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Loving it all! For the the skyshied: if you turned it 90 degrees, wouldn't it make a really nice gate or something?

The smallest things in the world can stall a project. You don't need a giant shift in your life to find you incapable of moving forward.

Sometimes it can just be something simple as missing a vital piece of a kit because you bought it off eBay and that part broke off before the guy put it in its box.

Such is the case with me, when I found that I had a dome but was missing the vital centre piece to complete it.
See the large circular piece right at the centre of sprue? That's what I'm talking about.

It's the only part that fits there. It makes the dome the right height (2.5"+/-) to act as either a half-level or the top of something else. Without it the piece would require alteration and would generally render the dome useless in its primary function. Even in the finished Boarding Torpedo, with its slight gap due to the platforms separating the two halves of the stacks, that piece was still vital to cover the ends.

So I have 6 domes, but only 5 circular middle sections. Or rather, had. I found a place on eBay selling that exact part for next to nothing.

So I bought two.

I think we're back in business...

Lucking break you found them on eBay for cheap.

Cheers,

CB

And look at all these wonderful new possibilities:

Let the red flow...



So much red... will I ever make the spraying screaming stop?

Out damned spot

Looking forward to.seeing some painted stuffs now.

So I decided to paint some terrain. This took from about 2:30pm to just past midnight to prep, build and paint all of what you see. I will post more flattering pics when I have a chance to clean up, including some on-table shots with terrain that I should be using for some games on the 30th.

Red Right Hand
As it happens, it's none of the terrain I've built so far during this Terrain Blog. It's terrain I've mentioned - the Ryza Ruins/Sector Fronteris stuff - as I want it to all match a theme. It's not 100% done yet, as some fits are just base red and very little's been done to them, but generally it's a lot of red (damn near used an entire can of Mephiston Red spray), a lot of Necron Compound (odd paint), some fantastic Balthazar Gold, and then a mix of Nuln Gloss and Seraphim Sepia.

The end results are as follows.

Some Ruins.

After painting the scatter terrain that's part of these Ryza kits, I painted up the rest of the ruins. Pics don't show off the gold that's there.

Two Buildings.

Rather than each building having a single shield, I gave two to one and none to the other. Makes 'em easier to stack.

AdMech Building:
A while ago I showed some pics of something I built ages ago, a rather complex single-story CoD building using the Manufactorum pieces:
Well I wanted this building to fit with the rest of the Ryza stuff, so I did it in the same style.



I plan to dirty them up with some Typhus Corrosion and do some more work on the details of the AdMech building, but for now they'll do.

And now here is the terrain in action, awaiting the start of the day's games:

YES! Congrats on getting the painting going. This terrain looks so good once its painted and on a nice table.

Looking real good!

Is that a mat under them?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Is that a mat under them?

It is. It is this mat here.

Ryza buildings look nice. But be careful with applying Typhus Corrosion. I did that quite liberally to some of my Kill Team buildings (funnily they are also painted red with silver) and it does not look like corrosion

Never thought I would get to see paint on this blog, consider me impressed! The red and gold are a really nice and simple combo that looks great on that board.

When do we get to see your crazy creations with the new zone mortalis stuff?

Very nice looking board you have made there H.B.M.C.

Cheers,

CB

Fantastic terrain mate, they look aces on all painted up on the table - the sort of board that gets you itching to play!

The Great Expansion is upon us; our first footfalls on the road to completion. Soon the plastic will be cut, the glue will flow, and the industrial insanity will reach its peak.



Then, once that's done, we move onto the Deathworld board. I have all the pieces... it just requires the will to get started.

And I got a couple extra bits of Ryza ruins (thanks Moon Base Klaisus) to give us a bit of extra spread with the red ruins I've done already.

Full terrain order has been made. Within the next few weeks the following will arrive:

2x Derelict Factorums
2x Alchomite Stacks
1x Tectonic Frag Drill
4x Ferratonic Incinerators
1x Webway Gate
1x Bone-Tithe Nexus (going webstore exclusive soon, apparently)
1x Herdstone
2x Awakened Wyldwood
1x Moonbase Klaisus
2x Creeping Vines
1x Barbed Bracken

I will of course photo this magnificent expansion as we move into the final phases of Sector Mechanicus construction and then work out how we're going to tackle the Death World table...

