Crystalline Winter Terrain Project

The one thing I find kind of odd about most sci-fi games is that they take place on terrain that looks JUST. LIKE. EARTH. Even back in the RT days the lads used to spiff up their (admittedly rudimentary by today's standards) tables with at least some odd-coloured lichen, to give a minimal impression that we weren't battling over Kansas anymore; but nowadays it seems like green grass and leafy trees are pretty much the norm.

I admit that I am a prime offender! Our tables generally look very good indeed (if I do say so myself) but they mostly look like temperate Earth. Fine if you're playing an historical wargame (great even!) but when you're in a galaxy far, far away or out among the Ghoul Stars and the like, is the terrain you're battling over really gonna look like, say, rural France?

The original idea was to pick up some crystalline shard terrain to spiff up my winter terrain mat for Horus Heresy duty. Gale Force 9 made a good-looking set for their Battlefield in a Box range, but sadly these appear to be out of production and unavailable even on the secondary market.

However, poking around on eBay, I found numerous vendors in China selling real quartz crystal shards, for use in jewelry, magic wands (!) and the like. And they are CHEAP - like about $4 shipped for a handful. Once they arrived, execution was straightforward - cut plasticard bases to the desired shape, superglue crystals to the base, apply texture gel, paint it your desired earth colour, paint the snowy bits white, apply snow flakes, static grass and tufts, and DONE.

Here are the crystal bases with some Games Workshop Genestealers for scale. Scary!

I purchased three 100g packs of crystals and used pretty much all of them in this project.

The terrain works great for 15mm too - maybe even better than 28mm. I reckon they would look pretty cool in a 6mm game as well.

It's not as if I don't have figures to paint, oh no. So the time and energy spent on this terrain mini-project certainly could have been put to use in painting a couple more Iron Warriors, or Adeptus Mechanicus guys, or WW2 Germans, or Indian braves, or... or... but the simple fact is that sometimes when I get an idea, I just want to run with it. Can't wait to get these out in an actual game!

Afternoon Project - Imperial Bastion Lascannon

You know how you have stuff hanging around from projects? Well, this bit was left over from the Imperial Bastion that I built in, oh, about 2013. I finally got sick enough of seeing it in the terrain drawer that I decided to take an hour or so and just paint the dam' thing. It was even already primed!

Basecoat Castellan Green and Leadbelcher. Highlight with a mix of Castellan and Camo Green. Wash with Agrax Earthshade. Apply decals from bits box, apply sponge chipping with a mix of craft black and Rhinox Hide. Chip lightly with Leadbelcher.

Paint lenses in the usual way, spray with Testor's Dullcote. Apply gloss 'Ardcoat to lenses. Done.

I actually really like this model, simple as it is. It'll be great for a sentry gun or the like in a Rogue Trader game, or as part of the Imperial Bastion model or an Aegis Defence Line.

Throwback Thursday: WHFB 1st Edition Tribute

"Throwback Thursday" seems to be a thing now, where people will post photos from days gone by. I was looking through some photo folders from last year and found some pics of a figure I'd painted as a bit of a one-off special project, so I thought I'd post it. While the project itself isn't exactly a "throwback", I think you'll agree that the subject matter definitely fits that description...

This is "Uthmog Elvenblade" - Chaos Champion, part of the Citadel "Champions of Chaos" boxed set (second version) from 1982. Obviously inspired by (or perhaps the inspiration for, it's not clear) the iconic Warhammer Fantasy Battle box art by John Blanche. As I'm a fan of old Citadel stuff I thought it would be fun to add him to my collection, so a casting was duly procured from German eBay. I got the figure for about 6 euros if I recall correctly; not a screaming bargain but much less than some sellers were asking. Old Citadel sellers sometimes seem to think they've discovered the Philosopher's Stone - transmuting lead into gold...!

To add a bit of interest to old Uthmog, I converted a plastic skeleton to be his victim. Merely a matter of a bit of cutting and greenstuff work, not a massive project. I think the addition of the skeleton really puts him into context.

Uthmog himself was painted as faithfully to the box art as I could. He's a great little sculpt, but seriously undersized as compared to the slotta-based era metal Chaos warriors that came later - never mind the plastic giants of the current edition. He's "true 25mm" for sure.

This was a fun mini-project but the only question I have after painting the model is, "why is he called Elvenblade when he wields a war-hammer?"

Anyway, happy Thursday!

Terrain Mini-Project - Pegasus Cactus Review

Getting slowly back into the swing of things after the big move... I pulled out a quick mini project that I figured I could knock out quickly - a box of Pegasus Models plastic cactus for 28mm Wild West and SF games, and maybe even 15mm SF in a pinch ;-)

The idea was to make medium-sized terrain bases scattered with cactus plants, to represent rough terrain or soft cover in skirmish games. First I assembled the cacti (still have some left on sprue actually) and glued them down to irregular bases I cut from plasticard. Then I slathered texture gel medium over the bases and let them dry. Primed black with Krylon spray, then painted the ground with medium brown craft paint, heavy drybrush of Zandri Dust, lighter drybrush of off-white craft paint for depth. Cacti were basecoated with GW Knarloc Green and highlighted with the same mixed 50/50 with Camo Green, then a final highlight of Camo Green. Static grass applied in two shades and the odd clump of grass tuft stuck on. Easy peasy!

