Warhammer Forests

Forests, all games need them but they've got to be adapted for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. With some games coming up I decided to grab my styrene cut out a base and get started. I have a few factors to consider when making these forests. Number one is that I have to store them at the club and space is limited. I want mine to both look like difficult terrain but to also be practical for gameplay. Finally I want them to look good. The aesthetics  of the game are very important to me, I would be playing boardgames or chess if not. I also want these to be useable for a few different systems so I can't go too wild and just fill the bases with skulls or other very specific Warhammer items, though I snuck a few in here and there!

The most important thing is playability and to that end I bases the trees individually on old flight stands so that they can be removed during the game if units need to access the interior of the forest. The area of the forest is defined by the base of the whole terrain piece so the placement of individual trees doesn't matter as much. The trees are made from the Woodland Scenics kits. I used the small armatures and the olive green foliage. It is really easy system. I use PVA to make sure that the foliage remains on during the rigours of gaming. The benefit of the smaller trees is that they really look like they block line of sight but they are also a lot easier to store at the club. I actually have quite a hodgepodge of trees here. Some were done in the early 2000's while others were done recently. I redid the basing where possible to match but there are some discrepancies.

As forests are so ubiquitous on gaming tables I made two. I will make a few larger ones next. For the bases themselves I added some airdrying clay to the main base to give it some weight and to help balance out the bases as I tend to add a lot of details. I try and get as much texture on these as possible, so rocks, fallen branches and even a few mushrooms. The air drying clay helps embed these in the terrain and also helps even things out so that movement trays aren't sliding around when in the terrain. It also protects some of the little details by offering them some sheltered beside bulkier things.

Fields for Warhammer and other Wargames

It's been a while, a long while. I decided to post here again to document the process of me making some fields for tabletop wargaming simply because there weren't many posts out there that really covered what I wanted in a tutorial. Oh don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good examples I'm sure. Its just that I couldn't find one easily and I can't be bothered looking on YouTube as its just filled with advertisements and clickbait.

The Project:

I want to create a few small to medium sized fields using the Warhammer Walls and Fences kits I've had for over a decade. I want these to really look good on the table but I also want to have removable crops in them so that regiments can be placed inside.

It might not sound too difficult but my friend Steve set the challenge to have the crops removable and that's thrown quite a spanner in the works. Do I have the entire crop lift out at once? Seems the easiest to do but it'll look poor once units are in there and suddenly the field is bare. Maybe it is better to divide the inside into irregular shapes that will fill it and can be lifted out as required though it shouldn't be either too regular or a jigsaw puzzle. I'll need to get a field put together and work with some scraps of paper to decide on what might work. I guess one large irregular piece and then some smaller irregular ones to go around it will probably be the most adaptable.

Then I have to think about what crop. I was going to go with the ubiquitous wheat crop but I'll need to see what the closest DIY shop has on offer, judge its quality and work from there. I could just do something a little different like cabbages but I am really unsure about how to approach that.

My first task therefore is to build the fields by getting a base adding the walls and painting all that up. Then I can look at what'll fit in and how it might look once it is finished. Also if you are reading this: thanks. Let me know in a comment just so I don't get the feeling I am shouting into the void.

Necromunda Bounty Hunter

So while the picture shows off the Bounty Hunter I just painted it is also an experiment with getting a better background for photographing my Necromunda models. She is a little small in this one but I think it worked out fine with the back ground. I'll experiment further I think but so far so good. When I saw the rules for the Venator Gang appear in Gang War I knew that I had to paint some miniatures for one. The first model I found that looked right was an old Escher Ganger. She is a little on the small size in comparison to the current range of models but as she is unlikely to be fielded alongside any of those models I wasn't too worried. I wanted to go with a cold palette for her with some striking contrast in the hair. The photograph doesn't really manage to show off the pale skin very well, It was an old camera and I've never been that good at photographing models anyway. I'm very happy with how she came out and I'm looking forward to painting the next one.

Necromunda Walkway

I showed you my WIP Necromunda building last week and now I'll show you one of the walkways that I mentioned in the article. It isn't totally finished either but it is very close to being so. I reduced the height of the Sector Mechanicum supports that GW make as I felt they were a little too high for the game. I wanted my gang to be able to scale ladders and run for cover in the same move rather than barely get up the ladder in the first place. I also wanted to be able to have more multi-level pieces without having to go really high. I achieved that nicely here with the half level which fits perfectly with this piece I made earlier. Again once this piece is finished I'll make a video and show it off. It doesn't need much more work so you'll see it sooner than last weeks building.

Necromunda Building 1

Sometimes I wonder why I start certain projects, this building is very much one of them. All seemed reasonable as I started but soon the error of my ways was revealed! It is hard to dedicate a lot of time to a single project and it is even harder to keep up motivation once the project is started.
As I have slowly been building up my section of the underhive I felt that I needed a proper building that could occupy a moderate chunk of the table, blocking line of sight, offering cover and give the walkways I have been working on something to connect to. Making a solid building with the Sector Mechanicum pieces just wasn't going to work, the time invested in making the pieces and then painting them was too high and so I turned to the bulkhead walls that come with the base Necromunda set to help me out. I cast the pieces for the ground floor and started painting them up. The repetitive nature of them was fine as I guess this is an industrial building and as such would be made without much thought to pleasing aesthetics.

I painted them ´with a little more weathering than usual, this helped to hide the few mistakes I made in casting the first few bulkheads. It is always a process to learn how to demould these to keep the details intact but also to get the correct amount of plaster into the mould fast enough before it starts to set. That can cause breaks in the piece that seem to only reveal themselves when it comes to getting the piece out of the mould. The heavy weathering also keeps the piece from being too colourful on the gaming table and distracting from the action which should always be in the foreground. The weathering is mainly washes and a little Typhoid Corrosion from GW to give some texture to the rust.

I don't want the building to be too tall as I can't store them as easily then. Also I don't think it benefits game play when the buildings are too tall. It impedes access to certain areas of the board, makes determinations of line of sight difficult and also gives long range weaponry a slight advantage. I don't see the confines of the underhive really containing massively tall structures except in very limited circumstances. I reduced the foot print on the first floor of the building to allow playable access to it. The walkways that go over this level will extend out just as far as the ones below providing some shelter and be at the perfect height to meet the walkways I have started work on.

The painting of these structures takes me an age. I think I put a little too much effort into the first ones I built and now I feel like I have to match it across them all. Don't get me wrong, the effort is definitely worth it in terms of how the finish piece looks on the table. Its just that the sheer volume of the surface alone takes a while to cover solidly in paint and then going in to do the details is a whole other Sisyphean effort. I have cast the final pieces for this piece namely the walkway on the top. I haven't however gotten any further than you see here and it could be a long time before more progress is made. I'll film a video then and show it off. Fingers crossed it is sooner rather than later!