That Sector Fronteris board is hot!

What plans have you for this latest order of terrain?

Thanks!

I've got a few different things in the works.

The Derelict Factorums serve three purposes:

The intact Stack and Furnace sprues from those kits are going to be used with regular sector Mechanicus stuff. I have, I believe 10-12 spare Stacks now, and Emperor knows how many Furnaces (I think I have three Promethium Refinery sized boxes filled with that particular sprue, untouched... somewhere), and my aim now is height. So, I'm going up. And I have the plans for a few buildings with names like the Central Processing Unit and the Fuel Processing Hub. It's just a matter of working out the floor layers and how well it will go together.

The ruined furnaces from that kit are going to the Death World table. I've got three boxes of vines and two of the bracken, plus two of these boxes awaiting attention. The vines/bracken are going to use to tie a few industrial style buildings (including some old Cities of Death terrain - yes, I have tons of that left over - you've not seen even a fraction of the terrain I own, I'm not even kidding) so that it can be pure Deathworld (also why I picked up a pair of Awakened Wyldwoods), or an overgrown Imperial city/town (might even use a few of the dozens of spare infestation markers I have from numerous Genestealer kits). However, the Deathworld terrain has Eldar ruins, so I also just got a Webway Portal which I am going to infest with vines and whatnot. I even have the Battlefield in a Box Elven tower/pillars & ruins that I could dirty up with some Agrax and Typhus Corrosion and then cover with vines and whatnot to tie the whole lot together.

And then there's the generic Mechanicus walls that you get are quite nice (no joke, the Derelict Factorum kit is amazing - damned shame it's direct only now). I want to build a few taller buildings to match my existing Sector Fronteris/desert theme. I've got a few more Ryza ruins coming in the Moonbase Klaisus box I ordered, and those I'm going to do a bit more work on, using all the ruined floor bits from the Sector Fronteris kits, and a few random pipes and whatnot to buik them out into slightly bigger pieces, then I'll paint 'em red like the other pieces.

I also have a spare missile launcher from a Fortress of Redemption (the big part in the lower corner) that I want to see if it's possible to combine with the generic Mechanicus walls and turn into a free-standing missile platform, a bit like one of these (which I also have unbuilt. somewhere...) but taller and more contained. Might make for an interesting objective, or something good for the 40K RPGs which I adore.

Which brings me to the Bone-Tithe Nexus, and the Herdstone, and two other things I got before the end of last year, the mighty Khorne Skull Altar and the Judgements of Khorne. I'm not gonna lie: I bought these four things because I had a cool idea for a single encounter for a game of Black Crusade, essentially a Khorne held world where there is a massive Khornate Kathedral at its centre (made of my Pegasus Gothic Terrain), where the four "tribes" that inhabit this world keep their respective shrines (the Nexus for those that gather the skulls, the Herdstone for those that are a bit more primitive than the others, the icon from the Judgements for those that keep Khorne's warp presence active among the "faithful", and the old Arcane Ruins for another tribe) and so on. The players would need to infiltrate this unholy communion (READ: where the various tribes gather to execute the one who has been deemed weakest among them - sacrificed on the Skull Altar, naturally!) and then if things went badly they'd find themselves fighting off primitive Khorne worshippers, Beastmen and all sorts of horrible things.

So yes, I bought 4 or so pieces of terrain just 'cause I had a cool sounding idea for a single bit in an RPG campaign.

I will find other uses for them of course - the Herdstone is great for all sorts of things, and the Bone-Tithe could fit just as well in a Dark Eldar setting, or as a relic to fight over. AoS terrain needn't just for for AoS, that's what I'm getting at. Well, except maybe that Fyrslyr Byttly Foyrge or whatever that silly thing is.

What else... well, there are the drills. The drills are mostly just another way of getting more straight walkways. I have 4 drills now. I'm going to build a big 2-3 story "Drilling Complex" that will have a ring with two drills in it. Not sure what to do with the others. One will end up on a sled from the Galvanic Servohaulers kit (a Munitorum Container will end up on the other, given that both Klawz are already mounted on terrain).

I also plan to rebuild the original Necromunda terrain as closely as possible using the Sector Mechanicus stuff, just 'cause it's fun.

