It’s going to be something…

I have started working on some of the little bits that will add character and give the feel of a lived-in space.

Washing lines seemed like a good idea to give the impression that people live in these houses.   They were simple to make using simple clothes draped over some twisted wire.   I kept the colours pretty drab to help keep the feel of a poorer part of town.

After that a few dustbins to scatter around.  There are tons of guides for making and modelling trash cans on YouTube and they really do add a bit to the table, plus they could also come in useful as a bit of cover during games.  I also added a few rats around the place, although I have not painted them yet.   I am pretty sure that every city or built-up area has its fair share of rodents hidden amongst it.

I will add some bin bags, boxes, crates and other general junk to scatter around.   Not just in the Slum area but also in the raised area too.

I wired up some lights today and took the opportunity to take some pictures of the Victorian Layout as it currently stands.

To-do list.

• Factory district to paint up.
• Another corner building for the smaller raised area.
• Market goods.
• Street Scatter and rubbish
• Internal lighting and wall-mounted lights for the Victorian buildings.
• Elements to give a ‘lived-in look’.

From the outset, I wanted multiple crossings and ways of getting around the table to try to minimalise the choke points.  When you are doing a town board there will always be some, but I wanted to avoid the scenario where everyone was trying to get up the same stairs or across the same bridge.  I wanted to be able to have outflanking manoeuvrers possible so that if a player does decide to try to hold one bridge there were still ways of getting behind them.

A little street plan

Red arrows show stairs up and down between elevations.

Blue circles show access and exit points to the sewer system, which can also allow access to the upper and lower elevations.

Green rectangles show crossings from both raised areas and passageways between buildings that may or may not be immediately identifiable from the other images.

This also does not take into account that a lot of the buildings have both front and back doors that can be exploited.   The large Aeronef station for example has a fully playable interior with 2 lifts for access to different floors withing the structure.

I also wanted to be able to play over multiple parts of the table for different scenarios.  Most skirmish-level games use a smaller board than 6′ x 4′ and I wanted to be able to set up the entire table and then have different things happening throughout the layout.

There are a few distinctive districts that are noticeable, all of different shapes and sizes.  This is not to say that a scenario could fall between the different areas and incorporate parts of two or more sections.

Orange – Industrial

Blue – Market

Pink – Aeronef Port

Yellow – Slum

Then of course there are the sewers that run around the outside of the table and also expand beneath the table in different areas.   However, if I plan on running a sewer game other than the sewers around the edges, I will leave all the buildings off to allow access to the layout beneath.

Of course, this is just using the one layout of the terrain tiles.   These are all modular and can be taken apart and reassembled in a completely different set-up if needed.  I can then completely change the look of the whole table.  Maybe I want just a central raised area and the rest at a lower level, no problem.  Maybe I want the sunken road area and with no bridges, no problem, I can do that too.

At the moment I have just had this all set out in one configuration for the photographs, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

There has been little progress due to a change of work and other commitments slowing things down. I am a little concerned that I may not get as much finished by the deadline as I had planned. We have a family holiday coming up soon that pretty much wipes out all of December for me on this. Anyway, some progress, as small as it is, is still progress.

A bit more work has been done on the slum area.  Still more detailing to do, but it’s starting to blend in more with the rest of the layout.

I have added a factory/warehouse/industrial section to the layout.  My thoughts are that the people living in the slum area can get to the warehouse via the sewer network and avoid the disapproving glares of the other townsfolk.  Anyway, there is something distinctly fishy about the people who work in those factories anyway.

The layout is coming together nicely and is somewhat larger than I had originally planned.

I managed to free up some time to start painting the slums.  There is nothing too fancy here, with lots of stippling and washes using a cheap paint brush from the hardware store.  I used different colours for these buildings as I imagine they would have been built with cheaper red bricks and wood cladding.   The aim was for a dirtier feel than the other buildings I have in the Victorian setting.

There is still plenty of work to do on them before I can tick them off as done, but they are getting there.

I also included a seedy pub amongst the buildings and a few arched passageways.  I am going with black window frames on these houses as they just feel like they suit the poorer more ram-shackled-looking buildings.

