Terraforming: Underhive!

Blast from the Past!

So L0rdM0nki and I (and two inquisitorial henchmen) are looking to get a Necromunda campaign going in the near future. We've all played since the beginning-- 1995 to be exact (I looked it up. Now I feel old. Ah well.). We've played here and there through the years and the old warhorse has reared its head once again for some minis throwdown. For being a 'specialist game' Necromunda really is up there as one of the best games GW has ever made. If you've never tried it I highly recommend taking a look. The rules are free on the GW site, so get to it!

Box o' bulkheads, ready for action!

In any case I dug out my old terrain that has been gathering dust for several years. Back in the day my basement collected some wetness and so my original set of box set terrain perished. I had to toss out the cruddy card pieces and kept the plastic bulkheads. Undeterred, I still have a second original set plus a rerelease set from when Necromunda: Underhive came out.  I since made new terrain using bulkheads and plasticard (learned my lesson), although compared to current cities of death terrain and so on the whole shebang looks pretty cheesy. I thought I'd show you what I've been working on and hopefully entertain and enlighten with the WIP of updating it.

Bits and Pieces collected in the past 18 years...

My current plan is to mount what I've got on hardboard bases-- much like figures, even shoddy terrain looks better on a finished base. Plus I can build in my collection of bits and pieces to make terrain fit for both Necromunda and 40k. A base with texture and detritus can really make a world of difference in setting the stage for wargame battles.

Homemade terrain using bulkheads and plasticard. Needs a facelift!

I hope you enjoy my venture into nostalgia, talk at you soon!
-- Boltergeist

Making Cities of Death Terrain for The Battle for Stones River Tournament

The 22 cities of death buildings I built earlier before prime and paint.

About two weeks ago on my other blog, I showed you the buildings I was working on for our local tournament, The Battle for Stones River. I built 22 buildings out of Games Workshop's Cities of Death terrain kits. After sorting through the remaining parts, I realized that I had just enough parts to make 12 smaller buildings. This was perfect as we have 6 snow themed tables that needed a little more terrain. As I sat down to make 2 buildings each for our snow tables, I thought I would share with everyone how I got these buildings knocked out fairly quickly. More after the break!

More Tournament Terrain Building

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!

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.

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.

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!

BFSR terraforming underway!

Hey all, I've been hard at work putting together additional terrain for our upcoming Battle for Stones River 2012. We listened to the constructive feedback from last year and are adding in extra line-of-sight blocking terrain to every table for your strategic convenience. We will end up with ruined walls, multi-level hills, and ruined buildings all constructed with balance and consistency in mind, so all table sides will be fair.

Comin' ta getcha!

For those that haven't heard, BFSR is now on the GW Tournament circuit, and we have expanded both our venue and player maximum. 70 players can now attend! Registration begins January 1st, 2012 (that's Sunday folks!) through Grand Adventures. The complete info is:

• 2/25/12; check-in begins at 8:30am CST
• 1863 pts, the year of the Civil War Battle of Stones River
• 4 rounds, 2 hour time limit per game
• 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

Cities of Death Tournament & League: Results and Photos

Well, we didn't have as big of a turn out as we hoped for, but we still had a great event at Grand Adventures this past weekend! I was there to help out AirmanG and run a ringer army if needed. And we needed one! We had hoped for around 15 - 20 people, but only 5 showed up. Since the tables were already set up, we decided to go ahead and throw down! After the first round, AirmanG and I made the decision to start moving terrain from the tables we just played on to the next row of tables. This allowed us to make the table match the Alpha, Gamma, Omega style missions that Bossman had wrote for us and gave the tourney a more fluid feel. No one played on the same table twice. By the third round, I had to pick a deployment zone based on whether or not I could fit my Land Raider on the table! In the end, the 7 of us had a great time and between the tourney and the league winners, $130 in prize support was given away!!! Here are the results in order:

• Tourney 1st Place ($30) Kevin D. with Dark Eldar
• Tourney 2nd Place ($20) League 1st Place ($50) Patrick G. with Iron Hands Space Marines
• Danny C. with Deathwing Dark Angels Space Marines
• Brendan with Dark Eldar
• David D. with Salamanders Space Marines
• Ben B. with Grey Knights Space Marines
• Note: League 2nd Place ($30) Damon B. with Grey Knights

First Place Tourney Trophy with One of the Winners Venom Squads

First Place League Trophy with One of the Winners Iron Hands Squads

And here are ton of photos taken by David. Check out the terrain! Thanks for the photos, David!

