I also have a closet of shame, but mine pales in comparison, and that makes me a bit jealous.

M.

I have drawers of shame... you win with the room full of unbuilt plastics! that sure is an impressive terrain collection that will be insane to play over once you've assembled it all.

I've no idea how you lose an entire army though!

"We're back in hardware mode!" - Tony Stark

It's been a while since this terrain blog has seen a proper construction update. Having spent the better part of a fortnight organising and consolidating all my various unbuilt minis and terrain, putting them into endless tubs and a number of leftover boxes, I got the hankering to put a few things together.

Now my mantra for "Phase 2" of my Sector Mechanicus stuff has always been "The Only Way Is Up!", as I need to add height to the terrain I have. As demonstrated by this shot:

... you can see that whilst there's a good amount there, the overwhelming majority of it is only one level (5") high. I've been calling this phenomena "planing" since the days of Oldcromunda, where you could have a great looking board set up, but if a majority (even just over 50%) of the buildings were of the same height, your games either took place entirely at that level, or on the ground level. In other words, if everything is one level high, nothing is one level high.

So I need to go up, and I actually plan on recreating the OG Necromunda terrain using the Sector Mechanicus stuff. Some of that will be 3 stories (15") tall, and everything else at least 2 stories (10") tall. But for now I wanted to do something else.

Back when I made this thing, I originally went back and forth about whether I wanted to include any of the walkway bits, or just stick the domes directly to the big stacks. In the end I went with the floors, as the whole thing morphed into a much larger and modular building. But the desire to make freestanding domed towers was still there.

Fellow Dakkanaut aphyon has been posting a lot of BatRep pictures lately, and a number of them (including those two linked) take place atop this mat created by Gamemat.eu. I own this mat, although I have yet to use it, and you can see from aphyon's and the store's pics that there are some nice big circles towards the top of the map, exactly the kind of thing some free-standing domed towers would look good on.

So I decided I'd do two that were one stack high (plus the dome), and then another that was two stacks high (again, plus the dome). Thinking on it further I decided that a two story tower like that, whilst nice, might be a bit top heavy and prone to falling over. So I thought that I could perhaps put some large protrusions coming out the side to see if that not only made it look more like some sort of insane machinery, but also give it a larger base and stop it from potentially falling over (this is another problem I'll soon be revisiting in a piece I'm calling the Lothal Tower later on).

But before I can get started, we've got a bit of prep work to do, and some experimenting with measurements.

I started off by getting out the sprues I thought I'd need:


Next, I set the mood with some theme-appropriate smooth jazz:


And got to work on de-spruing my remaining platforms, starting with the curved platforms before moving onto the straight platforms:


And then onto the half-round platforms!:


When all was said and done, I had a boatload of new platforms, extra bits and TONS of shields:


This is my platform box before adding the ones I had just de-sprued:


And with everything added - I have quite a stock now!:


With all of that out of the way, it was time to start experimenting.

Firstly I got out all the various connector and pipe types, so that I could test everything using as many of these as possible:


I got an existing stack out to experiment with pipe layouts, and quickly built one of the many furnaces I'd end up needing:


You can kinda see where I'm going with the above, but I needed to test the spacing with two levels. I quickly whipped up another furnace plus a second stack so I could see how this would work (or not work):


I kept testing with other ideas, including mixing a kiln with a furnace and an L-shaped pipe:


The next day rolled around, and I needed more testing objects. I built another stack and a dome to help keep going. It's a testament to my near-endless supplies of terrain bits that I can build two furnaces, two stacks and a dome just for testing purposes with no intention of using any of them in the final piece!:


I thought about doing something unusual, and using the walkways as flooring rather than gantries. To do that you need to add a few extra connectors to make as much flat surface on the underside as possible. At this stage I was still experimenting with adding additional floor pieces:


First major test to see how it would work... failure. The top curved pipe is taller than the connector on the dome (circled):


Second test, this time moving the floor up a level, but that didn't work either:


I could see that from the initial tests using the painted stack/dome that it needed a single set of rounded floors to make the connection work, but I still wanted to see if I could avoid that. The difference is a matter of a few mm's after all, so could I find a way around it?

Well, so far I've been using the Plasma Conduits as pipes. They're fairly heavy duty parts with a lot of internal plastic structure. Makes cutting them, especially curved ones, a real pain. The basic curved pipes that come in the Sector Mechanicus sets (and I think were even part of the Cities of Death sets) are a lot more 'flimsy' meaning that I may just be able to cut off the bottom rim:


And it works! With that part cut away it actually fits in there... kinda:


See the issue is it's not an exact science, and the Sector Mechanicus stuff has been engineered in such a way that it has very little tolerance for variation. This one fit fine, but what about the other sides of this tower? What? You thought I was just doing one stack of furnaces?

So, despite not wanting to include any floor panels, I came to the conclusion that in order to make the measurements work, I'd have to use the design from my original experiment - with the floor panels directly between the top stack and the dome. Ok, not exactly what I wanted, but it'll work. The join between the two stacks can be floor-less, as can the join between the various furnaces. And the two shorter accompanying stacks/domes can continue to have no flooring as I intended.

So it was time to assemble the actual sprues I needed from this, as I'd need specific panels for stacks and domes that only come one per sprue (and somewhere in there I made another test stack - yes, just casually putting two of them together even though neither of them will end up in this tower!):


The main part for the stacks I need is this panel:


And I need three of them:


Did I say three of them? I meant three of them per level:


Much gluing commenced, with a brief break to make dinner, leaving with me with the gathered components for two short towers, one tall tower, and all the various add-ons for the big tower:


With the board set, I will commence construction tomorrow.

Until then...

BYE

I don't have enough money to fill a room with terrain like you did. I mean I have the money for the terrain but a new room involves buying a quite bigger house

M.

