Terrainfest 2024: Any table can be a sci fi table

My first Terrainfest 2024 project is finished but it wasn’t terribly ambitious, so why not try to squeeze in one more before the end of the year?

Star Schlock is my current game obsession. I played my first game using some desert terrain with a few Battle Systems bits added, which was fine but I want to step it up a little.

I started by wanting just three bits of sci fi scatter to use for the game’s three objective markers, but then it spiraled out of control…

Recently I started rewatching Star Trek: The Original Series from the beginning, and the pilot episode shows what you can do with just a few styrofoam rocks and some weirdly colored plants, so I figure I can get some more mileage out of my desert and jungle terrain the same way. I’m even thinking I’ll be able to get some more use out of the Sarissa factory complex I originally bought for the Batman Miniatures Game.

I’ve ordered a few small MDF kits of general sci fi scatter from Death Ray Designs. These will be used for objectives and also for general table decoration.

Additionally, I found some great looking 3D printed alien plants on Etsy. Surprising no one, I ordered more than I intended to, and on top of that, they’re quite a bit bigger than I was expecting.

Death Ray Designs’ Drop Crate kit makes pretty ingenious use of some cheap plastic jars to get a smooth round shape without using multiple layers of MDF. The smooth plastic really needs spray primer, but I don’t have a good place to spray so I normally use brush-on. I do have some spray black left over from an earlier project, however, it’s too cold, windy and damp for spraying (if I’d started this a week earlier I would have been fine). So let’s see what we can do with the brush-on stuff.

Vallejo black goes on pretty thin, and isn’t really getting good coverage on the smooth plastic, even after sanding it to rough up the surface. However, Army Painter grey is a little more robust, so a coat of that followed by a coat of the Vallejo seems to have done the job.

Meanwhile, the Tesla Spikes have gone together without a hitch. I couldn’t think of a clever way to make use of the clear plastic balls, so I’ll be priming and painting those along with the rest.

I’ve built a few of Death Ray Designs’ MDF kits in the past and they’re usually pretty good, but the Generator is giving me some trouble. The finished piece promises to look pretty great, with the clear green plastic rods in the middle giving them some nice contrast. However, the holes they are meant to fit into are too small, requiring a great deal of filing to enlarge them. They do warn you about this, but they wait until the very end of the instructions to do it — luckily I am in the habit of reading the instructions all the way through before I start on anything. I’m sure filing down the pieces was much easier pre-assembly.

A bigger problem is that the green rods are too long by about a quarter of an inch. I have a small saw that might work to trim them down, but the plastic is pretty hard and I don’t relish sawing away at 12 of them. I’ve asked Death Ray Designs for some replacements, but if anyone knows a quick and easy way to cut hard plastic rods (other than hacking at them with a saw), please leave a note in the comments.

Work is proceeding on the Death Ray Designs MDF kits — I’ve got the Cargo Pods and the Tesla spikes done.

The Cargo Pods came out well, in spite of my repeated attempts at self-sabotage. Not only did I stubbornly refuse to wait for better weather to spray prime (instead doing two coats of brush on primer), but I also decided they really needed to be done in yellow, one of the most difficult colors to work with. I got there in the end though, after two coats of primer, a base coat of dark brown, and four layers of drybrushing up from mustard yellow to bright yellow to yellowed bone for some final highlights.

The Tesla Spikes went much more easily. I decided not to get too creative with these, using more-or-less the colors depicted on the manufacturer’s packaging. They were all done with layers of drybrushing over black primer and a base coat of grey and blue.

I’m still waiting on replacement rods for the Generator kit — tracking says they’re supposed to arrive early next week, so I’m hoping I can finish up at least one of the generators soon.

These 3D printed alien plants that I got from an Etsy seller (BlueDragon3DPrints) have been an absolute joy. I know next to nothing about 3D printing, but the quality on these is excellent and the price was very reasonable. I’ve got the first two of the four sets I bought done, plus a free extra the seller sent with my order.

In order to make these look more “alien” I’m avoiding using greens or browns, but I think I may have overdone it a bit with the blue, so I’m working more with yellows and oranges for the other two sets of plants.

I’ve finished painting the other two sets of alien plants, making an effort to get away from the blue and pink that I may have over-used on the first two sets. The pitcher plants reminded me of beehives so I went with a golden yellow, and I must say that the trick of underpainting in pink worked great. For the mushroom trees I just went for a riot of color, trying to pick colors that we don’t normally see mushrooms in. I think it all came out pretty well.

Meanwhile, Death Ray Designs sent me replacement green rods for the Power Generators kit, so I was able to finish assembling and painting those. There are three in the kit, and they’re quite a bit larger than I was expecting, but that’s good — they should fill up the table nicely, and they’ll work for both wilderness and city setups.

The final step will be to set up some of my stock tables and add these new elements to make them look more sci-fi. I’m also hoping to get in a game or two of Star Schlock before the year runs out…

The point of this exercise is to be able to put a sci-fi spin on some of my more generic table setups, using these new pieces with terrain I already have in my collection. First up we have a desert planet.

I originally bought this mat and desert spires to use with Gaslands, but I’ve found them useful for a pretty wide range of games, from wild west to post-apocalypse to Doctor Who. Scattering a few of the plants adds a lot of color to the desert and also makes it clear that it’s an alien environment, and the technological pieces stand out enough to work as objective markers in addition to being terrain.

The vinyl mat is from Mats By Mars, the desert spires are 3D printed by Terrainify.

I bought most of these adobe buildings from an Etsy seller (no longer in business) for Dead Man’s Hand, which I’m not currently playing much so it will be nice to get some more use out of them. The cantina model is from Sarissa Precision.

I put together this jungle terrain a few years ago, primarily for Savage Core. Most of it was cobbled together out of plastic aquarium plants. This jungle already looks fairly alien even before adding the new plants, but they do add a lot more color. It might be fun to add some rules for the plants attacking models that get too close…

The hills and ruined walls are from Terrainify and the vinyl mat is from Mats By Mars.

I originally bought these factory buildings from Sarissa Precision several years ago to use with the Batman Miniature Game, which I’m not currently playing. This setup just screams Doctor Who to me, so I may have to figure out a good rules set for a Who-themed game. Obviously 7TV would be a good choice, but it also looks like Beast in the Broch is back supporting their unofficial Doctor Who miniatures game, and I actually had a pretty good time with the Warlord Doctor Who game so that might be worth dusting off.