WHFB Chaos Wasteland Board & Terrain

[tarrym]

Well I've been slowly building up my terrain collection over the past couple of years, and just as I was about to start my latest pieces I figured it would be worth trying out a terrain plog to show what I've done and get some feedback.

The first few posts below this will focus on stuff I've already finished - which isn't much! Then after that I'll slowly introduce updates as and when I'm working on new terrain pieces. Worth pointing out though that I'm in the middle of painting my Skaven army at the moment, so terrain is a bit of a sideline for now

Hope you enjoy!

[tarrym]

So starting from the beginning...the board!

As you might have spotted in my signature, I have several armies. And because of this I have ended up with 2 different basing themes:

1. Ash Waste
2. Desert

This meant that ultimately I would (probably) end up with 2 boards to play on - because what Tomb Kings player would ever turn away from making a nice themed desert board!

However 2 boards would require a lot of storage space which I don't have. So I wanted to try and be a bit clever. And this is what I came up with...



The board itself is just a 10mm thick piece of MDF, covered with sand and then painted black with a grey drybrush - simples!

However the "frame", as that's what it basically provides, was designed to lift the board up away from the table/floor/whatever, and to allow for the 10mm MDF to be covered on both sides - with 2 different terrain themes.



I also covered the bottom of the "frame" with a lining of felt, which meant that I wouldn't be scratching our nice, shiny new dining table when I was setting up or packing away!

The one side of the board is currently blank - as I still haven't got around to doing anything TK related, despite the new book! However the theory is that it can be treated with sand and paint as above to create a second board, without needing to buy any more wood, or increase the storage space needed (ignoring the extra space required when I double up on terrain pieces! ).


Having finished this and used it in many games over the last year or so I have realised several downsides to this design though:

• The MDF boards coated with sand are heavy - with 2 sides coated this is likely to almost double up
• As the boards are covered in sand you can't "slide" your units along the surface. This can be good to prevent accidental movement, but also means your movement trays have to be pretty sturdy
• The MDF boards are prone to warping if they aren't left horizontal when being stored for long periods of time. Basically you can't leave them stood up against a wall. At the time I bought the pieces I knew this was a risk, but the alternatives (plywood being the first on the list) were a lot heavier, and that's without sand glued to them!

Overall I'm quite pleased with the design. However as mentioned in the issues above, it takes up floor space when being stored (to prevent warping) and is not the lightest thing in the world. With hindsight overall I'm still pleased as the whole thing came in much less than 1 6'x4' GW modular board (and I have 4 of these made up, so I can go up to an 8'x4' if I have enough room in the house!). However when it comes time to glue on the 2nd side of sand these may become impractical to be lugging around.

[tarrym]

Next update - some hills with grassy measles...



Not much to say really. GW hills, painted to match the board and with dots of grass around.

Never been 100% happy with the way the grass looks. Maybe it needs to be in bigger patches rather than dots, but not sure how this would look compared to the models.

Any thoughts welcome!

[Daniel36]

Thoughts...

Throw some black ink over the grassy tufts. This will do two things. It will make the grass look more like a part of the landscape, and it will give the grass more protection against potential damage.

Other than that, good start. Keep up.

[tarrym]

Throw some black ink over the grassy tufts. This will do two things. It will make the grass look more like a part of the landscape, and it will give the grass more protection against potential damage.

That's definitely something I hadn't thought about. I'll give it a try on an experimental patch. Thanks.

[tarrym]

So a quick update with a few pieces that I had prepared some time ago.

First up, a couple of citadel forests.


The only real customisation done here was to add some baubles to the tree's to make them look like some fantastical kind of fungus - which are purple to fit in with my WoC Slaaneshi colour scheme.

Next are some "marshes" which I made from the citadel moonscape kit, some wooden beads and water effects.


Although it's not a great photo, it does help show how shiny these are. The colour scheme was chosen to match a cauldron of liquid I have on my WoC Warshrine (a plog for this army will show up on warseer eventually!).

[tarrym]

Not exactly scenery this time, but some useful markers we use during games - which happen to follow the basing theme to match the board

First up some wound markers, ranging from 1 to 4 wounds. We tend to mark wounds inflicted, but obviously these work either way!


Next something a little different...a turn counter. This was inspired by something I saw on the GW "What's New Today" several years ago. But basically it was put together from spare parts lying in my bits box.


As you can see it comes apart for easy storage - and this also makes the rotating mechanism easier!

Both the markers and turn counter have been really useful as we used to have a real habit of tidying up dice from around the board - and of course picking up all the dice marking wounds etc.

Anyway, that's it for now.

[Little Joe]

Some great terrain here, I like the idea with the marshes. The trees also have a nice outerwordly touch. And some nice counters as well.

[fallynnknivez]

I absolutely love your trees there... How did you do them?

I as well have a board in progress that i will post a link to the thread at the bottom, but when i start to detail it, its going to be evil and gothic, with heavy representations of my Nids and Necron armies...

http://www.miniwargaming.com/forum/v...hp?f=7&t=63320

[tarrym]

Thanks for the feedback so far, it's good to know I'm on a reasonable track

I absolutely love your trees there... How did you do them?

