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This article is also available with pictures here There are some pretty neat pictures of what a heat gun can do to a Hellhound to make it look like it was melted in a fire. Hope you enjoy it.


Somewhere in an old edition of the 40k rulebook there’s a small discussion of the importance of terrain, and how some people will build three or four full armies before they even think about building scenery, gathering some pieces to make interesting battlefields can be equally important. It adds to the visual appeal of the game much like a fully painted army. Of course, it’s often hard to fit in hobby time to build scenery when there’s an army of unpainted dudes staring up angrily at you from the painting desk. No matter how important it is to have cool looking tables, we only have so much free time, and generally the choice is to build, paint, and play games with painted models over whatever terrain we’ve got.
I’m usually in the ‘just no extra time for scenery’ camp, and in this modern era of the Hobby there’s less of a need for long custom builds. With all of GW’s plastic terrain kits out now, I can’t imagine ever needing to scratch-build a crater, ruined building, or giant Space Marine statue ever again.

With that in mind, I did manage to block out some time to work on scenery; motivated mostly by the upcoming campaign and my desire to spruce up the tables with some new stuff (…mostly). And like our favorite Tyranid-template alien monsters, I came out at night, to the garage, to put some work in.

I had two terrain projects languishing in Tupperware Tub 1:

- Three sets of the old Battle for Macragge crashed Aquila lander pieces

- One old busted-down Hellhound, largely intact sans promethium tanks.

I like to build tables and corresponding terrain that tell something of a story, and I already had some ideas about what to do with each of these. For the crashed Aquila pieces, I envisioned section of open field littered with wreckage from a flight wing of craft that had taken fire and been shot down. I see forces from opposing sides making their way through the smouldering wrecks, trying to scavenge parts, look for survivors, or simply pass through, and the requisite firefight breaking out amidst the plumes of smoke. For now though, I was happy to get them all out of Tub 1 and laid out on pieces of masonite press-board, cut into oblong shapes and beveled at the edges. Of course, having masonite pre-cut into oblong shapes and beveled at the edges helps the process immensely. Thankfully I have a bunch of them in Tub 1, the remains of a previous start-stop session of terrain building. I tried to make sure that the pieces that were mounted together on a base were next to each other in some cohesion, based on the shape of the lander pre-disaster. It was then a simple matter to slather the pieces with Liquid Nails around the bottom edge and squish them onto their bases, then smooth out the adhesive around the joint and set them aside to dry.

The Hellhound has little more specific of a story: In the upcoming Avellorn campaign, I’m planning an Apocalypse game for the finale, the table layout of which consists of the lower level of the central hive city, the perimeter walls, and the lowland outskirts of the hive just beyond the walls. I imagined that the defenders in the hive were well dug-in inside the city and have their hands full dealing with the insurgency (or alien attack, or what have you, as the story develops). Unbeknownst to them, though, is the alien horde (or insurgent reinforcements, or whatever, as above) advancing through the lowlands to land a hammer blow on the lower levels of the hive and send the defenders scrambling. An Imperial scout squadron caught visuals of the advancing force, and immediately turned back to warn the defenders in the hive. Most of the tanks were destroyed in the chase, but this one lone Hellhound is churning across the field. Defenders and attackers alike within the hive see the trail of dust kicked up behind the tank, and the air hangs heavy and still for a moment as both sides watch. Then, the contrail of one last hail-Mary missile streaks (or the final salvo of bio-acid splashes, you get the idea) onto the tank, wrecking it in a massive fireball as the promethium tanks on its hull explode. The tank lurches to a halt within clear sight of the hive’s gate and a huge, dark plume of black smoke tumbles into the sky.

Yeah, it’s a lot of backstory for one piece of terrain. I know. Coming up with this nonsense is a big part of my Hobby.

So anyway, I grabbed out the tank and a suitably-sized piece of masonite to be it’s base, and then I got out my favorite hobby tool of all time:Yes, a heat gun. It’s the most fun you’ll have making nearly anything, and I try and find a use for it as often as possible, especially since mine is a burly industrial one that gets really hot. Hey, you load your troops down with as much melta as the rules allow, why not get one for yourself? After a liberal application of melta death to the back side of the tank and the turret, my little tank that (almost) could looked very much like it had its whole back end melted in an inferno. Quasi-Mandatory Disclaimer: blasting your minis with a heat gun gives off toxic fumes, blah blah blah. I put my shirt collar over my face when I was melting, then turned on my big air-circulator afterward to clear the garage out. Yeah, I’m a bad, bad hobbyist. You should not do that, of course, and only perform this procedure in a properly ventilated area with correct supervision yadda yadda yadda.

I also got to use my melta on the piece that Lola was building while I was fumbling with Aquila landers. I’ll leave the specifics of that for her article, but for now I will say that it looks pretty neat.

All that remains for the Hellhound is to mount it to its base (we had run out of Liquid Nails after Lola was done with it!), and then finish both it and the Aquila Landers with some sand and a coat of paint, then build the smoke plumes, and I’ll have enough terrain for a crash-site battlefield, and a very characterful piece to anchor the center of one side of an Apocalypse game. And it only took about two hours in the garage, and that was with plenty of hang-around time!

Even if you’re not planning to build a fully-modeled game table, it’s not too much of a chore to put together a handful of neat pieces of terrain. Even a couple new pieces of cool terrain that has some visual appeal beyond the simple necessity of things like craters and barricades can reinvigorate a tired layout. Painted armies and finished terrain go hand-in-hand, and a little bit of time can go a long way to making your game more enjoyable.

Plus, you get to use a literal meltagun! Sign me up!

-Dis.
Like I said, if you want the pics of the terrain and what that heat gun is truly capable of visit Capture and Control

This is Awesome Battle damage Redefined.

WOW! Thats complex. I like the idea of the story and how it all connects to eachother. The destroyed tank looks incredible. Keep up the good work!

I have a heavy duty industrial heat gun and the thing is freakin awesome, it is pretty fun to melt things and it can make for some awesome terrain.

I'm finding out that these dead threads are holding some of the most useful information for DIY style woot