and cheerless...
Test section, I glued some foam flock stuff using PVA onto the section to give it a less uniform appearance.
and other sections have the same treatment.
break out the burnt umber, I buy the artist acrylics from the works and thin it down with Klear floor wax, sounds weird works great, it even goes through an airbrush.
so here is the test section finished by drybrushing different shades of green and adding some fine flock around the base of the foundation, sorry for the rubbish lighting but I feel it works rather well, certainly better than the last versions