The hint of brickwork rather than complete brickwork walls I think works well to show the poverty of this part of town.   I still have to do some doors and will probably do a mixture of solid wooden doors and others.   I also have a few ideas to help create a more lived-in feel, but will keep those under wraps for now just in case they don’t work out.

My wife pointed out that I had nice looking buildings on the lower area of the layout, where there was the majority of sewer access points.  So, the slums have moved a bit and are now going across the lower section of the layout.

The added benefit of this is that the slum buildings are shorter so open up the view of the board more.

That leaves the question of what to do with the area that I had originally planned on placing the slums on.

Anyway, some progress of my slum build.   Just spray painted at the moment.  I will add more detail when work permits.

Just a little update today, filling the holes down into the sewer system.

Painted up just like everything else on this project so nothing earth-shattering.  It does finish the roads off though.

I have tried my best to indicate that the buildings shown in some of the images come from last year’s Terrainfest2023, those can be found HERE and HERE

However, it has come to my attention that some people may flick through and look at the pictures and not read anything written, and they may have missed me mentioning it previously.  So, to set the record straight I will mention it again.

Some of the images include buildings that were not made during this period commencing October 1st 2024.  The focus of this project is the board that the buildings sit on and a few extras that I will add here and there.  I will endeavour to make it even more obvious if I can.  I have added notes to individual pictures in the hope that helps.

The photographs showing my previously built buildings are intended to show how this year’s build complements my previous entry, to further expand on the setting and how it all comes together as a complete setting.  In addition, I am hopeful that the pictures provide inspiration and encouragement to others.  

What they are not is an attempt to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.  If preferred. I can remove them if they are offensive or considered to be an underhand tactic and show them in a different project if that would put people’s minds at ease.  🙂

I need a quick way to do timber cladding so decided to use double sided tape on thin card.

Time to start on the Slum I think.  Enough with the 3D filament printing and onwards with some more traditional building methods.

A quick stocktake of resources that I have in the garage, and also raiding the kid’s craft boxes, let me be honest since they got old enough to use computers I don’t think they have touched this stuff anyway.

Some foam-core, some white thin card, some balsa wood sheet, double sides tape and some XPS foam left over from my Dungeonalia Project

Of course, I also have all the normal stuff like things to cut this stuff with, paint, brushes etc.

There are a few more riser sections to finish to support the elevated floor.   So, with that in mind, I thought I would make a start on the slum area.

The slum area will be quite a large area of the layout because the idea is, much like in Dead Man’s Hand I can set up the entire table and run different scenarios in different areas of the table.   This way scenarios can flow across the board without having to reset stuff.   The layout can be swapped around if needed but for each string of scenarios I would probably stick to the one layout as much as possible, just using different areas.

I then had a thought, maybe I could also use this table for things like Mordheim or even, shudder, 40k when I get dragged screaming and kicking to have to play it with my mates.

I have lots of ruins, I mean lots and lots of ruins, so I set some of them up on the table.   They won’t all fit but I can get about 50% of them on the board at any one time.   That is not a problem though as it means I can swap things around.

I think if I give them a repaint, and do up a damaged bridge to replace one of the existing bridges and a few collapsed wall sections I could make it work.

Thoughts?

The last stack of flagstone tiles.

I thought I would take the time to photograph the same tile throughout the process, starting at the point after the dry-brushing stage

With each stage, I do it quite roughly and don’t take too much care with what I am doing.

Thats it.  All the tiles are done now.   Just a few more bits to do to support the last of the raised areas and then I can move on to the fun stuff.

The next stage of the process was to paint all the rims.   The benefits of rimming should not be overlooked.  It creates a nice rim or border for your model much like a frame does for a picture.  We do it with our miniatures so why not do it more with our terrain?

You can use any colour; the goal is to make the model look ‘finished’.

For dark damp passageways and that kind of thing, black rimming, in my opinion, is the way to go, although a very dark grey or brown could also work well.

If I was doing snowy terrain or rimming something with a lighter colour some soft earthy greys could look good, and for something green, maybe a more natural brown rimming.

Anyway, the point is, never underestimate how finishing off in this way can enhance other colours and create a nice effect.

