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Category Archives: Terrain

Odds and ends

27 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by Alex in Frostgrave, OldHammer, Terrain

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Painting, Rogue Trader, scenery

Greetings Terrans, I hope this post finds you well. I have a bit of an assortment of odds and ends for you today – just a wrap-up of various items that I’ve completed in and around other work. First up, I painted a small group of Rogue Trader beasties prior to me running the Wolf Time campaign a few weeks back – I remembered regretting not having some way of balancing the game back when I ran it at BOYL, and was determined not to make the same mistake. I had a rummage in the lead pile and turned up a pair of ‘Crawling Insectoids’ (with slightly converted jaws) and a ‘Xenoursid Predator’ – all made by Knightmare Miniatures – they are clearly designed to match the Ambull and the Cthellean Cudbear in the Rogue Trader bestiary, (hence the purple coat for the Cudbear):

I’m glad I did do these guys – I didn’t need the Ambulls in the end, but the Cudbear came in handy when he attacked the Marines in the rear as they entered Kulo’s Castle. It killed 8 Space Wolves, and made for a much more balanced game in the end.

While I was in the ‘creatures’ section of my lead pile, I also grabbed this fella – not sure where I got him from, but he makes for a nice warp creature:

And here’s a quick pic of these beasties attacking my Olleyan Mercs – just to give you a sense of scale:

 

I also did some painting with the kids – here are three ‘Time Warped’ wizards from Wargames Foundry. My youngest painted the chap with the pink beard, (with a bit of help), My eldest painted the not-Gandalf, while I did the turbaned chap on the right:

 

We were going to play Frostgrave as a trio of Wizards, but my eldest got a bit teenagery about it all, so it has just been me & my youngest son playing co-op. We deliberately went for non-fighty wizards to start – he went Illusionist, and I went for Soothsayer. Neither has any combat spells in their starting deck, and we haven’t taken warbands either, so we’ve been a bit crap really!! 😊  That said, the illusionist can cast ‘Monstrous Form’ or ‘Beauty’, and my son and I agreed that it would be good to have minis to represent this. We roped in a mildly converted Knightmare Miniatures ‘Hook Horror’, and some random nudie elfin lady that I had in the pile. Both got a spooky glow-type paint job to show their illusory & magical nature on the table top:

We are now two games in, and we have enough money for a couple of Grimoires, so I anticipate some Elemental Bolt action next game 😊

 

Finally, my Frostgrave terrain has been left out & has been staring me in the face these last two weeks. It is lovely pre-painted stuff, and has been worth every penny spent on it, but the lack of detail was starting to annoy me. You can see in the pics above that it is just grey, grey and more grey. Usually this stuff gets packed away straight after a game, so I don’t get to dwell on it too much, but I took advantage of it being left out for so long & gave it some attention. Nothing hectic really – a bit of green wash, lichen spots, the odd blood splat and painting up the wood, but I think it makes for a big improvement overall. I also did the same to my Garden of Morr set to tie it all together:

 

And that’s it in terms of painting, but not in terms of hobby… I’ve just embarked on GMing an experimental rpg campaign/tabletop skirmish thing with a few like-minded hobby pals. It is set in the 40k universe, uses the core Frostgrave mechanics for combat, and is being conducted via zoom using hand drawn maps… Yeah, it’s a lot for me to get my head around – I’ve never GMed an RPG before, and I have only sat in on a handful of D&D games… My hat goes off to proper GMs everywhere, especially those that write their own scenarios, because it’s fucking hard core!!! It is taking up all my hobby time at the moment, (there is just so much work in developing and writing the story arc, sketching out maps, etc!), but I am absolutely loving it. Luckily, the party seem to be enjoying it too 😊

Anyway, that’s me for now dudes, I’ll catch up with you all the next time I have something painted to share – until then, stay safe and be excellent to each other 😊

Get to the chopper!

14 Tuesday Apr 2020

Posted by Alex in Terrain

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Rogue Trader, scenery

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? So, week four of isolation eh? Anyone else really really pleased they have enough hobby projects on the back burner to outlast any virus? I know I am – otherwise I reckon I would be climbing the walls by now.

So yeah, last week was fun. I had a week off work, (or a week of not having to work from home at least), and so I ran the Wolf Time campaign for my kids. The eldest one dropped out after the warm-up games due to some spectacular nose removal of the face spiting variety, but my youngest stuck to his Orky guns throughout and managed to win the day! It was a close-run thing though, and we had a good laugh along the way. It has even given my youngest a bit of a taste for the hobby, and he has been working on painting a wizard up since then! We try a bit of co-op Frostgrave next – I’ll let you know how that goes 😊   Meanwhile, I’ve managed a few bits too – some neglected bits that have been taking up space for far too long.

First up, a bit of ToyHammer to make this rough and ready civilian flyer:

This was a cheap drone that my boss bought for himself a while back, and the minute I saw it I knew that I could do something cool with it… I asked if I could have it if it ever broke, and being a cheap piece of crap from China, it duly it ended up in my ‘pile of potential’. Last week was he perfect opportunity to get some shed time in and get busy with the glue & rattle cans.

It’s lightly armed, (being a civilian craft), but I think it works really well as terrain item, or as a plot point in a game of something sci fi.

Scale-wise, I reckon it is pretty much perfect!

