A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Warhammer 40,000 – Our Battle Honors campaign has moved into the fourth week. This week we played the fourth Eternal War mission from Chapter Approved 2018. With the weather improved there were four of us so we played two 1000 point 1v1 games. Xenos vs Imperial and Chaos vs. Imperial. We had the non-imperial players roll off to choose their table and opponent before setting up the game.
Read MoreGaslands – One day I'll finish a race – honestly. I had a chance to play several games of Gaslands and have yet to make it further than Gate 2 before losing all my cars. I probably am pushing to hard and not managing my Hazard tokens well enough which means I flip or hit something and then the rest of the pack catches up.
Read MoreWow that title was a stretch. Working on the desert terrain for my new 40K layout I realized that although it looked pretty good not having a centerpiece just wouldn't do. To the box o'junk.
Digging around through the recyclables I found a parmesan cheese container that led to inspiration. The ridges cleverly concealed beneath the plastic label looked to me like some type of holding container. Buried at the bottom of my box of unfinished bases I found a hill that would serve as a solid base.
From there I used some Hirst Arts blocks to create a foundation. After gluing them in place I measured and cut some foam core for the walls. Once that was in place a carved out a spot for my container and glued some Hirst Arts pipes to the outside.
For the roof I wanted to create a corrugated tin style roof. I'm reading Purging of Kadillus right now and there's a scene in which the scouts campo out on the tin roof of a mining complex. So I wanted to create something similar to what I saw in my mind's eye.
After the piece was finished I covered it with some watered down wood glue and sprinkled debris to give it a desert texture. Painting follows the same as I did with the previous desert terrain. All in all I got this project nearly finished during the Oscar's and I think it turned out better than that horribly long drawn out award's show.
I've begun creating some new terrain pieces for my large table (4'x6'). While I have several city blocks built for this table, after a while it starts to get a bit boring using ruins every game. The terrain I've built for Malifaux works fine on the smaller tables, however when spread out on a larger table it tends to look a bit sparse.
I began by cutting green foam with a hot wire cutter. This is the easiest way to create rock formations that resemble something you'd see in the American west. Simply move the cutter in and out to create the striations in the rock face. Once these are cut and shaped, I mount them to MDF with wood glue.
To match the texture of the table I use a textured wallpaper as a base. This gives an interesting look without creating so much texture that models won't stand properly. Around the edges of the rock formations I used wood filler to createdebris piles where material would naturally collect. One the shape has been built up a give it a good coat of wood glue and cover it with a mixture of kitty litter and sand.
After that has dried overnight shake off the sand and use a dust whisk of soft bristly brush to knock off any loose material that didn't come off when you shook it.
I like to use Behr paint and primer for terrain projects. They can color match any of you model colors and have a good selection of the board. For desert terrain I like to use a terracotta color as a base. This can then be dry brushed with a light brown and cream to mimic the formations you find in the American west.
To finish off the project I like to apply some lichen and dead looking tall grass to areas that scrub may take hold. I use Tacky Glue or Super Glue for this. Either product with hold the material in place, but I've found that Super Glue dries faster and leads to better results for the tall grass. After everything is dry I spray it with Krylon Low Odor matte finish. This gives a durable coating that doesn't look glossy.
Malifaux – I've been working on demo boards that will fit all the encounter locations for Malifaux. The sewer board that can be seen in previous posts works for all the urban encounter locations, on the reverse side of the sewer board is a generic earthy board that can work with the mountain mining town terrain as well as the swamp terrain available in the online store.
I've almost completed a dedicated swamp board, that will work for all the swamp/bayou encounter locations. The water effects were achieved using Envirotex.
The basic board is completed and I'm in the process of making the matching terrain. I went through the possible special terrain features an am making a set of them for each of the boards. The plan is to just count the water as a water effect unless "Bog" is flipped. There are also 3" and 5" forests. I haven't decided if I want to make a quicksand pit or something else for the hazardous terrain feature.
On the flip side of this swamp board will be a generic urban board. I found some textured wall paper that looks like cobble stones, which saved me a ton of time and more closely matches the Dragonforge Designs bases I'm using for my Resurectionist crews. This board is going to take some time yo figure out how to make the buildings so that they can be repositioned and still look like they belong. Initially I wanted to wire it for street lamps, but realized that a fixed board would be better suited for that. The problem with fixed board is that they eventually get old and games become stale.
I've also completed a desert board for the remainder of the encounter locations. One side has fixed hills and the other is just a flat surface with matching texture. The cactus patches count as forests with a little twist they are dangerous terrain with a 0/0/1 Poison 2 damage flip. It shouldn't make that much of a difference in the games but does add a small risk/reward element. I'm still working on the graveyard and bottomless pit as the hazardous terrain element. Right now I have some GW spirit hosts that are acting as mysterious effigies. I'm sculpting 30 mm Easter Island type heads that will replace them once finished. The Ancient monument was some plastic toy I found in my bitz box, I'm working on sculpting something similar to cast for the other boards. Also for this set I've made a soulstone vein, magical nexus, deadzone, campsite, hanging tree and a treasure counter. The plan is to make two different colored treasure counters for each set just in case both players flip them. More pictures of all the boards are available in the gallery section.