Project Terra-Forming: The forgotten lands...

So I was looking back through our blog and realized that I posted WIP pictures of two pieces of terrain, but then never posted finished products.  I will rectify this situation immediately...

Here are the two pieces left off the last post.

Close up of the cake pillar cut in half.

Close up shot of the fallen block wall.

So there you go, sorry they didn't make it in the last post.  I know everyone was dying to know what happened and you guys lost sleep over it!  This is the only post for this week, I had to go out of town unexpectedly and did not have a single iota of time to finish up my last building.  I will get to work on it as soon as I get done with the whole work thingy... stupid work getting in the way of my hobby...

OK, so this is really my second to last post for this topic.  Have a great today and a wonderful tomorrow.

Project Terra-forming: Almost finished

So here we are, nearing the end to my little adventure in terrain building.  This week I finished off a building and picked up some cool green crystals from my ALGS (Awesome Local Gaming Store).  So tools for this week are the same as last week...

• Your building from last week.
• Hard board bases cut and sanded.
• Paint and gluing supplies.
• Foam insulation board.
• Resin (store bought) crystals.  

So to pick up where we left off last week, I have a half built Manufactorum building.  I didn't feel like it was quite finished, so I added another corner section to the building and some extra bits lying around the floor.

Manufactorum finished with sanded base.

I like to leave my building bases pretty clear so models can move around easily.  Lots of rubble looks awesome, but is a pain to get models to stand. My mantra, simple is best when it comes to terrain.  So this being a Adeptus Mechanicus building, I figured it should be a shade of red.  For buildings, I tend to prime them black with spray primer then go to town dry brushing.  For a good deep red paint job, I started with a dark brown acrylic paint (from Wal-mart).  I give the building a heavy dry brush almost covering the entire thing, then move on to a dark maroon color (similar to scab red) and give another heavy dry brushing.  Once this is dry I give a light dry brush of a bright red, similar to blood red.  Once finished and truly dry, I add some weathering.  Since this is a desert, I figured there wouldn't be any rust, so I just went straight to worn edges and paint.  I use a small natural sea sponge to dab on small amounts of boltgun metal.  This can be as light or heavy as you like.  Just remember its easier to add more than to take away. 

Dry brushed with a fresh coat of paint on the sand.

So from there it was on to painting the base with the standard fare and then dry brushing when it had dried overnight.  I couldn't decide what to do with the floor tile so for the moment it is simply dry brushed with the same bone color as my sand.  It looks OK for now, but I think I will checker board the tile with bone and some other color.  Maybe, as was suggested, freehand a partial Mechanicus symbol on the tile.  So anyway, here's some finished photos...

I promise they look much better in person.  

You can see I added sand around the inside to cover up any gaps.

 So I had just played a game with my Necrons and then saw these really cool looking green crystals at my local shop.  I thought, "Damn, how perfect are those for my table!"  So home they went with me.  I didn't think these crystals needed much beyond a base, so I went to work right away.  After testing some out on a flat base, I decided (before I glued anything) to raise the large clusters up slightly before gluing them.  I wanted to give the impression that they sprouted from the ground and the the sand collected around them.  I simply took some 1/2" foam insulation board I had sitting around and cut them like I would a mini hill.  I then gouged out a small hole for the crystals to fit into.  Using white glue I glued the foam and crystals to the bases.  There were small crystal clusters too, so I simply gathered them together in a aesthetically pleasing manner and super glued them down.  

