After all this pining, I finally have a deciduous Warhammer forest

Five years ago I took a bunch of railroad pine trees I'd kept in a jar and stuck them to bases to make a pine forest. I had an excellent time making those tree bases and I've been using them for both gaming and backdrop purposes. While this was all well and good, I really wanted to add some deciduous trees to my collection, but the ones made for the railroad hobby didn't work for me (too expensive and not quite to scale). As those of you following along with my ramblings for the past months have probably guessed: my 3D-printer came to the rescue.

"In the sheltering shade of the forest, a screamingly drunk Goblin King and the path under his bare feet, The Elvenpath"

Stargrave: Battle for the overgrown factory

Recently I played a game of Stargrave, the sci-fi skirmishing game by Osprey Publishing. This time I played a proper crew vs. crew game in a scenario from the main rulebook called 'Overgrown Factory'. Two rival crews attempt to pillage an old overgrown factory in the midst of the jungle, risking both the local wildlife, still active and dangerous bits of machinery and a fully armed and operational warbot that'll enter the game shooting at some point. Sure sounds like a recipe for disaster fun. here's our game setup.

I've always dreamed of having a cool table to play miniatures games on. This one manages to fulfil that dream quite nicely. 

Titandeath

My happiness over having a 28mm scale Warhound titan was rather short lived. A few days back while drinking my morning coffee I heard a rather ominous crashing sound from the hobby room. As I walked over to investigate, I found my new titan in quite a lot of pieces, spread out over the floor. Insert your own graphic language here, pretend it is in Dutch and you'll have a reasonably accurate facsimile of my morning. Long story short, I have two pieces of awesome terrain :)

Titans do not make for great flyers. Who'd have thought.

Classic Warhammer Dwarf Mine ready to be fought over (SITCBH - part 3)

My Dwarf Mine, inspired by the classic one in White Dwarf 132, is finished. That makes me a rather early finisher in the SITCBH I entered with The Periodic Painting Table and The War Crow blogs. With still about five weeks on the clock #humblebrag ;). Perhaps I should make something else as well, I must say its quite a treat to build non-human stuff. Well before I get into that, let's start out with a picture of the finished piece accompanied by a bunch of gloriously happy Dwarves.

Why would we build a mine soundly lad, no member of the engineer's guild will show up in these parts...

Steady progress on the Dwarven Mine (SITCBH - part 2)

This weekend I made a steady bit of progress on my dwarven mine set. I added sand, a small railway and detailed the accompanying sheds. Without a lot of further ado. Here's a group shot that doesn't quite cover all the work that's been done. The pictures with the buildings as they are now can be found lower in this post.

My Dwarven mine is slowly coming together. 

Dwarven Mine blast off the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (SITCBH)

Back in August Chris from the Periodic Painting Table and Stuart from The War Crow contacted me to join in the First International Townscape Challenge. It was a lot of fun and we all earned a few self-applied pats on the back at the end of it. Reason enough for a second edition. After a bit of a break we launched the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (STICBH) this month. The 'Beyond Human' part of the challenge refers to the fact that we're going to be building a non-human piece of scenery in the style of the Townscape. For my part, I'm going to be building a Dwarven mine.

I think we have the beginning of an interesting new building here...

Warhammer Townscape challenge part 4: wherein tower 35 is finished and I actually make a deadline

This month most of my focus was on the build-off between my blog, The Periodic Painting Table and  The War Crow, This was not just some frivolous hackery with glue and foamboard, this was the First International Townscape Challenge (queue impressive trumpet sounds here). With nothing less than two self-applied pats on the back at stake, I needed to finish on time and I am glad to say I did. Here is the result of my entry.

Townscape 35. Tower, same dimensions, door in the same place, but re-imagined to better fit my taste. 

Warhammer Townscape challenge part 3: detailing the tower

With the deadline rapidly approaching, I snuck in a spare evening hour to detail the Townscape tower. After all: the glue has to have a chance to (sort of) dry when I start slapping paint on this thing in the coming weekend. With that said, lets throw out a quick update (and prevent a massive blog post later on).

The landlord's here to visit...

Warhammer Townscape challenge part 2: actually building something (35. Tower)

Oh dear I seem to be stuck in one of those 'tear-off calendar losing it's pages' time-passes shots. This Sunday I realized August is almost over and I had yet to get to building my Townscape Challenge. Missing the deadline is unacceptable of course. Long story short: I powered on the hot-wire cutter and went to work on a bit of high density polystyrene. Here is the (almost) end result. 

The outline of my interpretation of building 35 of the Townscape set.

Warhammer Townscape challenge part 1: getting inspiration from real castle ruins

 I recently got an invite through my contact page to join Chris from The Periodic Painting Table blog and Stuart from The War Crow blog in the First International Townscape Challenge. The rules (more like guidelines) are simple: 

• The building must be based on one of the Warhammer Townscape models.  
• You can alter it, e.g. extend the model, choose a different finish (timber, stone etc.)
• You have until the end of August to complete the model.
• Blog your progress however often you feel appropriate and link to each other’s blogs.
• The challenge is designed to inspire and encourage.  There is no prize apart from the congratulations of your peers, both in the challenge and on our blogs.

Oh no, my Townscape prison failed to hold Glam!

Making some Warhammer/AoS scenery: High Elf waystones/Lumineth spires

As Warhammer scenery goes High Elf waystones are a staple, and I think they fit on any AoS tabletop as well. I've always wanted a few in my collection but all my previous attempts turned out badly. With the Lumineth closely mirroring the High Elves (thank you GW) I thought it about high time to make a couple. And here they are.

Get off my lawn! 

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.

Tutorial: flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar

Building the Townscape gives me ample opportunity to make some pictures for tutorials. Let's start off with a double feature: Flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar (and any other wargame as well for that matter). Followed up with some bonus content about adding signs to buildings. To follow along you'll need some appropriate bases (I prefer MDF), a few colors of flock, grass tufts, instant filler and (optionally) plaster and molds. Let's get started.

We start with the end result, this is what I'm aiming for here.

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...