Category: Scenery etc

A Couple of Temples

It’s been a bit slow on the figure painting and gaming fronts lately so I’ve tried to keep going with a few other bits and pieces.

I am working on some base boards, which need to be ready for a big Sharp Practice game at the end of July. They’re not exactly picturesque while being prep’d for painting, but I’l post pics when they’re done.

Meanwhile, I have managed to knock together a couple of pieces that will serve as monuments or temples for various settings. They’ll be nice and big for 15mm Frostgrave, and about right for hiding a few 28mm figures in a skirmish.

They’re made from wine corks, cork tile and styrofoam, like a lot of the other scenery I’ve made this year. The domes are the finials from a recently retired curtain rail. I had my wargamer’s eye on them as I took it down!

Before pic:

Now to finally finish off those jungle bases I’ve been putting off for so long!

More 15mm Frostgrave Scenery

I have finished off a few additional bits of scenery for my Frostgrave set-up. The main piece is a larger bridge, and there are some more rubble piles, columns and stone walkways/jetties too. I added a pit as well, as it’s one of the extra scenery pieces you can use with the Ulterior Motives cards.

The bridge was designed by my wife, who’s taken an interest in Frostgrave and played in the first game (2 crossbowmen on the roof, I ask you…!). I did the construction under close supervision, and added optional leg extensions to allow the bridge to also span taller gaps. It was mostly made from styrofoam, but has an arched cobbled roadway using a sheet of Slaters plasticard.

A couple of drinking fountains:

There are some more bits and pieces I want to do, and I’m still finding it fun so they should happen soon!

Landing Pad

Having painted up the sci-fi buildings recently I decided something was still missing – a landing pad. There are one or two MDF models available but I thought I’d make my own instead.

So, a 6″ square piece of cork sheet, some card and a few stick-on bits and pieces, and voila…

It didn’t take very long to make, and will fit in well with my other scenery.

I can see some interesting scenarios being played out, with dramatic arrivals and escapes, and missions requiring the capture or destruction of the pad, etc.

Now I just need something to actually land on it. It’ll be back to the web for that one I think!

15mm Frostgrave Scenery

So, after a year or so of being convinced that making a my own 28mm Frostgrave scenery was just too daunting (and a future storage challenge too far), I’ve gone ahead and done it in 15mm instead!

In the end this made a lot of sense. I’ve already got a pretty good 15mm fantasy collection, both for conventional wargaming and for my dungeon game. This includes characters, monsters and some minor scenery pieces. Now, after a January styrofoam, cork and card blizzard I have produced a 3×3 ft ruined playground for wizards and their warbands to explore and fight over.

It was a lot more fun to do than I expected and I’m happy with the outcome so far. There are some more pieces to do, and most importantly there are new base boards to make. The ones in these pictures are my old winter boards and I’ll be going for something with cobbles in the future. Hopefully February will see all this finished.

I’ve had a solo test game and the 15mm figures certainly help make the whole set-up seem grander and more imposing than I would have been able to achieve in 28mm. Modelling buildings and ruins in this scale is also a lot more forgiving. I’m a basic level modeller and happy to try for a consistent look rather than finely miniaturised architecture.

Some of this scenery can also be used with my dungeon game, and for future plans for a Dark Ages/Middle Earth hybrid skirmish setting – ruins of Rome, Arnor, etc.

I’ll post more pics as I finish new bits, and hopefully some in-game shots soon.

 

 

Some More Sci-fi Bits

Around the Christmas break (which was very pleasant, though short) I have managed to finish a few more bits towards my 15mm sci-fi project.

I was given a pair of 4Ground building kits for my birthday, and have managed to get them done within 2 months of receipt – which is good going in my book!

They’re very nice, and come with removable roofs. They were fairly fiddly for someone as impatient a model-maker as me, but nothing was permanently damaged in the assembly. I decided to tie them in a bit to my other sci-fi scenery by touching up the black edging with dark green.

