Jungle ruins and realm gate (aka messing around with polystyrene)

The recent completion of the Mighty Fortress got me rather enthusiastic about messing around with polystyrene. So between other projects I made a few random bits of terrain. With the Skaven sneaking in, Eldar shenanigans and recently Gaslands/Dark Future, this project has kind of fallen through the cracks. As I did not bring a lot of things to completion this weekend, I thought 'lets throw them into the spotlight right now'. So without further ado: here's some random ruins made from polystyrene, Ikea plants, flock and bits.

Meanwhile in the valley of mist...

Grom the Paunch arrives in the Mortal Realms

The Made To Order service Games Workshop has been running for the past year is both insidious and incredible. On the one hand it eats cash I should've kept in my account on the other it gives access to models I've always wanted at prices below e-bay crazy. An example of this is Grom the Paunch, the model I just finished painting.

Grom the Paunch is one portly psychopath.

Tutorial: building a ruined bridge base

Yesterday I completed my Orruk Warboss on Wyvern that included the fancy base you can see below. It is supposed to look like a ruined bridge or highway (or something similar). As it was rather easy and fun to build I thought people might like a tutorial on this. Luckily I actually remembered to take some pictures while scratch-building.

Never mind true line of sight and hiding behind terrain: a big model needs a big base, it just looks right.

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.

New tools to cut polystyrene with a hot-wire cutter

Although half the hobby from a terrain building perspective is keeping an eye out for discarded toys, boxes and other shapes to build with, the other half is translating an idea into something tangible. The material that would be most useful for this is polystyrene, not the shitty expanded kind (with the little balls that keeping break off even years after sealing painting and pouring holy machine oil on it) but the solid extruded sort. It is reasonable solid, lightweight and with a few easy measures quite durable. One thing it is not, is easy to cut. As with its cousin foam board I keep spare blades at the ready and an average build tends to eat up a full set of spare blades because polystyrene is dull (pro-tip: when given a last request at the guillotine, ask for polystyrene, quickly dull the blade and walk away with a sore neck ;) ).

Add to this problem that it is hard to keep cut edges straight a tool is needed. So a few years back I decided to invest in a hot wire polystyrene cutter. At first I attempted a few 'home-build' projects that all failed and finally I just forked over the cash for a 'real' machine. This is the one.

My hot-wire cutter, als known as my rather expensive mistake...

First set of four tiles for my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 4)

Okay maybe I'm making slightly too many updates, but I have gotten carried away a bit here so why not... Using my patented quick and sloppy painting style I've decided to call the first four tiles for my modular space ship interior (or industrial) terrain set finished (for now). I'll probably add some more detail after expanding the set and painting more. Now for the big question, do I go for the fun of showing what I have, do I type an exciting tutorial on my own Typhus Corrosion mix or do I spend some words on salt weathering. Nah, finished terrain first, lots of words later (this week probably).

Watch out where the Space Wolves go, and don't you eat that yellow snow.

Rattlecan gun-fu on my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 3)

Yesterday saw the start of Dutch spring with temperatures reaching a scorching 20 degrees (Celcius which equals 68 Fahrenheit. Yes, I'm not a summer person so don't get me started on 30C+ peaks in high summer! Anyway with a late-afternoon hour to waste I had a chance to do some rattlecan gun-fu in the garden instead of in the shed. Who can say no to an escape from poisonous fumes (although my paint filtering mask helps there (hint hint to everyone not owning one of these)). As an added bonus working outside adds a chance of unwanted sand and leaves falling on your terrain. A chance at some chaos! Nice! I went for it. For the curious here is the end result of an about an hour of spraying with rattlecans.

Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only rust.

More test buildings for my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 2)

After a successful start on the first tile for my modular space ship interior for Warhammer 40K and most likely the upcoming game Shadow War: Armageddon I spent a large chunk of my Sunday filling more tiles bringing the total to four.

With a bit of imagination this is starting too look like something sci-fi.

Materials, plans and a test building to build a Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 1)

White Dwarf magazine had a beautiful bit of space ship terrain a few years back. A complete 28mm scale half-open Ork Kruiser for toy soldiers to fight over. At a glance I would guess it to be around 120cm x 60cm x 60cm big. I want to build something like that but, as my mansion is currently in the 'aspiring to one day maybe live in one'-stage, I don't have the room to store or display a model of that size (don't get me started on the storage of my vampire castle). So I have been planning to build the next best thing for quite some time now: modular space ship interior terrain.