Two of the three bases ready for sand.

After drying overnight I glued the sand to the bases and then added paint once the sand dried.  I think they turned out pretty well and look great with my Necrons on the table.  Here is the final product...

All three bases completed.

So my terrain has taken on a theme of its own.  It seems that a Adeptus Mechanicus research facility was constructed on a dormant Necron world, but once the Necrons awoke things went bad.  As you can see by the ruined building.  I figure that one building a research facility does not make, so I am in the process of building another.  This building is 2'x1' in size (base is anyway).  That will probably be the final piece to my terrain making, at least for that table.  I am going to embark on building several new tables for my ALGS in the next few weeks.  So if you want you can come check them out at Grand Adventures in Murfreesboro, TN. in about a month.

Here's a sneak peek at the work in progress building...

That tile floor is just screaming for a freehand symbol of some sort!

Hope you enjoyed this and thanks for reading.  Until next time...

Project Terra-Forming: The slow build

Well, unfortunately I had little time for building this week.  I instead spent the week working overtime because we are short handed at the moment.  I did get to start a few pieces, but as of yet have nothing completed.  I am hoping to finish and maybe get a couple more pieces built this week.  So lets see what I've got so far...

Things you will need:

• Hard boards bases that you cut and sanded last week.
• Foam insulation board.
• Wire foam cutter.
• Glue, sand and painting supplies.
• Cake topper plastic pillars. (Purchase these at any party supply store for cheap)
• GW Manufactorum kit.
• GW modular Warhammer Fantasy movement trays.

So the first piece I built this week was simply more foam squares, cut and sanded to build a wall.  I chose one of the smaller hard board bases and built the corner of a ruined building.  Very simplistic, but adds some great low level LOS blocking.  Plus it looks really cool and is very fast to build.  If you don't remember how I made the foam blocks, I cut out small squares and sanded the edges down to make them look worn.  I then glued them together with white glue.  Easy... Now that I added sand to the base, I just have to get it painted.

Ruined wall section made from foam.

The next piece I decided to get a little creative.  I still used the same foam blocks, but I added in a broken pillar.  I had a couple pillars that go on cakes which you can purchase at any party supply store for a few dollars.  My pillars were approximately 6" in height.  I took a small saw and cut the decorative top and bottom off first.  I then chose a random spot and angle to cut the pillar in half.  The trickiest part of this was that the pillar is hollow.  I took some scrap foam and shoved it into the ends then took my wire foam cutter and cut the foam smooth.  Glue the pillars down with some super glue and go to town with the blocks and sand.  You should end up with something like this...

Broken pillar and ruined wall section.

So my final piece I started was actually a building.  For this I have used two of the GW manufactorum sprues and a section of the modular movement trays (for tile flooring).  I don't think I am finish with it quite yet, I feel it is slim on the one side.  I will probably add a few low walls to the empty corner.  I originally planned to build these as if they were partially buried, but as I have said before, often simple is best when it comes to scenery.  I still might try out a building in the end, but I want to get a couple buildings knocked out and playable before I venture into the unknown.  If you haven't tried these GW buildings then you should get some.  They go together quite well and look great when you get them painted.  There are tons of details that you can pick out, but they also look great with basic dry-brushing.  I built a simple two story blown out building but didn't want just sand floors.  I saw in this month's White Dwarf Magazine where one of their guys used the modular movement trays to make a tile floor on a Tomb King temple.  I thought it looked great and I happened to have some extras laying around.  I broke off jagged pieces to breakup the square outline of the tray and then used those pieces as filler.  I think it turned out great and plan on using more.  Enough for now, I can babble some more when I actually finish the piece and get another one done.  Here's some pictures of what it looks like so far...

A shot of the flooring.  Will look better when it has paint on it!

The front of the building... pretty plain for now.

