Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I know it has been quite idle on this here little blog, but I’ve been far from idle behind the scenes! I’ve been working my way through more terrain for the second & third Wolf Time games – mostly items to do with power generation. Let’s go straight into scenario 2.

Scenario 2 is set at a geologically active area of the island – one where sudden and violent winds howl through a network of subterranean tunnels, occasionally breaching the surface with explosive results! I’m paraphrasing, but basically the Orks have rigged up a huge turbine from bits salvaged from their crashed space craft – this single large building caps a permanent blowhole in a rather precarious way, has a single double door and a wooden watchtower accessible from the roof. The generator is in a walled compound, along with two long huts (so reusing the ones from the first scenario), The Orks also have four control valves located around the facility to manage the flow of gasses to the generator. I haven’t built the walls yet, but the rest is done, so let’s take a look!

First, the big generator building:

This big beasty was basically assembled from a takeaway food bowl, a section of cardboard tube, an old pc fan, thick card and coffee stirrers. Additional detail was added from the ever-useful ‘Maelstrom’s Edge’ terrain sprue, plus a few odds and ends from the bits pile. Once primed, I textured the main building with Typhus Corrosion before spraying again with a pale green, and then washed, drybrushed and weathered the hell out of it. You’ve probably noticed that the turbine fan appears to be moving in the pics – that’s because it is! I figured out the wiring & plumbed in a 9v battery to spin that bad-boy :-)

And here are the control valves for the same scenario (pictured with a commanders hut for scenario 3 – slightly confusing know, but ignore the hut for now):

Nothing special to report here – all are from Crooked Dice, and painted in the same way as the long huts I presented in my last post. Right, on to the next scenario!

Scenario 3 is set in a lava field set in the midst of a stone forest. The Ork compound has two tall, cylindrical heat exchanger towers, each with a tall wooden watchtower with an emplaced Heavy Bolter in each one. The compound also has two long huts (again, reusing the ones from the first & second scenario), as well as a smaller hut for the commander and a tool shed. I haven’t finished the shed yet, but the rest is done – as before, let’s start with the generators:

These were fairly simple to build – the main buildings are just cardboard tubes with a bit of Maelstrom’s Edge bling, and watch towers built from more coffee stirrers. The heavy Bolters are on magnets, so can be placed on any of the pintles set around the outside of the watchtowers, (including the big building from scenario two if I choose). I also set some magnets inside the tubes, with the idea of connecting the two buildings with some cabling. The cable junction boxes are small crates with the handles shaved off, magnets set inside, and wires glues into small holes.

And here is the commander’s hut for the same scenario – with the roof off this time:

Nothing special to report here either – the hut is also from Crooked Dice, and painted in the same way as the long huts I presented in my last post!

So that’s it for Orky generators, but there is one other generator mentioned in the game – a phase field generator, that may be available to the Marines to use in the last scenario. I couldn’t find a picture of a phase field generator anywhere, but the Rogue Trader rulebook describes it as a large, heavy bit of kit that temporarily phases a small patch of matter into the warp, allowing models to create a doorway through any solid object. Of course, the field isn’t 100% stable, and can collapse with spectacularly terminal results for anyone caught inside the field when it pops! I bashed together a fairly industrial-looking bit of kit from bits & pieces to do the job, and gave it a very quick paintjob in Space Wolf colours:

I quite like the end result, despite it being a low effort affair – it actually ended up looking quite steampunk! Here’s a final shot of some Marines trying to phase their way into an Ork building:

So that’s it for now – I have just 15 more days to finish the project! There are other odd jobs that I may or may not get time to do – walls etc. but none are vital to the scenarios, so I’m counting these as stretch goals… However, the final critical bit of the project is a biggy… Kulo’s Castle… Wish me luck!

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? It has been a busy time at balloony HQ! With a ton of terrain to work through, I have focussed on scenario 1 for the time being – Ork huts, rubbish piles and a great big fuck-off temple (BFT for short).

First let’s take a look at the huts:

I reckoned that the map called for something about 12” by 4”, so I needed something in kit form that could be tailored to fit. After some research, I decided to use a kit from Crooked Dice – they have a good generic scrappy look to them, and the kit design gave me plenty of options in terms of size. They were a bit of a faff to assemble, but were worth the effort I think. The tops are removable so it is easy to use the indoor space during a game, so I built them with the idea of being able to use them as a fire base (with numerous openings and such). I also did a load of bin bags & grubby mattresses to use as ‘indoor scatter’:

I went in with a heavily stained & rusted look & added some little humour points – Badyear & Dung-lob tyres, suspicious stains, graffiti, etc. Probably the best thing about these huts (and the crap inside them) is that they turn up in the first three scenarios, so they have great reusability in the campaign.

