Stargrave Slum Stacks, vending machines, robot dogs, scatter terrain and a Bob Naismith Overrunner vehicle

I've spent the past few weeks painting more scenery to use with Stargrave (and perhaps eventually 40K  (if I get around to playing that again)). Aside from painting I've also had the chance to get more actual games of Stargrave in. I had a blast each time (sometimes while actually using a blast template). About time for an update, so let's go.

The collection of rust terrain to play Stargrave scenario's in, is slowly expanding.

Stargrave terrain: the Oversight Office and data terminals

You'd think this finished Oversight Office follows rather fast on the heels of the Snack Stacks I wrote about two days ago. This is a carefully crafted illusion*. In all honestly this tower has been standing on a shelf (and on the tabletop) for quite a bit longer than the Snack Stacks. I just hadn't gotten around to writing about it yet. Let's remedy that. 

* Why publish in chronological order when you can let chaos rule? 

The message above the main gate reminds me of the computers I owned in the nineties. 

Stargrave terrain: the Snack Stacks

Stargrave is awesome. And it gets even better if you go overboard on scenery and scatter terrain. As a rather fanatical terrain builder (also know as a 'storage challenged wargamer' ;) this game ticks all my boxes. So much so, that I went ahead and filled my shopping cart at TTCombat after playing the battle for the overgrown factory last year. I figured I needed it to play games in frontier world style sci-fi cities, also it gave me an excuse to play around a bit more with MDF terrain. Long story short, here are my Snack Stacks.

The original setting for 40K (Rogue Trader) was more a frontier settlement sci-fi exploration game. I'm glad Stargrave is here to scratch that particular itch.

My Warhammer Townscape is complete

After a rather dismal failure involving a Killa Kan project last year I decided to cheer myself up by building the old Warhammer Townscape from foamboard and coffee stirrers. To be honest I did not think I would see this project through to the finish. But as of this weekend, I can proudly say I did. There I said it: I finished the Warhammer Townscape. Its also a bit more terrain than I'll ever need for a single game :)

"This is madness!"
"Madness? This is Frugelhofen!"

Townscape page 3 all buildings completed

Yesterday I finished the final two 'buildings' for the Townscape: the outhouse and the two tents. Let's just start with these and kick this quick post off.

Finally a chance to go camping in the Old World (or on the Mortal Realms).

Warhammer Townscape page three progress

Buoyed by the completion of page two I've gone to work on page three of the Townscape. Only thirteen buildings left to build (and paint). Perhaps only twelve, as I'm still on the fence about building number 35 (The Tower). It just looks so wonky compared with the rest of the buildings. With that said, lets go for some work in progress pictures of the last batch.

Now to illustrate social differences in the Warhammer world: the huge Manor House next to the cottage. 

Warhammer Townscape second page finished

Warhammer Townscape is an iconic eighties Games Workshop book. Its hardcover holds cardboard cutout buildings to be used in fantasy wargames. October last year I decided to fulfill a long held ambition: rebuilding the entire set using foamboard, balsa and other materials. To add a challenge (and to make sure I'd build all of them) I decided to use the numbers in te original instructions as the order in which to build the entire set. Yesterday evening, after putting the project on the back burner for a bit, I finished page two (of three). Here's half of this lot.

Here's the first set of page two in the Townscape instructions.

More Townscape buildings finished

My blog may have been a bit silent, but that didn't mean I didn't get things done. Without finding time to type about it, I've been continuing my Townscape project. With some pride I can now state that I've finished the first of the three pages from the 'assembling a building' instructions. Here's three of my latest additions in a row.

It almost looks like a street if I put them like this.

Warhammer Townscape watermill painted

The Warhammer Townscape watermill is one of the larger, more impressive buildings in the set. As it has a small river running past it, I had to take some extra care of the base of the building. It took a few extra days to apply epoxy water effects properly (no Mighty Fortress disaster repeats for me). I think that was worth it. Here's a shot of the completed building.

Now here's a building to fight over. Also I found my misty valley backdrop. 

First four Warhammer Townscape buildings finished

I had an overtly productive weekend this weekend. It was actually too productive to fit in a single post. I'll just keep te WIP pictures with semi-helpful tips on reserve for later. Having built the first six buildings of the Warhammer Townscape (follow the link if you're wondering what that is) I decided it was time to apply some paint. After all I used some new techniques and I wanted to find out if they actually held up when paint was applied. Short version: I'm happy. Here's a group shot of my first four buildings.

Welcome to Frugelhöfen, we're still working on the rest of the village...

Building the dreaded Warhammer Townscape watermill

Hobby-wise this was a very productive weekend. I continued my Warhammer Townscape project and managed to complete numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6. To wit: the large house, watermill, wooden bridge and shack. Usually I select a few pictures and start rambling. This time my pre-selection stands at 48. Lets just treat this post as a sort of 'scratch building wargaming buildings tutorial and tips' style article. To start off here's my completed work so far.

This project is getting out of hand...

No hammer like Oldhammer: Warhammer Townscape

After the slightly dismal end of my Kan project I decided it was very important to immediately get on the hobby horse and start afresh. For me building scenery/terrain is a perfect counterpoint to miniature painting and in this case therapeutic. Scratch building is a bit more forgiving and a hell of a lot cheaper than miniature painting. So scratch building it is. As I also like to go for overtly ambitious goals I decided to get started on a long held wish to build the classic Warhammer Townscape buildings in foamboard. To make it interesting (and avoid cherry picking) I decided to use the numbers in te original instructions as the order in which to build the entire set. Here is where I'm at right now.

The first 2 out  of 39, it's a a start.