So that's what I got this week.  I hope your tables are coming along well.  If anyone is building a table, I would love to see some pictures!  Hopefully I can get my pieces painted and another building done too!  Until next time.

Project Terraforming: Hills, Rocks and such...

Sorry for the long break, my Inquisitorial duties forced me to travel to a hell stricken planet and banish demons.  (i.e. sit on the beach and get a tan.)  But I am back with renewed energy and I ramped up my terrain making this week.  This time around I am making some natural terrain; hills and rocks.  These might seem pretty easy, but I have always found that simple is best when building scenery.  Let's have a look at what I used this week...

•  2x4 sheet of hard board.  (should be left over from the original sheet)
• Foam insulation board. ( I have 1-1/2" pink insulation board)
• Jig saw (or something similar to cut odd shapes in the hard board)
• Palm sander (or something to sand the board edges, by hand will take forever)
• Wire foam cutter (battery operated ones can be bought for less than $10)
• Painting supplies (brushes, paints, etc...)
• Sand and glue (same used on the table)
• Fine sandpaper (I use this to sand the foam)

1-1/2" foam insulation board

Some of my tools.

Hardboard after I cut and sanded the edges.

 The first thing I did was to cut out my hardboard bases, as you can see above.  I cut some random shapes and rounded the edges off.  I then cut out some square pieces for buildings.  Once all the cuts were done I sanded down the edges with the palm sander.  A tip here is to sand both sides of the board around the edges.

Next I went to making the foam hills and rocks.  You'll need your wire cutter and your foam.  You can create any shaped hill that you want, but I always slope the edges slightly.  I created four hills, two large and two small that can stack on top of the other two.

Two of the large hills.

Next I moved onto the rocks.  These I simply cut out squares of various sizes and the slowly chopped them done to look like rocks, leaving one side flat to glue to the hardboard bases.  Once your happy with the look and size, you can glue the rocks to the board.  Tips here are to score the bottom of the foam with a knife to help the glue adhere and also be sure to leave enough room to move miniatures around the rocks.  They should look something like this...

Rock formations approx. 10"x6"

I left the rocks to glue over night and went back to my hills. I actually use a fine grain sandpaper to sand the foam.  This takes the sharp edges off and helps the glues adhere to the foam.  This doesn't have to be perfect, the glue will work even if you miss some spots.  I went to work applying glue with a brush, make sure you add a little water to the glue.  Then cover with sand and let dry over night.  I did the same to the hardboard on the rock formations.  You could cover the rocks, but I really like the sharp edges and the way the dry-brushing looks without it.

After sand, left to dry.

Base coated, left to dry.

Next it was off to get my paint supplies.  I base coated the sand with my table color and then base coated the rocks in a dark brown acrylic from Wal-mart.  You can make the rocks what ever color you want to match your table, you can do a black base and then highlight with a dark gray and light gray.  This would work on any table.  I chose to go with dark brown, Bubonic Brown and then Bleached Bone.  This matches more with my desert scheme.  Make sure your house paint is dry before you go on to dry-brushing, that really messes things up if not.  Once your final highlights are on, your done! Hooray, they are ready for gaming.

I had a little extra time and had some foam skulls left over from Halloween.  A great time to go shopping for terrain stuff is right after Halloween and after Christmas.  You can pick up some great stuff for really cheap!
I used two skulls to make what looked like ruined carved stone skulls.  I put one inside a sand dune and used a small saw to cut one off at an angle to make the appearance that it was half buried.  I also added small foam squares that I sanded down to make a ruined wall section.  I simply based these the same as the rocks and went to town painting.  I think they turned out pretty well.  I might add some more of this style.

Skull with ruined wall.

Skull in a sand dune.

Once these are done, you have enough to play a game.  Not a lot of variety, but hey your rolling dice and stuff's dying!  Next week, I am going to move on to man-made structures.  Should be interesting, I would like to make them look half buried under sand.  I'll have to think about this one a little.  Hope you enjoyed and that this helped.  Some more photos...

Thanks for reading!