Astargoth's Omaha Beach

[Astargoth]

So here it is, my first project log.

For those of you that haven't seen my thread in the M, P&T section (Fully Modelled Gaming Tables), this is hopefully going to be the first of many fully sculpted boards echoing back to the era when every GW had at least one awesome board in the store for kids and vets alike to gawp at!

I've decided to start with a beach landing table, designed for amphibious assaults and the like. Mostly because i've always wanted to make one and partly because like almost every other guard player i've never been able to make use of the chimera's amphibious ability!

After doing a bit of research (ok so i just watched Saving Private Ryan a few times ), I'm going to base the board on the Omaha D-Day landings (hence the title of the thread).

I've got a rough idea of what i want on the board so i've made a basic sketch on my hardboard base:



I've started by hacking out a rough shape with a saw to give me a basis for the beach:



Thats as far as I've got for now, I'll probably only get one or two nights a week to make more progress (such is the life of the busy family man), but i'll keep you updated as I get little bits done every now and then.

Until next time...

[wizbix]

Hopefully this will be awesome.

[Ghost 1 Actual]

Can't wait to see how this turns out.

[FBI]

Watching....

[Astargoth]

An update for you.

I managed to get the basic shape of my board sculpted tonight:



Unfortunately thats as much as i can do until the glue is dry.

[Astargoth]

New pics.

I've got the basic shape of the bunker/pillbox done (complete with removable roof):





And i've done some trenchwork and dug out some pits for weapon teams:





Just waiting for my Foam board and air drying clay and then i can make my emplacement and sand bags.

[DracHy]

I popped around to visit Astargoth on monday evening and i have seen a lot of his work before as we grow up gamimg together (awww the happy memorys)
and i have to say this board is going to look great we where standing his in his recently clear garage staring at it turning it around and nattering like kids it was great.

i did the thing that we all do to a new gaming boards and got down to eye level and look acrross the board from, the soon to be, sea end up the beach and it looks so cool i am hoping that he will let us play just one game on it when its finished.

keep ur eye on this one he has some tricks up his sleve that i think will really make this board AMAZING.

DracHy

[Astargoth]

I've got a very small update today:

My foam board came through this afternoon so of course I had to start using it straight away (well after work, dinner and putting the kids to bed ).

So i've made a start on the protruding fortification. I mainly want this to act as an open topped concrete emplacement for heavy weapon teams and the like.

My only fear is that it will look too much like a medieval castle tower, but I'm hoping once i've added the sandbags on top of the walls it should negate the castle like look of the crenelations.

Anyway here's a couple of pics for you:







It will have walls leading back towards the hill as well once it's done, but that will have to wait for another day.

[stefking666]

looking good. will be following this thread with anticipation!

i still remember the awsome boards you made back in the day so expecting the same level of quality here

[Astargoth]

Possibly the tiniest update in the history of project logs, but i wanted to put something up before dinner.

I've been stuck indoors so i've started making my tank/boat traps.

I'm using wooden coffee stirrers spliced in half and glued together in threes:





Hopefully i'll be able to get some more work done on the board in the next day or so and then i'll be able to post a substantial update.

[Astargoth]

I managed to get enough of the housework done tonight to be granted a brief reprieve with which to work on the board. i will try to put up a detailed post tomorrow.

In the mean time, i'm trying to decide whether or not to have battle damage on the board. Any advice?

[Comrade Wraith]

If you're really indecisive about it you could always model removable craters/swappable bunker sections etc.

It's looking awesome so far, I'm looking forward to your progress.

[Astargoth]

Time for yesterday's update.

I've bulked up the walls on the protruding fortification and i've added a sand-wall along the top of the beach. The plan is to have barbed wire all along this.

I was trying to decide how to make the sand-wall (my initial thought was to sculpt it out of a long thin piece of polystyrene) when I remembered G-man joking that I had enough polystyrene shavings to make a new board if I just glued them all together.

This gave me the great idea of mixing up some sort of filler and adding polystyrene shavings to bulk it out. So I found some wall tile adhesive lying around the garage and did just that.

Polystyrene shavings:


My wall tile adhesive + polystyrene mix:
]

It's done exactly what I was after:





Well that's all i've got for now, hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some more done.

[Col. Wales]

Looking really good so far man. for razor wire (concertina type) the stuff that secret weapons makes is excellent.

[Astargoth]

Ah hah! I managed to get some more done today! My mother-in-law is down and she took my lovely lady wife out for the evening (who says mother-in-laws are all bad ).

I decided to go with battle damage in the end, my OCD side hates to see painstakingly sculpted terrain destroyed, but the kid inside me just loves craters!

I used the same polystyrene + wall tile adhesive mix as I did on the sand wall (I'm really starting to like the mixture) and I think the craters have come out quite nicely.

Ok on to the pics, i've decided to start photoshopping them so i can make them smaller rather than just uploading 10MP photo's straight from the camera:





Sorry about the image quality, I tried some with the flash on but it made the craters just look flat. Unfortunately without the flash they tend to come out slightly blurry. Ah well swings and roundabouts I guess.

[Radical]

Wow, this looks very cool, how dig is the table if I might ask? Also how did you cut the hill itself? a hot wire cutter?

[Astargoth]

Wow, this looks very cool, how dig is the table if I might ask? Also how did you cut the hill itself? a hot wire cutter?

The table is 4'x4' as you'll only need a small frontage for a beach assault and i'm just used to making them that size because that was how big the space for the tables was when I worked at GW.

The beach was cut with a saw and the hills were half shaped with a knife and then sculpted with a wire brush and finally smoothed with sandpaper.

Any more questions feel free to ask.

[Daniel36]

Starting to look pretty sweet! Is it going to be for a diorama or really for gaming purposes? Because for that it looks a tad small...

Which forces are going to be fighting one another?

[insan0]

Its really starting to come together can't wait to see more.

Personally I think you guys got spoiled with GW stores in the UK. Maybe it was just the timing but most of the Canadian stores had flat tables and switched from custom terrain pieces to the GW kits as they were released. Granted they did wonders with some of the kits and I understand the marketing behind it.

I've got a modular board on the go, a 2 sided board that needs painting, and I am thinking of doing a martian display board for my next 40k army. When I finally have a games room to myself I will have to give a fully custom board a try.

[stefking666]

Starting to look pretty sweet! Is it going to be for a diorama or really for gaming purposes? Because for that it looks a tad small...

Which forces are going to be fighting one another?

i think the size will be ok for a smaller game, and he can eaisly add and extra 2x4 if he ever wants to expand it.

looking good btw :P can wait to see it painted