A Farseer, a Skaven and a lot of Eldar

After finishing the Mighty Fortress I looked at the other projects on my paint station and decided it was time to add a few. I've been mulling over my instantly crossed out New Year's resolution (don't buy new stuff until the old stuff is finished). Obviously as a plastic and lead addict I can never keep that resolution, but after the fun I had with the bingo card last year I wanted to give my hobby life some guiding direction. So for this year my focus with (almost) every project will be to reduce my pile of overtly ambitious purchases.  I think finally building and painting a the thirty year old Mighty Fortress was a good start tot that.

Did I break that generator? Woopsie...

The Mighty Fortress is ready for battle

After the epoxy resin disaster last week I decided to redouble my efforts to complete the Mighty Fortress. It paid off as the old polystyrene model now stands ready for battle. Lets start off with a few pictures of the completed set.

The Mighty Fortress is an epic piece of scenery to put on a gaming table.

Disaster strikes the Mighty Fortress

Let's start this post with a quote from the latest AoS rulebook: "One of the greatest joys of collecting Citadel Miniatures can be found in the modelling and painting of your collection as you assemble and recreate all of the great heroes, terrifying monsters and amazing landscapes of the Age of Sigmar." I'll be keeping that in mind as I continue posting on the Mighty Fortress project. It took a slight turn this week and ended up in 'horror show county'.

I still think it's a fine looking moat.

Building and painting my Mighty Fortress (and about time too)

Way back in 1988 (when people still yelled at me to get off their lawn instead of vice versa) the Warhammer Siege expansion appeared for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. This 140 page book has rules for everything you'd ever want to do to take or hold fortifications. Alongside the book GW released a new terrain kit called Mighty Fortress. This is a polystyrene set of towers and walls to use in games of siege (and general battles of course). I got my hands on one almost thirty years ago. As it (often) goes with miniature (related) purchases it did not get painted as quick as I imagined when I got it. Long story short: just before Christmas last year (2018) I got this box out of the to-do pile and started planning.

The Mighty Fortress came in a big pretty box that has been sitting around looking big and pretty for long enough now.

Age of Sigmar terrain abandoned mine shafts for Grudge of Drong

I had a bit less hobby time this weekend as I hosted the first Age of Sigmar tournament my gaming club (Sword Brethren Eindhoven) organised. So no painted High Elves and the Bierlager is still in black undercoat as well. I did however spent my lazy Sunday finishing the build of the two abandoned mine shafts for the first scenario in Grudge of Drong. Here is number one.

It looks like the Dwarves/Duardin/Dispossessed abandoned this shaft halfway through their shift.

Scratch building the Grudge of Drong Bierlager

In between taking a brush to my High Elves and giving them a few test rides with the Age of Sigmar ruleset I've been working on the buildings needed for the Grudge of Drong campaign. This campaign is (I just read) notable for being the last to feature cardboard buildings to use with the scenario's. But why use cardboard when you can scratch build. Over the past few weeks I've been learning how not to use my new polystyrene cutting tools by attempting Das Bierlager (my guide to building the buildings is in German, it enhances the appeal of Dwarves immeasurably in my opinion). Here's a quick list of things I've learned the hard way about polystyrene cutting:

• Make sure the angle between two walls is 90 degrees before cutting the lot, 100+ degree angles lead to very strange geometry (unusable buildings unless you're a great old one).
• Put the texture on the walls before cutting the 90 degree corners, <1 mm polystyrene is not known as 'the strongest material in the world' for a reason.
• Don't glue with PVA glue, it dries way too slow, use transparant 'everything' glue (just as with foamboard).
• Don't push cocktail sticks in neatly cut polystyrene buildings, it makes the walls crack.
• Check your supply of 1mm cardboard, you may have just used all of it to make tiles for Armageddon buildings...

So there was a bit of a learning curve here. In the end my first building is standing (almost fully) primed and ready for paint. 

Front side of Das Bierlager, I wonder what the top floor is used for...

Building Games Workshop's Shadow War: Armageddon terrain

Over Easter weekend I got to play around with the new Shadow War: Armageddon terrain that was released in the boxed set with the same name on April 8th. Insert some griping about lack of stock here and keep it at that. The terrain itself is wonderful stuff, highly detailed, completely modular and easy to integrate with other kits and your own scratch build terrain. GW has announced it will be releasing the contents of this box as separate kits soon and that we can expect more variant that add to this terrain as well (including apparently cranes). Also AoS terrain is to follow soon after. That sounds good, although I have to admit the current range of GW terrain is priced just above what I'm willing to spend. We'll have to wait and see if I'm going to invest in more of these terrain sets. On to the finished building first.

The new terrain will probably turn out to be very expensive as separate sets, but man it looks good.

Continuing with the Shadow Wars: Armageddon terrain

My hobby time slowed down a bit last week as regular life (and a quick digital visit to The Commonwealth wasteland) caught up with me. Also a bit of project fatigue is setting in, worsened by Games Workshop's botched launch of Shadow Wars: Armageddon. I was not aware it was going to be a limited edition game and its anemic supply sold out before I got a chance to order a copy. Luckily I managed to secure one through a friend. Apparently there is a rulebook in the works now that makes me wonder if I should've bought the box. That is not how I usually spend my hobby money. I will try to be more careful about getting hyped up on announced products before they show up (GW seems to be slightly off form this year, with the rather disappointing Shadows over Hammerhal (compared to Silver Tower) first and now this and to be honest what I've seen of Shadespire is not fueling my enthusiasm). I'm considering trying Test of Honour by Warlord Games because the rules look interesting and the game looks awesome (but it is also sold out, what's up with wargames manufacturing?).

But enough whining and on to hobby time. The second set of buildings has been built, including my first attempt at a polystyrene building with the new tools.

Another three rusty buildings are waiting a drybrush of metallic, a dab of grey and color (and a lot of Ryza rust) to be ready for use in Shadow Wars.