Mag Bellum

11 Monday Mar 2019

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Greetings Terrans, I hope all is well with you guys & gals. I have something a little different to show you today – I’ve spent the last week on a bit of a terrain kick & have a funky new skirmish board to show for my efforts! Now, as some of you know, I occasionally get to hang with Mark over at Heresy of Us. Mark is working really hard to get his business of the ground, making all kinds of weird and wonderful grim-dark pieces for 40K, and the terrain to game over. Mag Bellum is his flagship system – a series of 6×6 tiles that magnetically lock together, and that have these inserts that allow you to model terrain into the board, but then allow you to swap the bits out by modelling extra inserts. To illustrate this, here’s my new board:

And here’s the exploded view, showing all the component parts:

So just by buying more inserts, (available separately, very sensible money), I can use the same board but set it up for AoS, Frostgrave, Necromunda or whatever… The tiles themselves are the main (modest) expense, but they get reused, so it’s a great way to build a really good looking & flexible board in stages and without breaking the bank… and yes, the circles do work for Citadel trees :-) As an added bonus, I can fit this lot (minus the big buildings) into a shoebox!

Mark is also expanding this range to include indoor spaces – think Zone Mortalis, but with the ability to build up as well as out… IMO, this is a very cool system, and Mark is only starting to scratch the surface of what’s possible. Of course, like any small business, Mark needs exposure & sales!! To help with this, he will be bringing Mag Bellum to Salute this year, and I’ll be there helping him! If you’re there then make sure you swing by & say hi, check out the system, buy some goodies, etc. If you’re going or not, make sure you order up a t-shirt & help support Mark in making his vision a reality, and of course, there is always the webstore too!

And here’s some eye candy to tempt you even more:

Good old Imperial Sector ruins

Plenty of hiding places

Perfect spot for an ambush

Loads of raised spaces to explore

A nice view of the outskirts of town

Obligatory drop pod

Weird Jinmenju head-tree… picked this up in a kick-starter ages ago, plus a grim-dark ATM

A failed print from Mark’s rubbish pile – a great source of bits!

A colleague got a load of these coasters from Mexico as office gifts… One tap with a rock, and bam – perfect terrain :-)

A ‘Writhing Flesh Statue’, also by Mark, and available on Heresy Of Us

Not bad for a week’s effort, eh? I hope you agree that this looks the business, and I really hope that you might be inspired to pick up a few bits & do a board yourself – any questions, just drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer :-)

Anyway, that’s it for this post – I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on my Wolf Time project from here on in… I haven’t been idle in that regard – all the Power Armoured dudes are sculpted & undercoated, so it’s all gravy from here on in!

Stylites

08 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by Alex in Terrain, The Chapel

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

scenery, Stylites, The Chapel

Greetings Terrans, I trust you are all well. I have a bit of a different theme to this post – no fun RT Orks to share at the moment, but a more grimdark vibe from the Inq28 side of the hobby fence. The background to this is that I was lucky enough to have Mark from Heresyofus pop over on the last weekend of September, and he brought his beautiful Stylites board with him:

As you can see, the board is a stunning piece of work, but Mark and I appreciate that not everyone would be in a position to devote the time or space to such a specific piece of scenery. As a result, Mark gave me my own set of 20 Stylites, with the simple instruction of ‘go do something with them & showcase a different way of using the pillars’… No pressure!

So, me being me, I approached the task with maximum flexibility in mind. Naturally, I wanted my Stylites to look like they belonged in the caverns underneath The Chapel, but equally, I wanted them to look at home in an underhive sump, or towering over the ruins of the frozen city of Felstad… I also wanted them to reflect the tortured reality of the battlefields of the Mortal Realms, or even provide a chaotic backdrop to the far-flung battlefields of the 41^st Millennium… In short, I wanted them to work anywhere and everywhere that I like play toy soldiers.