 

 

While I was on a roll, I also got this finished:

It’s an MDF storage crate from Grumpy Old Tin – I think it’s a BOYL special, and I was lucky enough to get it handed to me at BOYL last year. It has been half done for months, but I pulled my finger out and finished it off in and around other things. Here’s a few more shots:

And all together:

 

That isn’t the sum of my hobby last week – I got a whole range of Oldschool minis cleaned up, based, primed, and ready to pick over as the fancy takes me, so you can expect to see some classic Bob Olly goodness over the next week or two. I also finished the main build phase on a real bucket-list project – a small army that 14 year old me could only dream of owning! You’ll have to wait and see what it is though – I’m keeping it schtum until I’m finished and ready for the big reveal… feel free to try & guess of course 😉

Until next time!

Kulo’s Castle…

24 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in Mag Bellum, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

Greetings Terrans, and welcome. This is it folks, the big one, Kulo’s Castle in 3D… I have been looking forward to completing this part of the project, but let’s start at the beginning, shall we? From the Marine briefing in the Book of the Astronomican:

“The stronghold is built around the ruins of a crashed Ork spacecraft, and is heavily garrisoned. There is a main entrance to the south and a separate vehicle entrance to the north. There is an additional domed area covering an aerial launch pad, through which it may be possible to bring airborne troops, although it will probably be necessary to destroy it first.”

And from the Ork briefing:

“The stronghold is built on two levels: a top ‘spaceship’ level, and a bottom ‘dungeon’ level. Kulo never leaves the bottom level except in a dire emergency.”

The original scenario used a whole bunch of GW floor tiles that were available back in the day, arranged as per the maps included in the book. I had many kind offers of PDF access to these floor tiles, but I really wanted to do something a bit special for BOYL, and so wanted to recreate the maps in 3D… no small task! But I broadly had the concept that the first level should be industrial, while the second level could be less so. I figured that the dungeon level would probably share a lot of the look of the first floor, as the Orks would no doubt salvage parts of their ship to make walls and such.

I had many different thoughts and ideas on how to achieve this, but eventually settled on using the Mag Bellum system from Heresy of Us… I spoke with Mark about it back in April, and we worked out how to recreate an approximation of the map using magnetic floor tiles and plug-in wall sections. I commissioned the project, and we went to prototyping. After a few alterations, Mark had a system figured out, and then did an incredible job in casting a total of 12.25 square feet of floor tiles & 3D printing a staggering 399” of walls and 60 edging strips! The final kit list is as follows:

  • 20 x 3”x3” smooth floor tiles
  • 12 x 6”x6” smooth floor tiles
  • 39 x 3”x3” industrial floor tiles
  • 22 x 6”x6” industrial floor tiles
  • 16 x 3” edging strips
  • 44 x 6” edging strips
  • 57 x 6” walls (including 6 with big doors and 15 with small doors)
  • 19 x 3” walls (including 4 with small doors)

Mark very kindly hand delivered all 229 individual parts at the beginning of July, and even more kindly stuck around for ten hours to help sand & clean all the bits, and then we had to glue all the magnets into the floor tiles and edging strips… 864 magnets in all!

I have spent the last three weeks spraying, shading, drybrushing and weathering it all – I think it is fair to say that this was a hell of a job, but it was finally finished on Monday night. I used the same recipe that I used on the generator buildings – remember that they were built from salvaged spaceship parts, so it made sense to keep a common palette. Once all the bits were finally painted, I put it all together and worked out a few snags – this is an advanced prototype after all! After some fettling and adjustments, I ended up with this for the top ‘spaceship’ level:

D9E3DCEB-20E6-4A0C-9C2E-CC14C605CB80

 

And then reconfigured it all with different floor tiles to create this for the ‘dungeon’ level, (with cork rocks to build the tunnel walls):

52534246-4BCC-4B02-B7A0-7E361E51FB33

 

And here are some staged ‘action’ pics for your pleasure:

E3EBA3CB-DBD8-4576-AD52-7984B8A55307678B9ACC-A5F0-45CC-97BF-754F62E4460324F8FD13-DE1E-4B87-B4D8-207B349374B4F06E08CD-FAEE-4EFE-AE0F-8A142AA7F3BF68B93A78-B589-4FC2-8F4F-AF1EF82522AED77A7564-4655-4BCB-A9C5-7EBF246C5B8B2753F7E9-79F8-499B-9DE8-31D8F96C29F004971237-4BE0-4C19-8C44-3505D3CA015004ACC182-4574-4650-937E-B958F9DE40E7EB7D1B7A-4353-459A-9696-E8AD83504C1E

 

I also picked up a nice little template for Navigator Fogg’s vortex bomb – I was going to make my own, but it was cheap, and time is against me:

E394B8FE-A38D-4132-A60B-9D2A07764B46

 

So what do you guys think? I know it isn’t perfect, and there are a few design changes to discuss with Mark, but it’s pretty damn impressive, no? Of course, it is looking a bit sparse so I need to get some scatter terrain in there! I really really need some help with this so please, if you are going to BOYL and you have any crates, barrels, book shelves, generic Orky furniture, etc. then can you pack them & let me have a lend please? I’m going to spend the remaining time doing what I can, and I’ve had some kind offers from a few people already, (James, Curtis, you sexy legends!), but the more the merrier…

Right, back to it – seven more days until I pack & head to BOYL!! Let’s see what extras I can crank out between now and then 😉

Power to the people!

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

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!

Wolf Time – Game 1 ready to roll

04 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf Time

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… :-)

Happy Birthday Lead Balloony!

25 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Alex in OldHammer, Terrain, Wolf Time

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

Oldhammer, Rogue Trader, scenery, Wolf 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! :-/

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