My whole house smells like glue now.

Anyway, back to the grind. It's time to put into practice what the prep-work from yesterday got us to!

Starting off with two basic things - gluing the two stacks together, and gluing the dome to the flooring underneath. Also added the fantop caps to the three furnaces that would make up the second level. Finally I added all the small end caps that would give everything the necessary spots to fit together. Those are very important:


Next I started adding in the first of the three furnace columns, connecting them to the end caps I had just added. The dome isn't there as that goes on last. This was tough as there's a little give on the furnaces - the big vent at the front is larger than any end cap, so there's actually room to move around. Had to be very careful here to not have it go off at a weird angle that could cause problems later:


With the first one out of the way, I put the other two furnace columns in place. Now you finally get to see what this will end up looking like:


I knew that would take a while to dry to the point where I could both move it around and exert pressure on the top as I added the dome/flooring and curved pipes, so I moved onto other tasks. I still had the other shorter dome stacks to complete, so stuck the domes to the stacks themselves, and got to work on the extras (so that they weren't just domed cylinders in the end).

To start with, adding a door. The doors that are part of the stack kit are two sided, with a mechanical side:


... and a flat side:


When put in place, the hinges on the mechanical side give you this:


Sadly, with the flat side, it doesn't work just as it comes, leaving the door upside down:


So I did some minor hinge surgery:


Kept the hinges, and glued them into place separately:


And now the flat side sits right side up! :


Whilst working out what extra bits would go onto the two smaller towers, I discovered that the lattice cap from the dome sprue actually fits over the Cog Mechanicum symbol, so I did that to make them a bit different from one another:


I gathered all the extra bits for the two smaller towers:


And put it all together!



I then got some very different ingredients for a different kind of "construction project":


With a few hours passed it was time to finish the large tower, starting with putting the flooring/dome in place, and then getting the three pipes into the right spots. This was actually a mad dash, as I had to do all four at the same time to ensure I had enough time to adjust the dome/flooring to allow the curved pipes to fit into place.

Eventually I got it all done, and an old friend of mine joined me in triumph:


Here's a rear shot, so you can see the third furnace column:


And what it looks like from above:


Finally, a nice big group shot of all three constructions completed:


Next up will be some more free standing Sector Mechanicus bits that don't rely on platforms and struts. Essentially just large-ish scatter terrain that looks cool. After that, we get onto the long gestating Central Fuel Processing plant, or I may do the Lothal Tower. Whichever takes my fancy.

Until then...

BYE

Looking real good. The furnace tanks are a lot of fun! Great kits (even if the price makes me cry)

excellent stuff, i do not envy you painting all that though, look forward to see how this looks completed

That is an awe inspiring amount of terrain. The furnace tanks look great!

And we're back for a quickfire new building: The Domestove.

This one was inspired by something Ray Dranfield - aka the guy who designed all this terrain - put up on his twitter many moons ago.

It's a fairly simple build, so I won't be doing a step-by-step. Instead it's a story in three parts.

We begin with all the pieces I'll be using arrayed nicely:


Next we prep those pieces, sticking together the main components in preparation for the actual build:


And finally the entire thing is complete. No walkways or complex levels. Just an unusual stand-alone piece of scatter terrain that would look good in any industrial, city or hive board.


From here I've got 6 major buildings planned out. Three of those are recreations of the OG Necromunda terrain, and the process will use 20 of the curved walkways that I have. Thankfully I have nearly 40 of the things, so I won't run out halfway through. Two of them will remain at 1 story high, but that's because they're less Necromunda platforms and more interesting regular 40k buildings. The others will be tall!

After that... I don't know what I'm going to do! Maybe I'll start taking requests?

That big tower is mightily impressive! Feels like it may need some jury-rigged wiring between the furnaces and the main stack, as it's looking very l clean/well maintained at the moment?

Great (and inspiring) work.

Ray Dranfield is a genius - the number of ways you can assemble those kits and the way it all fits together is incredible.

I forget if you mentioned, did you get Kill Team boxes for the Ork terrain? I'm curious to see what you could come up with based on how modular or how supported that ends up being.

I got a couple of KT boxes, but that terrain isn't really modular. It's a bit like the terrain that comes in the current 40k starters: It's set corners, only one level high, with no real variation.

They do link together to form a bigger building, which is nice, but they're nothing like the Sector Mechanicus/Imperialis kits, or even the Ryza Ruins kits.

New 40k terrain is like current 40k models: Mono-pose with very little variety, but very pretty.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I got a couple of KT boxes, but that terrain isn't really modular. It's a bit like the terrain that comes in the current 40k starters: It's set corners, only one level high, with no real variation.

They do link together to form a bigger building, which is nice, but they're nothing like the Sector Mechanicus/Imperialis kits, or even the Ryza Ruins kits.

New 40k terrain is like current 40k models: Mono-pose with very little variety, but very pretty.

Yeah i am thinking some of those war scenery grim dark gothic buildings are looking pretty good for an urban table about now.

Were I starting from scratch, I might consider such a thing. But I already have so much "ruined city" terrain that I can't think about getting more.

I mean, I found 3 untouched Cities of Death sprues during my cleanup. They're from the Renegade box GW put out (before they replaced 'em with Sector Mechanicus terrain for the reissue of that box). And I know I have more CoD stuff unbuilt. I just don't know how much. That's on top of all the other built CoD stuff I have (of which this is a fraction).

Just don't need more ruins (unless it's xenos terrain, in which case I'm game!). And I like building full buildings.

I am good on ruins as well, i was thinking more about these

A friend of mine is getting the type of 3D printer that can do those sorts of buildings soon, so I may be able to get a few big things like that.

I found more terrain that I didn't know I had.