Here's the completed lot of cacti. This is basically the contents of one box - there's a few bits left on the sprues but not much.

A pretty decent batch of terrain for not a ton of cash or effort. Well worth it in my view if you're into Wild West gaming at all.

Shield Generator Terrain Project

Readers may recall the Star Wars "Hoth" game I ran in February. I speculated in the blog entry that I might take it on the road to PrairieCon, a local game convention that I've been attending and running games at for almost 30 years (yikes). Well, I've committed to running it at PrairieCon, and will be joining Conscript Greg B. there this weekend... he will be staging his impressive "Robotech" game at the con as well.

I figured it might be a good idea to build some more terrain for the game as the table was a bit sparse. I'd seen somewhere on the interwebs that someone had built a Hoth shield generator out of paper plates and this appealed to both my modelling sense and my budget ;-)  So I dug out some Royal Chinet and gave it a go...

I cut the plates in half and glued them together using white glue. Detail was added with semi-circles of card cut from a cereal box, also attached with white glue.

A toilet paper roll was cut in half and detailed with some off-cuts of card, to serve as the "connector" for the generator units. A 28mm Rebel soldier is included for scale.
 

The model was sprayed with Krylon flat black undercoat and then hit with a cheap primer grey spraypaint.

I've left the model in five parts, for flexibility in use as well as ease of transport. I think it will serve well in the Hoth game as well as in our other 28mm sci-fi gaming. There's always room for a shield generator, right? ;-)

15mm Sci-Fi Terrain Mini-Projects

A great deal of the enjoyment I get out of this hobby derives from simple projects that don't cost much at all in terms of time or treasure.  A few days ago I had in mind to do one of these projects - making some chainlink fences for 15mm gaming.  I love chainlink fences because they're ubiquitous, and add a cool verisimilitude to the table.  plus everyone's got something they need to keep behind a fence!

Components for the project were plasticard, thin styrene rod, door screen material, and basing compound.  Cut the plasticard into strips about 3-4" long and 3/4"-1" wide.  Take an X-acto knife and turn a small hole near each end of the strip, about the same diameter as the styrene rod.  Cut pieces of the rod to use as posts and friction fit these into the holes.  Seal up with a dab of superglue from the top side.
   

Cut pieces of screen material and superglue to the rod posts.  If you find you have problems with adhesion, you can take one of the "strands" of wire and wrap it through the fence and around the post to keep it secure.  Apply basing compound and let dry, then prime black.

Last step is to paint the posts and drybrush the fence with Boltgun Metal, and dab in rust spots with Dark Flesh.  I drybrushed the groundwork with Codex Grey and Fortress Grey, then applied static grass to taste.  Dullcote if desired and they are ready for the gaming table! 

Here's another piece of terrain that I made at the same time, it's a wooden thread spool with some bits box junk attached to it.  I also added some texture to the model with thin card, I cut out shapes for the door, the accent stripe near the top, and a panel on the back, and secured them with white glue.  The entire model was sprayed back and painted in grey tones with some rusty bits added.

Anyway, I enjoyed these small projects and I hope they provide inspiration for some projects of your own!

I've Seen the Future, and it is Dark

I feel like I'm fast becoming master of the mini-project. Stick some junk together, roll out a game on Thursday, call it done. Works for me, I guess :-)

Anyway in this case we roll back about 4 years. A local used book/comic shop had a copy of the old GW game "Dark Future", the game of future vehicle combat. It was in great shape, complete and something like $20 so I picked it up and it went in the closet, there to sit for, well, 4 years.

A couple months ago I was at Wal-Mart looking at the toy cars (like you do) and saw a very cool line of 1/64 vehicles with a unique theme: "For Sale". These were basically models of cars that you see parked in a driveway with a "For Sale" sign on 'em. Kinda beat up, a bit rusty, but the kind of vehicle that would instantly attract and induce an overpowering sense of want in a 17-year-old car enthusiast, or me ;-)

So I saw these cars a few months ago, and an idea started to percolate. Last week when I saw that they were going on sale it all came together - I would pick up these cars to use for Dark Future! They're already pre-painted with some neat paintjobs, all I have to do is some minor conversion to add the guns and hey presto! Thursday game. So tonight that's what I did...

Camaro ex-Police Interceptor

"There's no Justice, there's just us"

Datsun 510

Hood lascannon and turret MG

My favorite - Shelby Mustang GT350

Called the "GT350" because it was 350 feet from Shelby's workshop to his office... true story

1967 Chevy Nova SS

My first car was a Chevy II (lower trim version of the Nova) but it wasn't much like this one!

This was a great mini-project because of the sheer lack of effort involved. I basically blacked out the front windows, drilled holes for the weapon mounts, and installed the wire cages inside the cars. I think they look pretty cool, now I just have to paint the bikers that came with the game. I've done some minor conversions to add helmets to them and they should only take maybe one or two evenings to paint.

Cheers!