It's been a while since I did these, but from memory the tree's were something like:

1. Basecoat codex grey
2. Wash devlan mud
3. Wash badab black
4. Very light drybrush of codex grey

[tarrym]

Ok, so this is the last update of "archived" (i.e. stuff I had finished before actually starting this plog) items. And it's the first of several buildings I have.

They are all based on the GW Fortified Manor kit. I basically bought 2 of those kits, and made up 3 large buildings (more on which will follow in later posts) and this little gem...


I've nicknamed it the "Temple of Convenience". If anyone knows anything about Manchester pubs then you may get the reference!

Basically in game terms it's just treated as an obstacle. But looks better than just 2 walls glued together.

You may also notice the teal/turquoise gems in the basket at the base of the out-house. This is a reference back to my Skaven army (see signature) where Warpstone is teal coloured. As I was putting together these buildings at the same time as my Skaven army I decided to have a little fun and hide Skaven/rat related items in/around all the buildings

[tarrym]

So, as previously mentioned the photo's so far have all been projects which I have had completed for some time. Now it's time for something a little more current...it's time for the buildings!

I really like the GW building kits. So much so that I bought 2 of the Fortified Manor kits (you basically get the same as buying the 2 buildings individually, but you basically get a load of walls for free ).

I've assembled 3 distinct buildings out of it (not including the Temple of Convenience from my earlier post), the first was the fortified manor itself which I enhanced by using the fortified walls from both kits to create 2 different enclosures.

And in case you hadn't spotted it, that is a "pied piper" type scene on the large round emblem on the side of the building

[tarrym]

I've started to add some of the smaller details that bring this to life - including a couple of rat themed items , however haven't yet got all the parts I need. So I'll have to return to this piece later on.

[tarrym]

So, onto the stuff I'm actually working on right now...a chapel, and a watchtower.

The Chapel:


Pretty straight forward. It's just a chapel on a base (modular movement tray if you hadn't spotted it from earlier posts), with a wall attached.

I have used green-stuff to try and create my own crazy-paving effect for the entrance:


And yet another Skaven lurking within:


Note: I don't normally like to repeat ideas like this. But I did like the thought of one Skaven spy watching the settlement/battlefield, and another Skaven spy watching the first guy

[tarrym]

And last post for today...the Watchtower



This one I did a reasonable amount of conversion on. The little hut has been attached to the top, using the chimney stack for support. I also cut away a wall section to make room for it. Note: it's intentionally wonky - I like the thought of it potentially collapsing at any minute.


So someone (or something) has definitely taken over and modified the tower for their own purposes. But nobody is quite sure what that may be.


The various parts came from the Warplightning Cannon and Screaming Bell kits (as I'm sure many Skaven players will have these parts spare if they assembled the Plagueclaw Catapult or Plague Furnace). The "lightning rod" has a series of pipes running down and into one of the side windows. These were very fiddly to put together, but essentially they are made up of spare "mushroom" shaped chimneys that you get with the building kits - I seemed to have dozens. So I just cut up the straights and curves I needed from them, did a trial run with blue tac (which took hours!) and then glued it all down.

Painting on these two buildings is progressing well (I've actually done a lot more than these images suggest) so I should have another update in the next couple of days.

[spikedog]

These are looking great, I love all the little Skaven touches you are doing. I may have to steal some of your ideas when I get back to making my own terrain

Looking forward to seeing more.

[tarrym]

So the 2 buildings are progressing, although the Watchtower has certainly taken an early lead!

Basically I've been stippling the walls to make them look like they are plastered (or whatever the old equivalent is called!):


I have then been painting the roof (mechrite red, drybrushed with blood red) and the metallic details:


And finally, pretty much the whole model has been washed with Devlan Mud:


Note: the chapel isn't washed yet - hence it looking a lot lighter

The plan next is to go through and highlight the bronze/gold areas (the silver areas get a highlight prior to washing as this tends to work better for silver), and then to start work on the various areas of brick.

[tarrym]

Ok, so it's taken MUCH longer than expected to get anywhere with these buildings - and I've still only finished 1

However, I'm pretty pleased with the result...


And a few close-ups of the various bits of detail:


The time consuming stuff was highlighting all the little bits of metal everywhere - although the bell itself was surprisingly quick and easy to do.

For the bell I pretty much followed the GW step by step guide (search on their site for a copy). But I did tweak it a little (highlighting before applying washes etc) so it was more consistent with how I've actually painted my Skaven army.

The Chapel will come along in due time, unfortunately my only 2 hands are currently working on painting up a Grey Seer for my Skaven army rather than scenery. However I think it will be up next - or certainly before I do any more big infantry blocks

[tarrym]

Well I've been pretty busy organising a holiday lately, but still managed to finish off one more project before we go away...

Here is the second of the two buildings I was working on. The chapel.


It was a pretty straight forward job after the Watchtower. The only real detail worth pointing out is the Skaven hiding within the building:

[Little Joe]

Nice buildings and original funny details to catch the second glance, I like it.