A new scout squad (very old TTG Laserburn figs) is checking them out:

I have also done a few other pieces, including some containers and comms equipment. Here are a couple of recent vehicle additions. A Brigade Models jeep-type thing on the left, and a Ground Zero Games APC on the right.

I’ve painted some more figures too, but the basing isn’t done yet – so no pics.

 

Brigade Models Sci-fi Buildings

To help the Sci-fi Rampant project along I decided to add a few buildings to the scenery collection, as I suspected that just having the troops run about in the woods in the middle of nowhere could get a bit dull.

Brigade Models do some excellent sets, and their Research Base was exactly the sort of thing I was after. With their winter discount running at the moment, it was 15% off too, which was a bonus. I was determined to get cracking on it when it arrived, so that it didn’t just get moved quietly onto the to-do scenery pile in a few weeks when my interest wandered in other directions.

So, after a bit of a clean-up on the bottom of the pieces, and a black undercoat, I gave them a 3-tone dry brush from dark green up to light grey. They look a bit tie-died but work OK on both my green and winter terrain boards reasonably well.

There are some small containers to do, which are included in the set, but otherwise this lot are finished – within a week of ordering, which is pretty good going for me!

Some 15mm Sci-Fi Bits

I’m slowly coming back to this ‘period’, and am looking again at using the Dragon Rampant rules to provide a manageable, fun type of game.

While I’ve been pondering the rules, and avoiding painting any actual figures, I have managed to add a few bits of scenery that I was recently given by a generous soul. These will be general items to scatter around, or make part of the scenario as objectives or targets for destruction, etc.

These are MDF kits from Blotz. They’re easy to assemble and easier to paint. I tried to find a colour scheme that would go with both my terrain colours, and I think it’ll do.

 

Changing the Setting

My naval/amphibious project has had some minor attention recently, with a view to getting things ready for a big multi-player game next year. I have added some more ground troops, including the odd tank and artillery piece, and will aim to post some pics of these soon.

Since painting some fir trees to dress the islands for a northern setting, I’ve been on the hunt for small palm trees to re-locate things in the Pacific when I want to involve the Japanese and American fleets. I tracked down a Chinese (aren’t they all?) manufacturer on eBay and bought 100 30mm palm trees for a few quid. I’d almost forgotten about them until they arrived at the start of this week. They look fine, and I’ve simply painted the trunks a darker brown and based them in 1s, 2s and 3s (as I’ve done with the fir trees). I’m not aiming for full-on jungles, I just want a few trees to create the right look.

So, here are some Germans in the Baltic:

And with a quick switch round, some Japanese in the Pacific:

September Scratchbuild Challenge

The Loose Association of Wargamers forum is running a challenge this month to use up some of the stuff that wargamers collect and hoard in the hope they’ll be useful someday. I am definitely one of those people who can’t help holding onto a decent sheet of polystyrene, cardboard tube or piece of balsa, so I decided to have a go.

Good timing then – as a new curtain pole came packed in some L-shaped card lengths, and I detected a potential use straight away!

I have been intending to buy some 28mm earthworks as defences to use in various games, particularly Sharp Practice skirmishes in the Medetian colonies. Nothing in 28mm resin is super-cheap, so I thought I might economise a bit with my new cardboard bits 🙂

This isn’t intended as a detailed step-by-step account of how I produced the final piece, but basically I cut a 30cm length and removed a section for a gun emplacement. Then I plugged the ends, and based the entire piece, with card. The remaining features were the adding of a firing step with a rear extension for the gun and crew (10mm styrofoam sandwiched between more card and decked with thin strips), a ‘planked’ shield for the gun and finally some sharpened dowel spikes to deter attackers.

I used some filler on the gaps and on the main earthwork, and covered it with sand.

Everything received a Sandtex black undercoat and a heavy brush of Sandtex bitter chocolate. The wood received a light grey drybrush before everything was finished with a sand-coloured final brush. I painted the front edge green to match my terrain boards, and that’s it done!

I just need to make a few more bits now and then get them on the table for some interesting pirate stronghold scenarios!