Terrain and gaming

Yesterday a Chaos Warband attacked a travelling mercenary band moving through a graveyard district in outskirts of Mordheim. The Chaos force won the day, but the Tzeentch Sorcerer was slain in the heat of Battle while the Nurgle Blightkings delivered the final punch to drive the mortals away.

Using my newly made modular terrain I grapped 2 squares (2x2 foot x2) and together with my son and youngest daugther we arranged a few scenic bits to set the scene. Then we had a game over the board using my mordheim Reiklanders Warband agains a Chaos force picked from an old Tzeentch army (early 1999) and added some Blightkings and a Sigmarite Liberator. Gaming with my kids I let them decide on forces - this really makes them commit to the models with the dice begin to roll.

We used a simplified Mordheim rules set - I decided the dice-rolls and number of life-points for each models. We have played a few times before, but this was the first on proper terrain. For next time I want to try out the Age of Sigmar game mechanics. I plan to prepare statsheets for each group - just by printing the PDF and cutting the paper to a nice size to keep at the board and reference during gaming to the kids learn to control their own models. Should be good! The terrain really made the game fun and dramatic - it looked really cool and definately made the children engage more in the game.

Eldar army on Terrain

Lately I have been working on a 4x4 foot modular terrain set. This morning I added the flock (1 main type and 3 other types in patches for variation). Classic old-school fantasy, but I will be customizing it towards 40K or fantasy with detail elements that I will build later. First up, an army shot of my small Eldar force.

Interview and a Scion Captain

A comment to go with the picture first: A Scion Captain that I have worked on over about a months time. I put him into some terrain to get nice field-action feeling in the photo. Regarding the Scion box the current score is 2 down, 3 to go. And I also got myself some Eldar the other week... Oh well...

Onto the interview part of the topic headline. Tyler of Mengel Miniatures wrote me about 3 months ago if I would do an interview. The interview was published on his website last week and I really think he put down some good questions. So if you want to have a read, then head over to Tyler's website: Mengel Miniatures.

Garden of Morr - WIP #1

Started working on some terrain. So far I am well underway doing the Garden of Moor and have started a tower. When assembled terrain is awsome to do. It does not have to be that precise, there is a lot of drybrushing and washing, and it really enhances your minis. I really look forward to having these first terrain pieces finished and do some miniature photography in the new setting.

2014 - last post this year!

Inspired by working on big stuff in December doing the Imperial Knight I have started on some terrain pieces to get some bigger pieces done in early 2015. Also, I am planning to play more games. Plus the usual hobby stuff. See you in 2015. Happy Painting!

Daemonette project - conversions

New little project. Doing a lot of different stuff at the moment. These are some the many ideas:

A skirmish group of daemonette conversions. Maybe they will even turn into some kind of an army.
Also, terrain is on my mind at the moment but more on that later...

Terrain nostalgia

Visited my parents the past weekend and went through some old boxes with soldiers and terrain from my early years in the hobby. We are speaking early 90s for most of it, I believe. Look at that dark green on the terrain edges! Yikes!

 

The weird toadstool-like chaos terrain with the withered tree is from Spring 1999. Never put in the time to make a full chaos wastes themed gaming table like this. Would have been cool though...

Light for shooting #2

Last night I took the time to finish these two 40K street lamps. A little digital editing and they look nice and moody. Actually, the little terrain-pieces were already moody, but for a picture it is nice to add what you can to enhance the expression.

I still like the idea of using stuff like this to add odds to gaming. Got to do some gaming to try that out first, I suppose.

Light for shooting

Created these little terrain pieces for fun:

But then I thought about the use of areas with light sources in the gameplay. A lamp on the gaming board might have influence on the gameplay. Maybe models operating near these should get bonus for the aim, or possibly some minus for shooting against the light if the enemy hides behind the light source,... and so on. Jumping from this mindset I was considering glowglobes hovering about in underground cityscapes constantly changing the odds by random movement from turn to turn. Might be fun for a necromunda campaign or some =I=munda setup...

Building backdrops

An hour of cutting, trimming, and gluing plastics together. I have started some more terrain pieces to give me some variety for photographing my models. Some plastic wall-sections from some toy product is to pimped into proper 40K claustrofobic street settings. I am trying to find a good mix of being able to view pieces from several angles and being able to mix and match using the assembling system of the wall sections. So the goal is really to hide where the sections click together...

Looking forward to adding all sorts of detail the the walls - posters, pipes, candles, etcetera.

The ground is troubleing me though. What to do? I should probably create a copplestone-like board for the terrain to be used on. 

Stone barriers - terrain painting

Teamed up with a great friend last night and painted away - I painted up the small terrain pieces shown below:

 

Sandstone barriers, rocks, and the odd oil barrel. I sprayed on the basic colours using an airbrush, Then I added detail by sponging on little dark scratch-marks, adding some MIGS weathering powder (African Earth mixed with bright orange paint), and brushing on some highlights with a size 1 brush. Looking forward to doing some moody photoshooting using the terrain pieces in unison with my latest additions to the =I= group.

More work on the Servo Skull Collector and some terrain pieces

Picture first, proof of hobby work:

Got some more bits added to the Servo Skull Collector. Possibly a few too much, but I and going on and adding the final bits and sculpting to the conversion over the next evening or two to get him ready for painting. I don't want to go back to change stuff - instead I will just work on to get the look right.  The terrain pieces is the start of a little gaming setup I hope to build to support this group of Inquisitorial henchmen. Will try to continue working that particular weathered yellow from the mini-bases. I like the thought of just getting some small surroundings created to support the models visually for photography... and possibly even for the odd game.