Yes this modular bit of 40K terrain still needs some paint...

Painting the Age of Sigmar siege towers (part 4)

There is going to be a murder of posts today as I finished up the paintwork on my siege towers. To celebrate (and to show off) I made a separate series of 'narrative' photo's that will be posted in a second post. First the finished paint job.

You're facing the wrong way you idiots!

Detailing the Age of Sigmar siege towers (part 3)

Now this project went rather faster then expected. I planned to be working on it over the course of a few weeks, but I seem to have finished it within three evenings (and a few lunch breaks and a bit of a Sunday afternoon). Lets start of with the result just prior to painting.

"Where is the castle? Why didn't you stop when we passed that nice looking peasant to ask for directions?"

Paneling the Age of Sigmar siege towers (part 2)

On sunday I built two barebones skeleton to make my siege towers. Yesterday evening I continued with the project, first focusing on paneling the towers (and putting floors in) and making a start with the detailing. This morning my towers looked like this.

The siege towers need a bit more work before they can be used to storm the walls.

Scratch building siege towers for Age of Sigmar (part 1)

This weekend I decided I need siege towers in my life. That is to say on the battlefield. I have scratch built a rather nice collection (IMHO) of ruined Mordheim buildings, I have a plastic city wall and there is an amazing collection of war scroll that allows you to host some spectacular sieges using Age of Sigmar rules. What is lacking in are a couple of siege towers (and maybe a battering ram). So without further ado let's go for minimal planning and maximal cutting. Measure once, cut twice and other idiocies that make scratch building fun. To relieve the suspense slightly, this is the result of a few hours of hacking and slashing.

No plastic wall will be safe once these siege towers are finished.

Before I got there I had to pick up my bundle of balsa wood. I love this for scratch building. It is extremely soft so you can cut and modify it with fancy tools like a blunt scalpel, you fingernails or whatever you grabbed when you randomly took something of the table. Balsa wood is available in different thicknesses and sizes, I occasionally take a bundle of 5mm x 5mm 'beams' and 5mm x 1mm 'planks' with me from the local crafts store, it helps to have some to hand if the hobby itch takes you in directions that require balsa wood. Next up was laying out some tools and eight Lego wheels (I bought too many of these when I discovered the size was only slightly too large for Warhammer/Aos purposes.

A pot lid full of paint and PVA, cocktail sticks, cotton swabs and Lego wheels, I fear we've entered the home of a wargamer.

In the meantime these Lego wheels served me well to spruce up the Black Coach (the wheels that come with it are too tiny I think).

I love this model even more with the larger wheels stuck on, it just feels right.

For the next step consisted I looked at pictures of the old Games Workshop/Citadel siege tower and found some directions as to the size of it of (a touch under 4 1/2 inches wide, 7 and 1/3 inches tall and the bottom of the door is 3 1/2 inches from the ground). I took a wall from the old plastic Citadel fortress and used it to take my own measurement and draw up a quick sketch of the tower to be (pictured on the red post-it below).

Bits of balsa wood cut to size and my deeply thought out construction plan (har, har). Also the protective cap of my scalpel without the scalpel in it. That is troubling if you consider my long list of self inflicted scalpel cuts...

One of the many great attributes of balsa wood is its ability to act as a sponge for PVA glue. I have a technique for making doors with it. It consists of gluing the bits that will make the door to some masking tape, draining it in PVA and removing the tape after drying (maybe I should make a tutorial on this later on). I tried the same on the frame of the siege towers.

The front sections of the siege towers have been covered in PVA, next up using a cotton swap to flatten down the layer of PVA.

For those of you wondering why I'm working on two at the same time. I think a single siege tower will look lonely on a battlefield. Knowing my own fickle mind the odds of me making a second siege tower after finishing the first one (within a normal human time frame) are rather low. So I made two instead of one. The beam on top was supposed to be the 'roof' of the tower that will feature wooden battlements for archers to shoot down from.

Getting carried aay, glueding side beams onto the side sections of the siege towers. Also the scalpel is still uncovered and at large somewhere.