But yeah, keep making them taller and more elaborate, and maybe some more interesting modular bits. We'll see as we go. First step is to get everything together, de-sprue all the walkways I will have, and work out new layouts.

Once I have pics, I'll be posting them here!

The drill kits come with their own carriages that are compatible with the Servohaulers. Even comes with an undocumented 'coupler' piece.

--Brian, who built a train out of these things.

I am literally waiting for one more terrain kit to come in before The Great Expansion can begin.

How much of what you build is/has been/will be used and how much of it is just for funsies?

Because you have some absolutely cracking ideas and you buy A LOT, hell you even build most of it as far as I can tell.
But considering how much you (must) have, at what point does it get used? Unless you're throwing down Apoc games every weekend or super sized necromunda games (Apocromunda?) where you can just slam it all down.
If not, you must be having the densest city fight games going!

 Snrub wrote:
How much of what you build is/has been/will be used and how much of it is just for funsies?

All and nothing and nothing and all.

I genuinely love building terrain more than just about every other aspect of the hobby, and as someone who loves modularity and experimentation the Sector Mechanicus stuff has been an absolute God-send (and why I loved GW's "Lost & The Damned Mutants" kit-bash sets they put out during the Eye of Terror campaign, and also why I utterly loathe GW's current "No model = no rule" mentality that has dominated their that miniature design for so many recent years).

At the same time it all has a purpose. I want to make really cool looking 40K boards, great centre-pieces for the 40K RPGs (which we have played on 6x4 maps before with full terrain/miniatures) as well as have a set of terrain that is practical for Necromunda but isn't limited to being the same set up over and over again (the cardboard stuff was great for that, but, it's 25 years old now, and not as robust as it once was). In a way I approach terrain in the same way I approach building army lists - I never like to do the same thing twice, so will build a new list for every game I play, even if lists incorporate similar elements. I prefer variety to cut-throat effectiveness, and I take the same approach to terrain. I want all sorts of different things in all manner of configurations so that I can play out any scenario or idea that comes to mind.

 Snrub wrote:
Because you have some absolutely cracking ideas and you buy A LOT, hell you even build most of it as far as I can tell.

Well...

See you say that, but.... I may have got a few things delivered this past week and a bit...

 Snrub wrote:
But considering how much you (must) have, at what point does it get used? Unless you're throwing down Apoc games every weekend or super sized necromunda games (Apocromunda?) where you can just slam it all down.
If not, you must be having the densest city fight games going!

I'll be honest, a lot of it hasn't been used in quite a while, or has never been used.

Take the desert table I did a few weeks ago. I am immensely proud of how that turned out - pretty much exactly as I envisioned - but that's the first time anything on that table has ever been used (except the Cities of Death Mechanicus building). I bought the Gamemat.eu desert mat and badlands terrain in March of 2018, and first used it in January of 2020. Then there's some stuff, like my green hills, my original trees, and tons of Cities of Death stuff that I've been using for years, but hasn't seen much use in recent years.

One of the main reasons I've decided to get back into 40k proper despite my considerable issues with 8th Ed in general and especially GW's continued inability to write a Codex worth a damn is that I want to get some use out of my terrain and my miniatures. I've had more fun rediscovering Tyranids and Chaos (hence that new Pile O'Shame pic I linked to above) in recent weeks than I've had with 40K since 5th Ed came out. I've got a list of priority builds for tomorrow and Sunday to have minis ready for my friends coming over on Monday to play games (first, Broodlord, second, Hive Tyrant, third, Lord Discordant, and so on), and my mind is already racing with what sort of terrain I'm going to do for that day (let's just say I own this as well, and it has not yet been used... yet... ).

As I mentioned above briefly, my approach to terrain is how I used to approach collecting armies. My Guard is a great example of this (although my Chaos, Ultras and 'Nids are similar in this regard). I used to ensure that I owned enough to fill a Force Org chart with any particular choice. So I didn't just have 3 Leman Russes, oh no. I had 3 Leman Russes with hull HBs, three with hull Lascannons, three with hull HBs and sponson HBs, three with hull Lascannons and Sponson Lascannons, and so on. And then three Exterminators. 6 Demolishers. One Annihilator, one Executioner, 4 Vanquishers, 3 Baneblades, 6 of every Sentinel variety, over 300 infantry in every configuration, 12 Chimeras, 4 Basilisks, 3 Manticores, and on and on and on. When GW added plasma cannon/multi-melta sponsons and all those new turret types into the mix it totally threw me off.