The sewers also need some form of lighting.   I have expanded some of the sewer network further into the board to create an illusion of depth   This way I can put lights further into the board for different effects and give the impression that the sewers don’t just run around the edges of the table

Finally, a state-of-play shot of where I am up to.

I still have more flagstone tiles to paint, honestly, it feels like they are never-ending now.   I am looking forward to getting them done so I can move on to the slum area.

I also have to do all the individual removable covers that go under the flagstone tiles to cover up the sewer network that goes beneath the board.  These little covers will also raise all the flagstone tiles to the same height.

In this image, I have added some of the clips in place to pull the board together a bit better than in previous pictures.   It’s getting there.

Here is the second part of my really simple guide to the sewers.

The woodwork is painted with, you guessed it, Leather Brown.  I used a cheap long long-handled craft paintbrush.  The long handle makes it easy to get into the terrain.  Slightly watering down the paint makes this a speedy process.

I then very quickly dry-brushed the rope with Wargames Foundry Rawhide Mid-tone.  This is another of my favourite colours.  Of course, you can use any colour you want, this was just the colour I fancied doing mine.

After that, yep you guessed it, Rawhide highlight from Wargames Foundry is lightly dry brushed over the rope.

Finally, I lightly streaked on some weathering using washes.   Just a note that the black wash on its own is quite dark so I would suggest either watering it down or mixing it with the light grey wash.

I quickly painted up the tower tops using a mix of black, brown and grey paints and a kid’s craft brush.  I kind of wet-brushed it over and mixed it up on the model with my finger to create a weather and worn look.  I like my terrain to look a bit rustic.

For the lighting, I have two ideas in mind.  One for the fantasy setting and one for the Victorian setting.

I used 3D-printed elements with a 3v yellow flicker bulb to create a plug that can fit into the collum and sewer walls.  I then went onto a 3D building program and quickly designed some plugs that I could use to replace the lights and that would also match the aesthetic of the table.

These plugs can then be easily interchanged depending on whether I want lights or not.

The simple decoration without the light still needs to be painted of course.

The batteries can be replaced by removing the columns and pushing them out via a hole in the back.

I also added lights, to the Gothic statues, which are also removable.

Because the lights are all removable I can also change the colour of the lights easily, so it’s possible to have an eerie green glow if I choose, or in fact almost any other colour.

I decided that I should make a few extra pieces so that I can rearrange the layout in different ways. This would also mean I can expand to a full 4′ x 6′ layout and have enough room to fit my Victorian Science Fiction Airport onto the board (once I actually finish that building, that is) and also increase the ‘slums area’, which I still have to make.

This would also mean I could add some more Fantasy style buildings to my collection in the future.  It would be nice to add a tavern and wizards tower of some sort down the line.

I also found a little time to do some general tweaks here and there and fix up a few bits that were not quite sitting right for me.   At the moment the board is all ‘unclipped’.  Once I insert the clips it pulls the whole thing together and closes all the gaps.   Once I have got all the individual tiles to the same level, I can give them some weathering to help tie them all together and then start clipping them together so I can start making some progress on all the extra bits to go with it.

Some quick comparison shots with

55mm Gothic Horror Figures

32mm or whatever scale Games Workshop figures are

28mm Scale Victorian Science fiction.

I few little bits that have been bugging me.   The curb pieces need to change colour so they look different to the flagstones.   Also, the curb pieces over the bridges need painting.  The road still needs changing.

Of course, up until now, I have only really been comparing the colour scheme with the board to my Victorian Gaslight buildings but that is only a part of the plan for this table.

I needed to make sure it would also look okay with my fantasy-styled buildings.

My fantasy buildings have a smaller footprint so I can get a few more of them onto the table.   I switched out the Gothic-looking towers for something more fantasy, they are only partially painted so far.  Removed the streetlights as I have other plans for the lighting for the fantasy set up and took a few quick pictures.

I still need to redo the cobblestones and do a lot more base tiles before I can start looking at the details.

A really quick tutorial on my sewers.  Call this part one if you like.

I’ll come back and do the woodwork and weathering in a later post.

You can now put those aside whilst doing the next batch.  After the next batch is done, this lot will be dry enough to paint in the woodwork and use some inks to add some stains and the like.