Turns out I don't have only 3 Domes left. I have quite a few more than that. Yay me.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I found more terrain that I didn't know I had.

Turns out I don't have only 3 Domes left. I have quite a few more than that. Yay me.

Sometimes exploring the back of the closet is like Christmas.

Yeah I'll say..



(Not Picture: The four full Plasma Conduit sprues and extra Haemotrope Reactor sprue I found)

That is some really cool usage of this set. I love the big tower with the three side towers coming off of it. That would give good cover even to a titan! It will be great if you get around to continuing to paint your stuff. What an epic battlefield you can have.

The end of an era.

I de-sprued the last 4 Cities of Deaths sprues I still had left over. And I can't really get any more.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The end of an era.

I de-sprued the last 4 Cities of Deaths sprues I still had left over. And I can't really get any more.

Those were good sets. I was always irritated by the preruined units (I have clippers damnit!) but they were darn good sets, and better priced than their replacements.

HBMC are you going to give 3D printing a try? I've yet to take the plunge but as older sets disappear and a printer is literally the price of 2-3 tanks it's getting harder to say no.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Those were good sets. I was always irritated by the preruined units (I have clippers damnit!) but they were darn good sets...

Yeah, I keep building undamaged buildings, meaning I have tons and tons of ruined sections left. You should see how many ruined floor section off-cuts I have left over. I found tons of them in a box, and then found a big ziplock back that was just full of even more.

Also turns out I have about 39 full floor sections left. Going to have to use them very carefully...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
... and better priced than their replacements.

A single Sector Imperialis set costs as much as the old Imperial Sector box used to cost. Not that you can buy Sector Imperialis stuff anymore, as GW terrain tends to vanish off of store shelves without reason or warning.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
HBMC are you going to give 3D printing a try? I've yet to take the plunge but as older sets disappear and a printer is literally the price of 2-3 tanks it's getting harder to say no.

Me personally? Not for a bit. Although there are three 3D printers in my group, and I have another friend who is getting the type that makes printing terrain easy, so it's not a hard thing to have.

I think it's how we intend to eventually get Battlefleet Gothic stuff. Emperor knows GW sure ain't selling it to us...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


I think it's how we intend to eventually get Battlefleet Gothic stuff. Emperor knows GW sure ain't selling it to us...

BFG is in such a good place these days with fan support and multiple options for alternate minis, it's on my list of games to dive into and probably never play.

BFG and Adeptus Titanicus are thriving in the 3D printing world and probably will for quite some time to come which is great to keep the player base active!

Loving the latest terrain build, it is going to make a great centerpiece for a board when you wrangle up the space to lay everything out.

Disaster!

The place I ordered Kill Team: Octarius from only sent me one copy.

Thankfully they were quick to correct the error, found a spare box, and are shipping it to me later today.

And with this marvellous thing going on pre-order this Saturday:

... I should be able to get a proper Orky city up and running in no time.

Hmm... I don't own a Mek Workshop, come to think of it...

So, do any'a y'all reckon I can make the big beefy jaw from the Battlewagon:



... fit onto the front of the Bossbunka?

And I got a third set of Octarius terrain. Ork city here we come.

I think you’ll be surprised by just how big that boss head bunker is, I know I was. I think all the Ork Terrain you make should all be parts of an as of yet assembled giant stomp robot. Have a long building with pipes coming out of the end looking like a arm, hand and fingers. Another building looking like a big foot. All with propa amounts of shorty parts.

GW removing that scenery (and other items) without warning is a pain especially when you start a project and then cannot get the items you need, love that furnace building with the 3 sides BTW

As always, impressive, most impressive H.B.M.C.

Cheers,

CB

A question for everyone.

Galeforce 9 makes, as part of their Battlefield in a Box terrain, an Elven Tower, pictured here:


They also make a series of matching pillars, both ruined and intact:


Now, me being me, I of course already own the tower and two sets of pillars - bought 'em years ago! - but I've been wondering how to use them. In the end I decided it would be fun to make them part of the overgrown Eldar terrain for my Deathworld board. I've already got a Webway Gate that I'm going to festoon with creeping vines and braken, and whilst it's very easy to stick the same things to that tower and pillar, one problem remains:

They're very white!

It's a very clean and pristine set of Elf terrain, and I'm wonder how I could go around dirtying it up a bit.

So my question to people with perhaps more painting experience than me (which would be most of you! ):

Would it be as simple as going over these with some various brown and green washes? Contrast paints? How else could I do this to darken these down and make them look older and more weather beaten?

Thanks everyone!

Brown ink with a bit of green ink for moss?

I agree with the poster above - moss & a light wash around the base. Vines or other vegetation would add more 'age' and perhaps fragmented pieces or a broken / shattered base would also help you to define the terrainpiece. Just my 2 cents.

I went down the video hole of YouTube for moss and grime effects, and ended up watching stuff on creating water ripples.

I wonder if you can use Woodland Scenic water ripple stuff straight onto Battlefield in a Box rivers...

A quick google image search for Eldar terrain has lots of examples of weathered white tower pieces that you could draw inspiration from. I had to stop looking before I decided to make some for myself! From what I could see of the pictures there seems to be either a watered down brown wash over the whole thing, or a very light drybrush to give the piece more depth.

I'd just play around with some washes and see what works! Normally I would suggest sponging on some battle damage but as it is Eldar terrain I like to imagine it would be a little more subtle and just yellow slightly over the ages.

Vines and grass tufts would obviously look great, maybe even flowers to add a splash of colour?

H.M.B.C.

This is how I did some of my Eldar ruins:



Cheers,

CB

Sweet. That's actually kinda exactly what I'm going for.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Sweet. That's actually kinda exactly what I'm going for.

Vines were just string unraveled randomly at the end, then sprayed with some spray glue and flock scattered over it. Hang it from a clothes line until dry and bend to fit your terrain and secure with glue.