As a result, I decided to base my pillars individually, and to integrate other scenic items into the bases to give them some utility beyond the Stylites game itself. After some thought, I went with the Shardwrack Spines for the basing detail, and I made this choice for a number of reasons. Firstly, the spines have a lot of height, and I felt this would work well with the tall columns of the Stylites. Secondly, Stylites is a truly lethal game – one slip and you’re dead, and the Shardwrack Spines look like falling on them would be believably terminal. Thirdly, they have rules in 40k (and I think in AoS?), and fourthly, they look like an interesting kit to work with! Decision made, I got to cutting and fitting the bases, and cleaning up the mould lines… this took bloody ages, but was worth doing properly, and eventually, I got to this point:

Now I just needed to decide how to paint the buggers… I had a vague notion of going for some colour, but I didn’t want to go to crazy-town like on the box art. I settled for a subdued purply-grey, with gold used to pick out the nodules and a little Nihilakh Oxide around the cracks… the idea is that these spines are mineral rather than organic, but also that they can work either way if the game demands it. The rest of the base was done in a fairly generic way, while the Stylites themselves were washed & drybrushed in an ad hoc and gunky style. I’ve managed to complete five so far – see what you think:

I have the other 15 Stylites built, basecoated and drybrushed, so I just need to add the wash & detail. My plan is to do this in and around the ongoing work on my Space Orks project, and once I’m done, I’m going to set up some photos to showcase the Stylites in a few different contexts. Happy days!

Anyway, that’s it for now – I’ll catch you all soon with more Orks and more Stylites to share! Have a good one dudes :-)

The Tower of the Dead

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by Alex in Terrain

≈ 42 Comments

Tags

New stuff, scenery

Greetings all, I have a cheeky little terrain post to share with you today – I recently took delivery of a rather sexy little pre-painted tower thingy from a Kickstarter that I backed ages ago. When I first got it, it looked like this:

Not bad for a pre-painted piece, but I wanted to embellish it a bit & paint it up to match my Garden of Morr. A quick lick of paint, and I ended up with this:

Pretty cool, but ‘so far, so what’ right? I mean, it’s a nice enough tower and all that, but not really deserving of a post all to itself, is it? Well dear reader, this tower does tricks… check this out:

How mad is that! The tower is actually the ‘Dark Crypt fog machine’ from Real Game FX, and it houses a pump & ultrasonic transducer (a what now?!?)… The bottom of the tower is basically a reservoir, you turn on the gubbins and voila – instant cold fog comes pouring out of the door & windows. Here are a few examples of me playing around with the photographic possibilities:

How good is that eh?! As an added bonus, the guts of the machine come out, so with some clever modelling, I should be able to make other ‘cases’ for the worky-bitz to go in – a venting sci-fi tower, mysterious jungle ruins, whatever I fancy really! Now, I should point out that the fog is (duh) wet… Sounds obvious, but it really is very very wet, and this quickly makes everything around it wet as well. Also, the wires are a bit unsightly from anywhere other than a front-on view, so the tower will only look good around the edge of your board. Also it can be a bit splashy… The pump draws the water from the reservoir at the bottom of the tower, up an internal tube, and on to the sonic doo-dah – it is quite vigorous, and I did find that a bit of water came out of the windows & door. It’s also a pain in the arse to set up, difficult to fill once it is set up, it makes watery noises while running & makes me want to pee, and all the drying & faffing really adds to the packing away time, (I had to leave the models used in these photos out to dry after taking these pics for example). To be honest, it isn’t hugely practical for gaming… But I don’t care – it’s just so cool! I certainly won’t use it in every game, but I love this idea for marking cinematic moments in specific scenarios or for special occasions. It’s also great for the occasional photo shoot, where the impracticalities of the system are less of an issue. All in all, I’m really glad I backed the Kickstarter :-)

Anyway, that’s me for the next couple of weeks – I’m taking the kids hiking next week and I don’t plan to be on line at all while I’m away, so I’ll catch you all on the flip side. After that, I aim to add more Eru-Kin to my BOYL 2018 army, and I have a load of undead to get based & painted as well… Should be fun!