Next, we have the rubbish piles:

Again, these are from Crooked Dice, and were treated in a similar way to the huts but painted to look even more grungy. Not too much else to say here – these are just generic scatter/light cover, and are likely to turn up in multiple scenarios too.

Finally, we have the BFT…

When I first decided to take this project on, (11 months ago!!), I knew that I would need something MAHOOSIVE for this. The map shows the temple platform as being around 24” by 18”, so I took a punt and sent a letter to GW, asking them to release a suitable kit… they were very obliging with their new Domain of Sigmar Shattered Temple – great job guys, and just in time too!!

Ok, so I made that last bit up, but I was genuinely delighted with the release – it really is the perfect solution. I made the temple in three parts – the biggest central bit and two smaller wings. I chopped the steps off the long edges of two kits, and glued them together to make the big central section. I drilled out one of the round vault bits to make a hole for the grav lift – spookily, the vaults are exactly 3” in diameter, just as specified in the campaign. I glued in a suitable pot to complete the lift, and arranged the pillar supports to level off the sides where the centre section would connect to the wings. The wings themselves were far more straight forward, and are just the basic temple with the pillar supports all down one edge to connect to the centre, (I really like that the kit allows you to do that). Finally, I glued the pillars that came with the temple into sets of four to make six chunkier pillars, and these just sit on the temple platform as required. I decided to deviate from the game brief slightly and not bother with a roof for the temple… I figured that it would be pretty redundant gamewise, and that it would just be in the way. After that, it was just a case of treating the stonework to some texture, and setting to it with spray can, washes and drybrush. Here are all the component parts:

And here’s a mock-up of the first game of the campaign:

And as a reminder, here’s the map:

I reckon that’s pretty damn good, don’t you?  Here are some fun shots (please excuse the crappy lighting & awkward floor-based photography):

Phew! That’s it for this post, and with less than 4 weeks to go now, I’d better get cracking with the rest of the terrain! Catch you next time… :-)

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? I wasn’t planning to post today – I’m busy working through terrain and wanted to get a bit more done for a more involved post, but I had a reminder that Lead Balloony is 5 years old in my feed today, so I thought it an auspicious day for a cheeky little update 😊

So, if you’re anything like me, you’ll know that the best way to celebrate any birthday is with a bit of casual sacrilege and some light-hearted iconoclasm. Happily, the Wolf Time campaign provides the perfect opportunity to indulge with the iconic statue in the first game. From the book:

“Years ago, before the Orks arrived and made everybody’s lives miserable, (and short), Temple Mountain was a place of peace and solitude. Every year the islanders made sacrifices to the gods with which they imaginatively peopled their island. Twice a year they celebrated the passing seasons with a great procession to the temple which their ancestors had built thousands of years previously. The guardians of the temple were wise oracles who would offer advice to the ordinary folk. Once in a while, a young child would be offered to the guardians and, if accepted, would be reared in the temple to become a guardian himself in time.

Then the Orks arrived and killed everyone. They desecrated the large statue which the humans had carved in the likeness of one of their gods, and turned it into a grinning Ork.”

And:

“The statue in front of the temple is also made of solid rock, and can provide had cover for up to two models”

We also have some artwork to go on:

And most famously, the cover of The Book of the Astronomican by Tony Roberts:

So the rules say ‘provides cover for up to 2 models’, which is tiny, but the art shows a vast statue that would be impractical to build and game with. I think the game map is actually the best guide for scale, which suggests something about 6” wide:

While the artwork is not very helpful for scale, it is fairly consistent on the appearance of the statue, and it strongly suggests using a buddha as the start point. I also like the addition of the sword in the cover art, so  after quick trip to a local hippy shop with an idea of scale & armed with the cover as a reference, I ended up with this:

This has probably royally fucked my visa to Thailand, but I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s pretty much instantly recognisable. The head & sword were sculpted over a wire frame and a coffee stirrer respectively, and I textured up the base before spraying the whole piece black, and then again with grey. I then painted the statue with typhus corrosion – I find that this gives otherwise smooth surfaces a nice texture, and I use this method a lot for stonework. After that, I just drybrushed the whole piece, added different washes to the old & new stonework to show a difference, and adding spots of lichen to the older material. I finished up with a final light drybrush and some foliage & tufts to bed the piece into the ground and because FUCKING OLD-SCHOOL, and I ended up with this:

And here’s another shot with a spare Ork & Space Marine Bastard for scale:

So that’s it folks – I have a lot more campaign terrain in various stages of completion, but it’s good to get the most iconic piece of terrain done & set the tone for the rest of the project. I just hope that this doesn’t have any cosmic ramifications! :-/