Chile pepper seeds and static grass on the base.

Hope that helps,

CB

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It's been a year... hmm...



I

I'm a big fan of the Quad-Bastion + Landing Pad thing at the top of that shelf in the second pic. There's two an a half Bastions and a Skyshield in that thing. Plus some CoD terrain.

I'd love more pics of that bastion landing pad. I'm already planning to steal your creativity given time and money but that looks amazing

Oh boy... here we go again...



Not sure where to begin with this lot. Also add two Dark Uprising sets to this.

So that is where the world supply of floor tiles has gone!

Out of curiosity, if you stretch the gang stronghold, how long a line can you make?

I'd estimate 14 squares long. Each tile is 6 squares long, so you'd need 3 for a single stronghold, assuming no bends and you put something on every square.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd estimate 14 squares long. Each tile is 6 squares long, so you'd need 3 for a single stronghold, assuming no bends and you put something on every square.

How big is a square?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'd estimate 14 squares long. Each tile is 6 squares long, so you'd need 3 for a single stronghold, assuming no bends and you put something on every square.

How big is a square?

You can't ask that It's a new measurement device used for Killteam. Circles, Squares, Triangles and all other shapes are the new norm.

Squares on the necromunda tiles are 2"

What do you have planned for all of those kits? I could see them all combining nicely to make a giant entrance to the Hive City itself.

 Commander Cain wrote:
What do you have planned for all of those kits? I could see them all combining nicely to make a giant entrance to the Hive City itself.

The idea is to make the front half (or thereabouts) of two different fortresses.

One will be more solid, taller and built up, representing the front of a Enforcer Precinct Bastion. The other will be a little more ramshackle and asymmetrical, being a gang stronghold. Each of these will be spread across 3 tiles, and use two stronghold kits each (plus whatever else I need to make them work). Behind the walls will just be some random gubbinz and bits and what not - barrels, containers, crates, weapon racks, etc,.

The other tiles will then be a collection of various terrain bits - generators, some higher levels - but generally not your typical Zone Mortalis stuff. I don't need this terrain to perform the function of what most people do with Zone Mortalis terrain. I already have tons of the original Newcromunda card tiles (both original and Badzone Delta) plus I have this, and that takes care of Zone Mortalis games. This is for variety and to allow a kind of "2Fort" fight over no man's land between two fortresses.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the stronghold bits...
Mostly to steal ideas

Nice, I was wondering if you were going to build some of these. Are you planning on gluing the stronghold down to the tiles?

That's a great sounding idea! Two opposing forts over a wall/debris strewn field could end up looking like a Unreal tournament/Halo multiplayer CTF style board. That would be a fun skirmish game, both sides trying to infiltrate the forts or something like that.

I'm very interested to see how you work everything in with your extensive terrain creativity.

So... I'm unsure of what to do with some terrain pieces.

Aside from the "Industrial Insanity", there are a few other terrain projects that are part of my overall goal to massively level up my terrain.

Two such boards are a very Chaos-themed board, and a Deathworld board. Now the Deathworld side of things is covered by the actual Deathworld plant terrain GW sells/sold, plus a Realmshaper Engine, two boxes of these to bulk out the forest/jungle side of things, an Eldar Web Gate and some Battlefield in a Box Elf terrain that I plan on dirtying up. Combined with a bunch of vines and bracken, I can make them look fine. I think! But the Deathworld board can't just be ancient Eldar ruins, so I want to do some old human ruins, equally covered in vines and whatnot. I have tons of leftover Cities of Death stuff that I could easily repurpose, but I'm not sure it has enough of an ancient look.

So, part of me thinks I could achieve an ancient dilapidated and "reclaimed by nature" aesthetic with this terrain (dirtied up and with a healthy amount of added vegetation):


That's the original Warcry boxed set terrain, for those who can't place it. I have two full sets (because of course I do!).

However, as I mentioned above, I want to do a Chaos-themed board as well with a volcanic style mat to look like a blasted wasteland. Up until recent that board was not coming along that well because it mostly consisted of this and a full ring of Dreadhold terrain. Dreadhold terrain is huge, and if you use too much of it on a single board it kind of dominates the entire table. Luckily I have four of the ruined pieces to break things up a bit, allowing me to keep the full fortress for special scenarios and whatnot, but it means that the rest of the table is decidedly bare.

Thankfully, the kind fools at Games Workshop have seen fit to grace us with this spectacular set of terrain from the new Warcry box:


I have managed to secure two sets of this terrain (and just the terrain), meaning I can do a kind of "Chaos mine" table, with it set up around the ruins of an old fortress wall.

So, do I combine this with the original War Cry stuff to go Full Chaos with everything, or keep that stuff for the non-Eldar side of the overgrown Deathworld board? Or is there a third option, such as taking all the spiky barricades from the set (which I'll have 4 of, as the Red Harvest terrain comes with 1 sprue of this per set as well), and start adding that to regular Cities of Death terrain along side whatever Chaos stuff I still have in my bitz box to make Chaos-i-fied Imperial terrain? It's what I plan to do with some terrain when making an Ork table.

I also think it would be fun, given that it's a mining operation, to spruce up the Chaos table with some GF9 Blood Crystals, as if that was what they're mining, and even a Blood River, as that can work really well with some of the Red Harvest terrain acting as a bridge.

So I need to know what to do with the OG Warcry terrain, because splitting it could leave too little for either table, and I like to be able to make two different tables out of any terrain type I have (eg. I own about two tables worth of desert terrain, of mountain/forest/river terrain, or Martian terrain, and so on), to avoid having one biome always be the same whenever we use it.

Thoughts?

Wow, the warcry terrain is super cool. The ruins look sigmarite in origin, so they clash a bit with the obviously chaosy mine.