Fembruary challenge part 2 – Vasquez

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Alex in AoS Undead, Fembruary Challenge

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

Fembruary, scenery

Greetings all, I’m very happy to be able to show off my second mini for ‘February’, but before I do that, I have a little terrain distraction to share with you… I picked up the ‘Legions of Nagash’ book for AoS last weekend – it is a great book, and gives the forces of death much more nuance and flexibility. There are a number of changes to how the armies of Nagash operate, but one of the major differences is how summoning works. Very briefly, you now get to set up four graveyards from which your summonable units can spawn – obviously, the Gardens of Morr kit is the go-to choice for the discerning modeler, so I got mine down from the loft of holding, and got the four main bits built & painted:

It is worth mentioning that the new ruling calls for a nominated ‘point’ on the battle field, so using a fairly big piece of scenery would be cheaty… the first two pieces have an obvious single point, but the second pair don’t, so I painted a gold ornament on one end of these two. I’m pretty pleased with how they came out, and they really are lovely kits that don’t take long at all – especially if you leave out the fence!

Here’s a nice atmospheric shot of Gorgo Romero raising a zombie horde, (with thanks to my wife for vaping hard to add the special effects ;-) )

Moving on to ‘Fembruary’, I just want to say how delighted I am with the support for this – I have been admiring and commenting on the many excellent contributions that have been popping up among my fellow bloggers and beyond – good on you all for getting involved, representing, and spreading the word. I’ll have to curate a round-up of images and do an end-of-month recap – a task I look forward to immensely.

Anyway, time to introduce my second effort – I have named her after the awesome Vasquez, (played by Jenette Goldstein), of Aliens fame. I know the mini doesn’t look particularly like the movie character, but hey, she’s never been mistaken for a man either, and the gun seals the deal for me :-)

And here she is with Siouxsie:

I had great fun painting Vas – she’s a cracking mini, and it was great to mix it up a bit with the skin tone. I think the purple/yellow/red flashes work nicely with the more utilitarian bits of uniform, but the star of the show has to be the pink dreads… They just look so damn cool! I have three more of these Ghosts of Gia in various stages of being painted – I optimistically thought I might get 10 done, but no way that is happening, so I’m going to crack on with getting five of them painted before the month is out. I also have a long-neglected character to paint as part of Azazel’s latest challenge, so plenty to keep the brush busy over the next ten days! Until next time folks :-)

Primaris Marines (?!) and some ‘Nasty Bush’!

08 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by Alex in AoS Undead, OldHammer, Primaris Marines, Side projects

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Eru-Kin, Primaris, scenery, Undead

Greetings fellow aironauts, and welcome to the first ‘proper’ post of the year on Leadballoony. I really haven’t had that much time for hobbying over the Christmas break – it was a pretty busy time, but I did manage a few bits and bobs, starting with a few jungle bases:

This is a continuation of my side project to create some psychedelic jungle terrain, and is meant to provide some really dense patches of bush (fnarr fnarr) with small paths wending their way through. Placing minis on said path is a bit of a bugger, but is absolutely doable. There will be plenty more to follow on this project, so expect to see the odd bit of jungle turning up over the coming months!

Next up we have some unplanned and unexpected Primaris Space Marines… yeah, random! There is an explanation though – my youngest son surprised me a few days before ‘the big day’ by asking for some… He was quite clear that we needed some real ‘goodies’ in the collection, and that the heroically proportioned and clean-cut Marines were the way to go:

We (I) got them built and undercoated gold over the break, but my boy dictated the weapon loadout & colour scheme, as well as doing all the drybrushing & inkwashing. It was great to see him totally absorbed by the process, and I have a feeling that he might get into the hobby as he gets older:

