Have you ever tried to get things ready for a 50 man tournament? Well, make that 70 players and you know what guys here at the Istvaanians are going through! This year, the Battle for Stones River tournament is going to be on the Games Workshop GT circuit. In addition to that we've decided to move the event to a larger venue and add 20 more players! Last year all 50 spots were filled in just over a month!
In order to support these extra 20 players, that means we have to build and furnish ten more tables complete with terrain. That's 60 square feet of new terrain that has to be built! In Boltergeist's earlier post
here, you saw all of the hills that he cut out that still have to be flocked and painted. What you didn't see were all the ruined wall sections that were also built to go with them. But even with all that, there's still more to do! We got about $500 worth of
Cities of Death Terrain to build, base, flock, and paint!
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| 5 Imperial Sectors and 2 Basilica Administratums equals one big city of death! |
I took on that task and over the last week I managed to get all of the main sections of the building built and glued to the bases. I started out by clipping all the pieces off of the sprues and sorting them into the five big Cities of Death boxes. I made one box for the floors, one for the accessories, and one each for the building pieces except the Basilica Administratum pieces. Since our ten new tables are going to be desert themed, we decided to use as much of the Adeptus Mechanicus pieces as we could for those tables. After clipping and sorting all the parts, I cleared my living room floor and began to lay out the pieces for all of the buildings. Each of the buildings are made from eleven individual pieces from the different Cities of Death kits.
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| One of the Imperial Sector boxes full of nothing but floor sections. |
Once everything was sorted and place into bags, I used a power sander to quickly remove any of the flash and mold lines from the pieces. From there it was just a matter of sitting down with my bag of parts and assembling all 22 of the buildings. With all the pieces prepped and sorted it really didn't take long to get all of them built. In fact I could have done them all in one day if I wanted. The buildings were then each glued to one square foot pieces of hard board and left to dry overnight.
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| Waiting for the glue to dry on 22 square feet of Cities of Death terrain. All laid out on my living room floor! |
And that brings us to where I'm at now. I still need to make a ruined corner section to go on the opposite side of each piece of hard board to give the illusion of an entire ruined building. Then all that's left to do is add some sand to the bases, prime, and paint!
This still isn't all of it though. There are enough pieces left to make another ten or so buildings. And I've also cut up close to 100 feet of 1/2 inch PVC pipe into 6 inch pieces to make more terrain with. All of it still has to be glued, primed, and painted as well.
And to copy Boltergeist's previous post, here is all the information for this years Battle for Stones River!
Battle For Stones River (BFSR) is now on the GW Tournament circuit, and we have expanded both our venue and player maximum. 70 players can now attend! Registration began January 1st, 2012 through our FLGS
Grand Adventures. The complete info is:
- Tournament Date: February 25, 2012; check-in begins at 8:30am CST
- Points Level: 1863 (The year of the Battle of Stones River during the American
Civil War)
- Rounds: 4, with a 2 hour time limit per game
- Location: Lane Agri-Park Community Center, Murfreesboro, TN
- 70 players max
- $30 entry fee; lunch is included!
If you are interested in learning more about the local battle that inspired the tournament, see the following links:
Stones River National Battlefield
Wikipedia
Next time you go to a tournament, take a moment to thank the tournament organizers and store owners for all their hard work. Most of us don't do this for the money, in fact we pay for some of this stuff ourselves. We do this because we want to, and because we enjoy it. And because we're a little crazy, too!