However, the mine could of course have been built long after the sigmarite city was conquered by chaos, and it sounds like you need more buildings for that table, so I would go for that option.

Not a fan of the blood stuff, it looks very cartoony compared to the grimdark AOS stuff. Could be salvaged with paint though.

If you already have a realmshaper and eldar buildings in the jungle, a third, totally different kind of ruin might break immersion. A better option there might be an imperial research outpost or similar.

I think you could combine the two sets as a former Sigmarite town conquered by chaos. The bottom of some of the newer set has building parts that match the first set. so start your your board with one side being a river or uncovered vein of the chaos mineral that is being mined and have it slowly transition over to the remains of a Sigmar stronghold. The original warcry set has a lot of building parts that have iron grills on it the doors. That would make a nice "Bank" to store the accumulated wealth, or a prison to lock up the slaves they use to mine the minerals. The more solid features of the first set would provide cover and a good stronghold for the warband running the camp, as well as an alarm/lunch bell for the gang.

I'm not too much of a fan of the other terrain that you showed through the links. Sorry, they are just not to the same quality of style as the other two sets.

Edit: another cool idea might be make the mining set with 4 supports in the corner and maybe a central support as well so that the sigmar village can be on a board above it with lights underneath it to give the lower level a cave-like feel.

Ooooh, I love that second idea with multi-level board. Takes the build difficulty up by a lot of course. A slightly easier option in the same vein would be to have the mine inside a hollow mountain, with the city and fortress outside

And for the record - none of this will be for AoS.

 Illumini wrote:
If you already have a realmshaper and eldar buildings in the jungle, a third, totally different kind of ruin might break immersion. A better option there might be an imperial research outpost or similar.

I don't intend to use them all at the same time in a single game.

The idea is to be able to vary up the terrain so that my "Deathworld" board isn't always "Deathworld with Eldar Ruins" board. It's "Deathworld w/Imperial Ruins" or "Deathworld w/Eldar Ruins".

I agree that these GF9 kits do look a bit naff. All your other ideas sound really good tho. Chaos mine makes me think of the various evil archaeology done in Dan Abnett's books.

Two possible Deathworld boards...we salute you H.B.M.C.

Cheers,

CB

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:
I agree that these GF9 kits do look a bit naff. All your other ideas sound really good tho. Chaos mine makes me think of the various evil archaeology done in Dan Abnett's books.

Evil Archaeology is now my official hobby.

 Illumini wrote:
Wow, the warcry terrain is super cool. The ruins look sigmarite in origin, so they clash a bit with the obviously chaosy mine.

However, the mine could of course have been built long after the sigmarite city was conquered by chaos, and it sounds like you need more buildings for that table, so I would go for that option.

If you look at the mine bits, you can see some of the same walls being used to support the taller runoffs, so it'll match nicely if all the walls are painted the same and allows for more of the runoffs to be running above ground, rather than at floor level. I'm envisioning an old town that got hit by a giant glowing meteorite that the chaos cults are now mining (think Mordheim where you don't need to go scrounging for little fragments). It gives you the opportunity to have giant coloured rocks/crystals dotted over the table for mining

You could try using some of the Necromunda stronghold bits for your jungle.
Just leave the top half of the walls and you have plenty of waist high walls.
Also lookout towers and mini slios

The day of reckoning approaches. Soon™ I will have a whole host of new shelving in my gaming room, which will give me space to store my terrain, and more space to store as-yet unbuilt terrain, and make the room useable.

To help with that I decided it was best to put together some terrain that specifically isn't modular. The types of things that don't take time to design or figure out, and things that, if not built, are just taking up more room on their sprues than they would be if I stuck 'em all together.

So I gathered together a whole host of fuel tanks, pipes and my two plastic Void Shield Generators, and spent a bit of time getting everything together:

A Legion of Tanks
Firstly I built the other 5 of these. I love this piece, even if it shows a disturbing trend in GW's terrain (there is literally no other way to put this together - even the pegs inside are different sizes to prevent any form of customisation). I intend to keep a couple free standing, use some with Zone Mortalis, and incorporate one into the 'Fuel Building' that will be part of my Void Shield trio:



Pipes'a'Plenty
The last thing I need are more pipes - I think I have around 12 full sprues of Plasma Conduits still to use - but with the new terrain you got more pipes. And, as with a lot of recent GW terrain (and miniatures in general) it is a regression in their modularity and options. These only go together the way you see them here. There's nothing you can do to alter them in any way unless you start cutting into plastic. They also have the feet built into the pipes, rather than a separate bit that allowed you to mount them as you saw fit as with the Plasma Conduit kit.

Damned shame, but it does mean that I can use all my other pipes for whatever I want, rather than needing to make 'ground pipes', as I have enough of those (plus the big control console piece you get in each set is awesome).

(Messed up the file transfer on this pic, so it's a bit pixelated!)

Auto-Choral thingy...
I can't remember what this thing is called. All I know is that it's weird and I wish I had 2 of them. Here's either side.




The Void of Hell
Kits like the Void Shield generator make me thankful for men like Ray Dranfield. He came along and designed a kit that was engineered to an amazing level. Pretty much everything in the Sector Mechanicus set is designed to go together, and it doesn't take much effort to fix the things that don't.

Compare this to the Void Shield Generator, a nightmare of identical parts that have to be placed in specific directions, and parts that seem simple but are actually complicated beyond reason. And then you have to deal with the instructions that were from the time of grainy dark isometric pics with limited instructions of what you were meant to do, combining multiple steps into a single area without telling you the exact order. I'm glad those days are gone.

Each Void Shield Generator has 4 pylons, and you'd think they'd be the easy part, but no, they have 15 pieces each. Each!



Putting these together was a chore.


