Terrain is everything - 40k outpost, that got bigger Pt 1 'the outpost'

This was the first piece of terrain I started. I'd just joined TerraGenesis and I saw a guy called BugbaitNZ creating a planetary defence platform for a competition. The tower he was making for the gun emplacement wasn't going to get finishe din time so he made a hexagonal base which is what I decided to copy to just see if I could do it.

And it turned out OK, only the problem was it was much bigger than I expected and totally dominated our small battlefield. I had to do something to make that real estate worth more than the low level cover it was representing. So I started on my modularity complex and hacked at the rear wall in such a way that i could position a 3 storey tower into the out post. This can be detached to form a separate tower if needed or leave the outpost on it's own or joined together.

As you can see the tower was a considerable jump in detail and complexity but I'd been convinced I could do it following the success of the outpost. My only regret is the use of a lever arch file cover for the base. I thought it was the moisture in the PVA that warped card and as the cover was plastic coated it wouldn't warp. WRONG! It's just PVA shrinks. If it's not dimensionally stable your base will warp, FACT, so deal with it.

   

   

Plans for the outpost are here. Tower plans to follow...

'nids part 1. and 'List maker'

So given my son's choice of 'nids I thought I'd look to some form of army list maker to help, erm, making the lists. Obviously there are some you have to pay for but if you can get one for free even better, and that's what I found. Over at Alice 40k Warhammer club they have plenty of list makers for your specific codex. They're all Excel spreadsheets and they're quite good, a few bugs in places but nothing you can't add to somewhere to get your force down.

With this in mind here's the first list I came up with, using my son's figures and a few more I felt I needed [like the Shrikes for synapse support for the Gargoyles]. It was completely without any background knowledge, the Codex was so new very little advice was available at the time.

• Tyranid Prime with Pair of Boneswords,Adrenal Glands,Toxin Sacs,Regeneration,,,,,,,,,,,,120
• 3x Hive Guard(s) with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,150
• Tervigon with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,160
• 12x Termagaunts with Strangleweb,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,70
• 12x Genestealers with Adrenal Glands,Toxin Sacs,,,,,,,,,,,,,,240
• 3x Tyranid Warriors with Barbed Strangler,Deathspitter,,,,,,,,,,,,,,110
• 3x Ripper Swarms with Tunnel Swarm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,36
• 10x Gargoyles with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,60
• 3x Tyranid Shrikes with Pair of Boneswords,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,135
• Trygon with Regeneration,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,225
• 1x Biovore(s) with ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,45

TOTAL 1351

Now a lot of things would change with this mainly due to offers that became available on ebay. So we'll see where we're at once all those purchases got made. Certainly the Shrikes have gone by the wayside, despite finding 3 pairs of wings I could use to convert them... Meanwhile where was that Tervigon coming from?

Next up what I did for my HQ choice, the Tyranid Prime...

Falling off the wagon part 3. The Shadow in the Warp

So for Christmas 2009 I got Assault on Black Reach, but it's one thing to get the game, it's another to play and really the only incentive is if you have someone to play against. I've got 1000's of points of Space Marines but they had absolutely no interest to my eldest son. He was only interested in Tyranids and with his birthday coming up and a new codex due at the same time he had plenty of birthday money to invest.

Now I loved the 'Without Number' rule in the old codex whereby if a gaunt was 8pts or less, for an additional 3pts each if the brood was wiped out they could be brought on again from the Tyranid board edge. What better way to prevent tears and tantrums than a constantly respawning battleforce. Anyway that rule went by the wayside and the Nipper got a box of Termagants, Warriors, Gargoyles and a Trygon to add to the Biovore he'd randomly bought at some point.

It was my job to get the paints and work up a paint scheme. I knew I wanted to do it blue because the Nipper's favourite colour is blue. I also looked at all the new stats in the codex and realised those gargoylse were rapidly going to suffer when they got out of Synapse range so would probably need some Shrikes to go with them. Looking up Winged Tyranid Warrior I saw a nice conversion on a website called Necrotales. Suddenly I had the inspiration for the colour scheme I wanted to do...

So you've already seen my son's Broodlord [in a body warmer] from when I discussed cheap terrain materials. But you can see quite clearly the blue and bone white scheme I developed, we'll get to see more of these beggars over time.

A ruin of a rule

As I stumble through my new experiences with whatever edition 40k is on now occasionally a rule will come up I don't have an answer for, I'm sure we all suffer this. Anyway my son was playing a game with his cousin. He had a Tervigon and 16 Termagants in tow. A squad of terminators were on 3 floors of the ruined building pictured below.

Now they never actually got into combat because the game had to finish, that's the price you pay when your battlefield is the dining table! But afterwards I debated what my son should have done and it raised these questions.

The termagants aren't going to want to assault through the ruin as that'll make their Initiative 1 so what if the Tervigon destroys the building then the Terminators are denied their cover, so I asked the following on the Bell of Lost Souls forum for answers

Tervigon assaults the building- it penetrates roll on vehicle damage table.
Immobilised - does nothing.
Wrecked - terminators disembarks up to 2" away and pinning test [would you put a crater down? would it be difficult terrain? would the termies be allowed within this cover considering they had to disembark].
Explodes! - everyone takes a S4 hit and positioned where the building used to be and pinning test [no crater placed, or would it?].
If the tervigon's termagant spawn then assault any pinned or even unpinned occupants would the occupants get the 'assaulting through cover' bonuses?
What I'm getting at is if models are in a building and you destroy the building which was giving them the 'assaulting through cover' bonuses would they still get them if you destroyed the building?