Here is a shot of all sides from the tower drying before final assembly. I usually take my scalpel to all balsa wood prior to assembly, cutting of random slivers to make it look well worn. I decided not to do that yet on these towers. The entire frame will be dressed with more wood anyway and I'll just cut a bit into the visible parts later.

Removing masking tape from a glued join. 

After giving the glue (barely enough) time to dry I took the masking tape off to check the connection and assemble the towers. This was a bit disappointing a the construction turned out to be very rickety. Now I might assume the towers will get more strength and body as I add planks to them (and after I have given the glue a proper amount of time to dry), but I'm worried that the pieces will fall apart under the stress of gaming. So I decided to skip the glue and use needles for the construction instead. Did I mention everything works on balsa wood?

Glue not working, let's use needles instead. Happily I had a box of these around to simulate rivets with.

As needles require somewhere around zero minutes to dry before forming a connection I could assemble my two towers at a remarkable speed.

Well they are starting to look rather siege towery, aren't they?

Next came the important bit. Finding out if 'measure once, cut twice' is a smart replacement for doing this the other way round.

Now I know why the defenders kept giggling during my construction, perhaps I should build a wooden rabbit in stead. 

It turns out, that it isn't. The tower will have three floors. The top one will be the battlements that need to be higher than the city wall (that will work with this model). The second floor will feature a large drawbridge that the invaders can use to assault the battlements on the city wall. In the current design the invaders will have to crawl onto the drawbridge as the ceiling is too low to stand up. Now I have to admit that I'm not a HEMA-expert (neither Historical European Martial Arts nor the Dutch HEMA store), but I think crawling towards motivated defenders is not the best approach to combat. Luckily I used pins instead of glue. That made it possible to pull the top off the siege tower and replace the rear beams with longer ones. This raises the siege tower to proper heights.

The giggles have been silenced, my siege tower is officially high enough!

Next up was an easy part, cutting axles for the Lego wheels. I glued these in with a drop of PVA to each side. I'll see how I'll mask any ugly bits after the towers are fully assembled.

Let's put some axles to the wheels!

As the last step I glued a number of wooden coffee stirrers to the sides of the tower to start dressing them up. The nice thing about coffee stirrers (aside from being extremely cheap and managing quite well to look like heroic scale planks) is that these can be cut with scissors. So I just glue them on whole and cut them to size after they've dried (this also answers why you see all those bits of coffee stirrer on my work area). I also remembered (just in time) to add 'beams for the two floors inside the towers.

Okay, they still need quite a bit of work, but the basic framework is place. 

At this point I really had to step back and give the project a bit of time too dry, but I think I'm heading in a reasonable direction (towards the walls so to speak). Next up floors, ladders, walls, an interesting drawbridge and the battlement section on top. After that see how motivated I am to add some impressive details. Oh yeah and painting them.

Badlands scatter terrain for Age of Sigmar

With the sun up and the glue (mostly) dry, I had a chance to make a few pictures of the new bone terrain. Here it is. If you want to replicate this project click on the Badlands terrain set link to the top right of this page (or beneath the second home button if you're using a mobile device). I've added some models to give a better sense of scale.

Painting and flocking badlands scatter terrain

Thursday over lunch I remembered I had a small dropper bottle of the Vallejo Wash I was waiting for. So why not use that and refill the bottle from the big tub when it arrives. Well done me! And it only took me a week to get to think of that... Anyway that gave me the chance to wash the bones and let them dry making it possible to finish this terrain project last night. Without further ado here are the bones for my Badlands Terrain set.

Now these are some bones to cower between. Or was that to take cover between? However you wish to use it, it is a finished set of badlands scatter terrain.

Making paleontologists cry since 2017

Yesterday I had an entire evening to give over to the hobby. And with the bases I made over lunch mostly dry I could take some of my plastic dinosaur bones and rearrange them in interesting new shapes to cover the bases.

Interesting find, I'll call this species the Coversavous Terrificus.

Badlands scatter terrain, aka: sticking sand to wargame terrain bases

If you ask me any good terrain set has a nice selection of scatter terrain to go with it. Just some smaller bases that make te table look interesting and give (AoS) units a +1 cover save if they all manage to fit in it. During my lunch break today I grabbed my power tools and a strip of MDF to make some bases for scatter terrain.

Bosch should consider sponsoring this blog, then again I seem to buy their tools without sponsorship...hmm going commercial is harder than I thought ;)