But it gets worse. After I completed both parts and was ready to finally put the central part onto the base, I discovered that the instructions lie!


See the four things that stick up from the centre of each cog? In the instructions, you're told to stick those onto the cogs at that step. Then, during the 'put the central bit on' step, those same four things are stuck to the legs of the central area and not the four cogs. This makes putting it together when they're stuck to the cogs very difficult, and I had to sit there with my fingers in a spider web-like arrangement of holding all four things in place as best I could whilst pushing down to get firm contact. Insane. The person who designed this should go to miniature jail.

And it's like that for every part of this. Nothing goes together exactly right, and so often you're just left hoping that you interpreted the instructions correctly.

Anyway, I eventually got them done...



I have one more Void Shield Generator - the original Polystone one GW put out. I sure hope superglue works with that...

Until next time!

BYE

Awesome review.

Definitely enjoying this blog.

Those 6 tanks look more like giant pistons to me. Possibly a world engine table set up would be in order.

Are the new pipes at least compatible with the old pipes?

They are, yes. Same height and they work with the Plasma Conduits and the old Promethium pipes I believe.

What a nice find!



The Defence Network was still in shrink wrap.

I've spent most of the day clearing up. Sprue Mountain grows!

We need an update!

 Kaptin_Grubkrumpa wrote:
We need an update!

Agreed! More! More! More!

Hello!

It has been a while. This is a quick post to cover off two things.

The first is a couple of quick shots of a Bastion/Landing Pad kit-bash that someone requested better pics of. This 'Landing Bunker' was fun to make, although it is somewhat fragile as it lacks any real internal support and Bastion walls are thin. But, as long as I handle it with care, it should be fine.






The second thing is partially why there's been so little movement: A lack of room to put anything!

Thankfully, this is revolving itself nicely, so as you will see, where once there was Chaos:





... there is now order:





Now that is but a fraction of the terrain I own, as you have all seen from all my previous examples, but it is a big start to clearing enough space to not only let me build the rest, but store it and make use of that second bedroom for more than just box bedlam!

And that's just the first half of the room. The other half is a work in progress, as you can see here:



I even have a bar with hooks for my mats.

Anyway, there's something big that I've been putting off for years that I think I have to build now, if only to get it onto that top shelf in the very last picture so it's no longer taking up a giant box in the middle of that room.

What could I possibly be I talking about? Well... let's just say that it comes with a sense of Dread.

BYE

Nice job on the Basipad! Totally agree with you about the walls and attachment points, it's the one thing separating the Bastion from being a truly great kit. If the walls were designed to lock together better you could make all kinds of massive fortresses. Some sprue or plastic rod inside might hold it together better.

You could also cover the open windows with some plastic card, they always bugged me. Who puts open windows in a kit with no interior?

And the shelves on the other side of the room are done!



Now to fill them.

Wow i think you may actually have more terrain mats than me.

I have 9. Need another hook.

Oh i thought those were 2 different racks, you need to step up your game...i have

.bocage 28mm 6X4
.bocage 16-5mm 6X4
.ruined city 28mm 6x4
.city 28mm 6X4
.ocean 6X4
.mars factory 28mm 6x4
.outpost semi rural 28mm 6x4 (a micro art studio mat for infinity before they reduced the game table size)
.infinity tech city 28mm 4X4
.cobblestone ruined medieval town 4x4
.X2 desert 4x4
.X2 space 4X4
.urban titan city 6-15mm 4x4
.city center 6-15mm 4x4

(15)

H.B.M.C.



I know you had a lot of terrain...but not that much.

CB

You're a national treasure and a cautionary tale!

 Captain Brown wrote:
H.B.M.C.



I know you had a lot of terrain...but not that much.

CB

Yeah, i have my own room at the house for all my gaming stuff and i do not have that much terrain. because i have to transport it all to the store with me along with all the armies i am bringing for the different games we might play. i ended up getting certain sets of terrain -tau from micro art, space marine, guard, and mechanicus from war scenery, printpire, district 12 and others. loads of ESLO finished terrain for historical/fantasy and area terrain. not to mention all the 6-10MM scale stuff from brigade, JR, novus, and steel warrior studios etc... i still have to plan ahead for what i am going to bring and still borrow some store terrain. HBMC must have a moving van if he is using even half that terrain anywhere but at home.

 Captain Brown wrote:
I know you had a lot of terrain...but not that much.

Would it surprise you to know that I've been holding off building more terrain specifically because I was waiting for the shelves to go up?

...does this mean we might see some new builds - or even some painting - in the near future, HBMC?

Just think how many shelves you’d need if you printed out all the rules for terrain .

This is the organized insanity that I am fully behind .

Follow-up question, HBMC - do you have some form of cover for the shelves, to stop your terrain getting dusty?

The shelves are just the shelves. *shrugs*

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The shelves are just the shelves. *shrugs*

Well next you need some glass cabinet doors!

Terrain question, HBMC - do you have the "Necromunda Zone Mortalis Platforms and Stairs" set? If so, how do the stairs and/or cargo lift compare height-wise to the Skyshield Landing Pad?

Hmm... I do have a bunch of those stairs, but I've yet to use any of them.

What I can tell you is that the Zone Mortalis stuff is half the height (2.5") of the Zone Mechanicus stuff (5"), and the stairs are half the height of one Zone Mortalis level, so 1.25" tall.

I've never measured the height of a Skyshield, but if you have one on hand before I get to it, base your measurements on the above.

I've got a Skyshield on order, but it hasn't been dispatched yet. We'll have to see which happens first - GW sending it to me, or you getting to yours, HBMC

I do have a Skyshield I haven't built yet. Going to combine it with the taller struts that the Sector Mechanicus terrain uses.