There is no specific chapter in mind for these guys – my boy wanted to do his own colour scheme, so the purple & gold is very much ‘rule of cool’. I reckon it looks rather smart! I specifically left out some of the finer details, (like highlights on the coloured panels and chapter iconography), just so that they can be improved at some point in the future. No doubt my son and I will slowly grow this small band of brothers as the year progresses, and I’m actually looking forward to doing some more – they are really rather nice to paint! Unlike a lot of folks, I don’t have any skin in the Astartes game, so I was actually happy to see correctly proportioned Marines hit the market… There. I’ve said it… I’m coming out as a secret Primaris fan. Hell, I can even largely ignore the awful & clunky fluff that justifies their existence! As far as I am concerned, this is what Marines look like now – indeed, they should always have been this big, so this as-yet unnamed chapter will be entirely made up of Primaris. Here are a few fun pics of them engaging some wily Eru-Kin on some distant death-world:

It hasn’t all been space jungle & giant Marines over the holiday though, there has also been the ‘small’ matter of Azazel’s ‘Painting Decembruary’ challenge… Happily, my version of Arkhan is progressing very nicely – the build is finished and I have started adding colour, but I’m keeping all that under wraps for now so you’ll have to settle for more B&W for the time being:

That’s it for now folks, hope you enjoyed the post & catch you all soon!

Painting Decembruary update, and a little bit of jungle

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by Alex in AoS Undead, OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Conversion, Oldhammer, scenery, Undead

Hi guys, just a few bits to share with you all today – my main effort has been focussed on progressing my big Deadcember / ‘Painting Decembruary’ project. I also got a little more jungle built as well, but let’s take a look at the big fella first:

As described in my previous post, the main part of the build is the rather lovely Death Dragon from Grenadier Masterpiece Editions. Happily, all the pinning, bracing and filling worked out really well, and the beasty has held together & can successfully bear its own weight. I have jazzed up the base with some scenic bits and bobs, and ghosts from the Mortis Engine kit, (an accompanying host of spirits are ‘a thing’ in the AoS warscroll).

I have also done some work on Arkhan himself – he’s a funny character to capture really, what with him being a Liche King, a powerful sorcerer, and a pretty formidable fighter too. He is based on an old metal skeleton knight, with some newer plastics added to refine the look a little and to get him equipped correctly. The first thing that had to go was the lumpy and outsized head – this got swapped for a suitably warrior-magey one from the skeleton kit. The next thing to get sorted were the weapons… Arkhan is supposed to be armed with a staff & tomb blade, but I decided to be a bit liberal with my interpretation of his gear. The staff looks more like a combat weapon, and is made of various components including a bladed staff head from the tree revenant kit. His sword, (slung over his back), is also of Elven make, so it looks like my version of Arkhan might be an ancient Elven warrior-mage of some sort! I also added a small jousting shield from the Brettonian Knight kit – it’s a smaller item than the one that the model is designed for, so it doesn’t hide the figure in the same way, but still gives me a flat area for some freehand. Here’s a closeup for you:

Terrible photos I know, but hopefully you get the idea. I still have some work to do – he needs a sleeve added to that right arm, and a proper saddle for example. I’ll be breaking out the green-stuff this week, with the aim of getting him primed for the weekend.

In other news, I also managed to crank out some more psychedelic jungle terrain for a bit of fun:

I’ve just realised that it’s hard to judge the scale with this photo, but if you look closely there are some bits and pieces on the base that help… basically I went big here, with a vague idea that these trees are carnivorous, and that their area of effect is shown by the big bases that they sit on… They don’t have to be used this way of course, but it’s nice to have the option to go for a deathworld type narrative if I choose. I’m pretty pleased with how this little side-project is going, and have much more to add further down the road :-)

Anyhow, that’s it for now folks! I’ll try to get an update out next week, but if not then I’ll catch you dudes on the other side for the traditional retrospective post. Peace & goodwill to you all.

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Tag Archives: scenery

Mag Bellum

Stylites

The Tower of the Dead

Fembruary challenge part 2 – Vasquez

Primaris Marines (?!) and some ‘Nasty Bush’!

Painting Decembruary update, and a little bit of jungle