I don't do that these days simply because of the room it takes up, but when it comes to terrain I like to be able to do at least 2 table's worth of any given "biome". I have tables and tables of ruined cities, but I want to be able to do things other than cities. I'm stick of ruined cities! I've always wanted to do what I call a "fully organic" table, that being one that is hills, rocks, trees, rivers and lakes - nothing man (or alien) made. I think I can do that now, and also have enough of said terrain that I can do it in more than just one configuration. It's why the Death World table I want to do with have overgrown Imperium stuff and overgrown Eldar stuff - allows for variety and even for more interesting scenarios. My conundrum right now is martian terrain, although Gale Force 9 might have me covered there.

And then there's the tournament a friend of mine keeps threatening to put on. I pay a lot of attention to tournament terrain when people post reports, and I am almost always left disgusted, either by the quality of the terrain, the lack of the terrain, or by the mentality of the terrain (the standard ITC-pattern terrain set up repulses me). I told him that if he wants to run a tournament then all he need do is provide the venue and the tables, and I will provide everything that goes on the tables. I reckon I can make about 12 6x4 tables worth of stuff given what I have. I'd love to do that and show off.

Finally, there's the painting aspect. I have never been good at nor do I like painting, but terrain often does not require the intricacies of regular miniatures. Terrain isn't supposed to steal the show when it comes to painting, so that takes some of the pressure of being incredibly detailed. I painted all of my red Ryza ruins in the space of a day. There's nothing to them: red spray, Necron Compound drybrush, pick out some areas in Leadbelcher and Balthazar Gold, wash metal with Nuln Gloss and gold with Seraphim Sepia... done! And in the end I was left with simple looking terrain that pops on the table but doesn't detract from anything else. Also went great with the desert mat/terrain. The contrast paints make me think that I can finally do some more painting, and is one of the reasons I went out and got so much stuff for this Death World board. The idea of painting trees and whatnot prior to contrast? No thanks. But now, given it's meant to be simple, and won't take me eons to do, it seems like an obtainable goal.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that wild ramble.

I'm going to go back to waiting for the single solitary Derelict Manufactorum that I'm waiting on to arrive, and then The Great Expansion can begin.

There's PAINT in this blog? What (most laudable) sorcery is this?

I did enjoy that little ramble, it was an interesting read. I always like seeing what makes people tick when it comes to this hobby.

I hope you do get a chance to kit out a tourney's worth of tables one day as that would be awesome and not a little bit impressive.
The big rock columns on the desert table (which is excellent in it's own right), did you make them yourself or are they prefab ones?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
but...

Oh mate.... C'mon.
You're a one man Terrain Addicts Anonymous group.

 Snrub wrote:
The big rock columns on the desert table (which is excellent in it's own right), did you make them yourself or are they prefab ones?

Those are these wonderful things from Gamemat.eu.

 Snrub wrote:
Oh mate.... C'mon.

You're a one man Terrain Addicts Anonymous group.

Hey, look, I'm getting through it. Some of the things in that picture are already built!

I hadn't realised the Plague Marine Heroes set was available outside of Japan yet.

Oh they're the ones from Japan. Can't read a word of the text on any of the boxes/instructions. Seems some places can get them in despite being a Japan thing.

Anyway, more terrain. Today we played a bunch of 8th games, and this was the nice table we used:






We had Sisters vs Deathwatch (DW wiped the Sisters off the board), and Tau vs Chaos (Tau wiped Chaos off the board) and my 'Nids vs the same Tau (very tough and go, and Genestealers rumbled around his back line, and by the top of Turn 4 the score was 12 v 1 my way!).

My first win in 8th!

Them's some serious rock formations, HBMC - GF9 pieces, or homemade?

Regarding the DG Heroes, is that box expected to give you a complete set?

Some of them are GF9 stuff (like the rivers and some of the trees), but the rest are this set from Gamemat.eu.