I got this 3d printed landing pad from corvus game terrain

https://corvusgamesterrain.com/collections/galactic-battles/products/landing-pad-3d-printable

they also have this version.

https://corvusgamesterrain.com/collections/galactic-battles/products/midrim-city-modular-landing-pad-digital-stl-3d-printable

As part of my mass-reorganisation, I need to start getting things that I put off building built and then onto shelves. This starts with the things that I haven't actually packed away, and remain in giant unsorted boxes.

The largest of these boxes is this:



That's a big box. I wonder what could be in it. More ruins? A landscape of jungle trees? A factory?

No, it's something a little more... Dreadful...
Mwahahahahaha!

I bought these in 2015!

Beyond what you see there, I have an additional 4 wall sections plus two sets of these ruined sections, which, in turn, each come with another wall section. If the ruined pieces can be just lent against or attached without gluing, then I'll leave them unstuck. If not, then I will do two walls with one broken end, and one wall with two broken ends.

So in total I have 4 towers, 3 gates and 16 wall sections. You need 16 to make a complete ring, but obviously I don't need to use as many as I have gates. Not sure why I only ordered 3 gates rather than 4, but I guess it's too late to ponder that now.

Sadly I was never able to pick up of the Crucibles. They were very expensive and, like a lot of GW terrain, available for but a blink of an eye before vanishing without warning or reason. Now single wall pieces fetch over AUD$200 on eBay.

I've got a lot of building ahead of me...

BYE

So, a chaos fortress you say? i look forward to it, do you have a terrain board or mat in mind for the setting?

We are just suckers for terrain aren't we, i just organized my sets into different containers for ease of transport-
.mechanicus forge
.imperial guard fort
.tau city
.space marine outpost.

I have too much stuff

 aphyon wrote:
So, a chaos fortress you say? i look forward to it, do you have a terrain board or mat in mind for the setting?

Mostly.

I've got two sets of the Warcry Red Harvest terrain, and I want to get a kind of lava-field (mostly black volcanic rock) mat for all of this to go on. Make it look like a slave-mining camp outside a fortress (or a ruined fortress). I've also got oodles of various spikes and other gubbinz from TONS of Chaos vehicle accessory sprues to turn a few random ruins into Chaos ruins. Combine all that with a blood river, some blood pools, some blood crystals (which is what they're mining!), and a liberal use of skulls, and I think I could have a nice Chaotic table.

The hard pat is the mat, honestly. I've not found one that I like. Too much lava on the ones I've seen. That and a proper jungle mat. Having trouble with those two.

 aphyon wrote:
I have too much stuff

No you don't. I have crates full of unbuilt terrain.

We have a couple store custom lava tables.

You can see one of them here-



As far as lava mats i rather like this one from p-works workshop

https://www.pworkwargames.com/en/gaming-mats/9-26-volkano-wargames-terrain-mat-.html#/1-material-pvc_vinyl/6-size-3x3_92x92cm

Can't wait to see Fort Chaos. Yeah that terrain vanished pretty fast.

 aphyon wrote:
https://www.pworkwargames.com/en/gaming-mats/9-26-volkano-wargames-terrain-mat-.html#/1-material-pvc_vinyl/6-size-3x3_92x92cm

The P-Work one is nice, as is the Deep Cut version. There's a French mob called Crank Wargames that does a subtle and more red lava map, and they have a double-sided one with snow on the other side.

A snow table is kind of my Holy Grail-wielding White Whale as far as terrain goes. It's basically the one thing I can't do in 3D (plenty of 2D maps and tiles that can do snow!).

Plus I really want to get one of these. Such a nifty idea for a table cover.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Can't wait to see Fort Chaos. Yeah that terrain vanished pretty fast.

I think you'll find the technical term is "Khorntress".

Yeah, so, the Dreadhold kits are atrocious. You'd think "3 walls and a roof" would be easy to put together, but not when you need 3 separate corner pieces that don't fit correctly.

And the actual walls? That's two walls, a floor and 16,000 extra bits, none of which are labelled, and all of which rely on a vague mono-chrome low-res instruction picture to use.

I've built one tower and one wall section, and lost the will to continue. 3 towers, 15 more walls and 3 gates to go...

Yeah those dreadhold kits are rough. I remember thinking they were one of the worst kits I've had to deal with.

I ended up gluing a ton of extra sprue to the inside walls and cementing everything with liquid nails because I didn't trust the connection points.

I don't envy the chore ahead of you, but at least it will look awesome once it's finished!

Oh God yes!





And I've been dutifully building terrain on and off the past few weeks. Lots of little things. Powering through the backlog of "simple" things.

Meh, i have been quite happy with all the 3d printing i have been getting done locally, we are just about finished with the battletech scale airfield. as well as all that war scenery dawn of war 40K terrain that i have been getting done.

I think they look great, and will look good with the ones I've already painted (including all the ruins).

The boards are also useful for some other things I have planned, plus with two boxes you'd get enough for a decent sized table.

You ordered just two?

M.

They're not on sale yet.

For anyone who wants to own their very own Captain Short Sword, he is going up for sale this weekend as a Made-to-Order group of Classic SM Captains:



In the meantime, thanks to a 20% discount and a considerable amount of saved store credit, I pre-ordered two of the new Fronteris Nachmund sets, plus an extra Landing Pad.

Once I get a hold of them, and a couple of spray cans, I will be painting them to match the existing red buildings and ruins that I already have in that style. Will make a nice outpost.

As for the third Landing Pad, I'm not sure. That may end up being part of a different scheme - probably more fortifications/city/industrial - as a kind of munitions bunker or something like that.

Friend of mine just got a PLA printer.

God help us all!

Also...
My store broke street date, so these arrived today.

That should get you at least 6' of walls, low walls, but walls all the same.

So I just picked up a couple of cans of Mephiston Red spray, plus a can of Leadbelcher.

I'm hoping this will cover the 4 hab blocks, one set of controller/dish, a bunch of walls and at least one bunker. I'm unsure of what to do with the other two bunkers. Do I have one separate for a different set of terrain, or two?

I'm building an cargo docks/airfield style board, using this mat as the base:


As you can see it has little sections - 3 small ones on each side, and then one bigger one, all with a central area. My plan is to wall off each area using Gamemat.eu's Hive Wall terrain, and then have each area with something specific - a landing pad, a fuel depot, a whole stack of crates.

The "landing pad" from the Nachmund set reminds me more of a munitions bunker than a "landing pad", which is why I refer to it as a bunker. I figure one of those in one section, one of my Klawz between the two sections, and then either the proper skyshield there, or lots of containers. The question is whether to do that on both sides, using two of these nachmund bunkers, in which case they don't become red, and get a cooler-blue/green colour scheme.

The remainder will become red, to match the existing Fronteris terrain that I have.

So, yeah, unsure whether to just have one bunker in red, or two. I'm leaning towards just one, as with 6 hab blocks plus all the ruins I've got, plus a set of wreckage (I have 5 sets of that wreckage, so I can spare some pieces for this) should be enough as a terrain 'set'. The rest can be for the dockyards/landing area.

If you think two would be better, say so!

One red and two blue it is, I guess!

After nearly a decade of waiting, the Hive Mind has brought forth a new horror, a new beast to devour and infest its foes, a winged warrior that will sow terror in the hearts of the Imperium.

Yes, our first miniature release in since 2014 is finally here.

Behold... the Parasite of Mortrex in all his glory...


Yes, all his tiny, tiny glory...


Not exactly a big mini.

Anyway, I went through two cans of Mephiston Red yesterday. The results will be posted soon.

Huh, that is smaller than it looked.

Excited to see what the red spray paint turned into

Game Day!

I haven't had a chance to post progress updates, but suffice to say the Fronteris terrain is 100% done!

And today I set up three boards for people to play on:














Enjoy!

Nice terrain, I like the mats too.

Funny that first mat seems strangely familiar





Great work on those setups the tables look great!

This is an absolutely amazing thread. Just read through the last 4 years of work. WOW

I don't envy what these projects have costed over the years. But as someone who will never have the space to hold terrain, it has been amazing to live vicariously through your work. Particularly since I was a huge fan of CoD when it came out.

Please keep up the good work! And update us as you do

Just an update to share with you H.B.M.C. .... still need a few more pieces (so i do not have to borrow store terrain) but i am working up my imperial gothic city table with a combination of 3d printed buildings from sacrusmundus and gale force 9 terrain.

Wow H.B.M.C. you made quick work of that Nachmund terrain.

Mine has not left the box yet.:(

CB

 Captain Brown wrote:
Wow H.B.M.C. you made quick work of that Nachmund terrain.

Mine has not left the box yet.

I've still got a dish, tower and a pair of landing pads to go. They're not going to be red though. They're for another table, and I need to colour match the blue in this terrain. The pictures there don't do a great job of showing it off, but it's actually very blue (and silver) so I need to get as close as possible for my "cargo depot" table.

 aphyon wrote:
Just an update to share with you H.B.M.C. .... still need a few more pieces (so i do not have to borrow store terrain) but i am working up my imperial gothic city table with a combination of 3d printed buildings from sacrusmundus and gale force 9 terrain.

Those tall gothic buildings are very nice. I'm also pleased that your buildings aren't in the middle of the roads. Some people do that and it drives me mad. Why even have a mat if you're not going to use it?

N/M

So, the layout works, now I just need to finish the details...

Oh a pretty new shiny table.......

I have my necron ruins terrain done...i will get you a pic of that tomorrow

Ok, and this city layout works. The 2x3 tiles I'm using are from the Warboard Kickstarter from 10 years ago!






Also, for those who didn't know, these two pieces fit together perfectly:

As promised the new terrain-

I take it the Necron stuff is 3D printed?

Looks cool.

Yes it is more of the sacrusmundus stuff, since i do not have a necron city mat, i decided i could use the necron ruins to greater effect with the other terrain i have. we also have a couple of regulars now who have necron armies. so we can play the "get off my lawn you damn kids" mission

Oooh... I like this whole spray + tape thing:

Seeing lots of terrainIi wish I'd got at the time. Like the quake craters.

Great looking stuff.

Sadly, I did not get everything completed in time for the game day. I did get a coat of black and two tones of grey onto all the buildings.

I also had two brand new cans of army painter black just die on me after a few seconds of use. Thank the Emperor a friend of mine - the one who lives the closest, as it happens - had two cans of Chaos Black spare!

I did manage to get through the remainder of the cargo containers, including some various multi-colours using the tape. I even tried out some hazard stripes on the two Fronteris landing pads. That was my first experiment with using plastic freezer bags as masks when combined with the tape. I took that a step further with the Skyshield landing pads, spraying their legs red, and then putting them in taped up bags so I could spray the bottom and top without messing up the grey. Worked perfectly. Overall the best thing I've got out this painting experience is just how amazing masking tape is, and how it can give great effects for very little effort.

I'll post pics when I'm next in front of my home computer.

HBNC,

LOL! I just had a look though your insanity of the your sprue and clippers work. Just awesome mate. The scale of some of the things you have created is fantastic. My little attempt is now rendered insignificant. Worth the hour going through your thread.

I did get a number of ideas that I will be stealing.

Just a heads up to you H.B.M.C. my new terrain project is 99% done.

The mat is from deep cut studios and the terrain is from sacrusmundus- eldar ruins, going for a maiden world vibe for this one, got one last ruined building coming from my printer guy next week.







Updated-the finished table-