The responses were mixed but I think I understand what would happen now and there's a fundamental difference between a 'building' and a 'ruin' [or 'ruined building']. Apparently a structurally sound building is like a vehicle, you can assault it and destroy it just like any transport. A ruin though is difficult terrain, you cannot assault it, you cannot destroy it so there is no opportunity for the mighty Tervigon to smash a rickety unstable ruin to pieces.

Which just makes no sense to me.

When you consider most of GW's building kits are 'ruined' I'm surprised this isn't a major issue. Together with the fact even in the rule book they suggest often it is better to assault a building than trying to assault the occupants because of the Initiative modifier. However, as the moving through difficult terrain test suggest that people use micro grenades, cutting tools, or acid to dissolve holes to negotiate the terrain you could easily suggest, in a friendly game, if a Monstrous Creature walks through a ruin and passes the test the ruin is flattened. Although I still prefer the idea a ruined building should be a valid assault target, so that may be our house rules.

Of course even if my option of destroying the ruin was agreed with an opponent and the Terminators were 'dismebarked' outside of the cover the Termagants would not be able to assault because you have to nominate who they're assaulting before any assaults take place. If you nominate the Terminator squad they'd have to be in the building when the Tervigon rampaged through it.



Epic Space Marines part 1. - Dark Angels

Here's some pics of my small Epic Dark Angels force. I had to have one seeing as I was fielding a Dark Angels 40 chapter but also you got extra choices with the likes of Ravenwing [before they went all Goth coloured]. So there's 3 tactical squads, differentiated by bolter and back pack colours - gold, silver and red. A Ravenwing attack force - Land Speeders and bikes. Three Lands Raiders, a Thunderhawk Gunship and continuing my love affair with Tarantula Sentry Guns - my own scratch builds made out of Imperial Guard las pistols and las rifle handles, enjoy!

Falling off the wagon part 2. Assault on Black Reach

Unbeknownst to me our town centre independent newsagents had been under new management for quite some time. This newsagents had always been quite large and had an art section at the back. Aside from my trek to Liverpool when I first started down this path there was only this shop that stocked Citadel Miniatures. I recall purchases of samurai, ninja and a strange passion for half-orcs? Individual blister packs were 60p, although I do recall paying 50p on occasion.

Anyway, decades later the new owners had reintroduced GW products as an Independent stockist. My wife just casually dropped it into a conversation and I had to return to my roots! Suffice to say it was an odd feeling to go back and see their new stock and even more exciting when I saw Assault on Black Reach for around £45. Cheaper than GW! So I actually said that that was all I wanted for Christmas.

On the day I didn't get it. Santa came and went but in the morning there was no 'game in a box' sized parcel. I really was like a kid let down on Christmas day. Then my Mother-in-Law comes over to drop off the presents Santa left at her house. It seemed I'd been a good little boy afterall and the game was mine. Saying that having trimmed all the figures from their sprues I've never had a game with all the figures provided. It would take part 3. of falling of the wagon to really push me over the edge - The Shadow in the Warp

Harlequins

The first picture I posted was of my Harlequin Jet Bike. Harlequins were probably my first purchase for Rogue Trader. My Godmother lives in Canada and we went on a family holiday to visit. At the time my obsession with GW was absolute and I had my latest White Dwarf with me that I insisted on shoving under the nose of any and all that showed an interest.

Eventually we found an independent stockist of Citadel miniatures and I came out of a place more likely to sell scented candles than figures. I have to say there were some strange looks on the airport security staff when that box of figures went through the X-Ray!

Below are the figures I bought, painted in varying degrees. Eventually they were sold on ebay and although there are some I now regret this was not one of them. I still like the figures and the premise, although now I understand they're part of the new Dark Eldar codex, but I thought they deserved a more loving home.

The completed part of my Harlequin troupe.

The full ebay lot, including unpainted miniatures and a free Swooping Hawk [which I loved].

Death Jester inspired Eldar dreadnought.

The joker on his jetbike - batdance!

Some of the better painted 'quins.

Death Jesters, I love 'em. tried to be clever with a 'milky' wash on the shuriken cannons.

Average quality 'quins, some of my first attempts. The Riddler is on the left and the middle pose is awesome thanks to the Milliput 'hillock'.

These were unfinished at the time of sale.

Falling off the wagon part 1. Blood Bowl

I officially fell off the wagon in December 2009. Although I had been dabbling 'recreationally' for part of that year. My wife had always pushed me into GW's ever since my son had started to show interest in the figures as they spun round. I REALLY did not want to get back into gaming. I knew how much of a money pit it could be and a total time thief what with painting, modelling and gaming. The last thing I needed was another distraction. I also knew this could be a fad with my son so I thought if there's anything I could do it would be Blood Bowl. All I need to do is paint 32 men, the board is self contained and the games cana be over quite quick.

There was a catch though, I had to have the 2nd edition Astrogranite™ pitch. I had two thirds of my pitch knocking around, both Star Players and the Companion books and plenty of figures, enough for about 4 teams actually. But I needed a complete pitch. In the end I got one and although I'd planned to cover it in sand I thought it'd eventually scratch the figures, and I'd never liked flocking. So I used normal household tester paint pots and ended up with this...

 

In the end I think we've only ever had two games, once the 40k is 'out of the way I'll start back on the figures. BTW the two custom endzones are for the Mongrel Horde and my 'Good' equivalent featuring Elves Dwarves, Treeman and a Halfling the reformed Haffenheim Hornets [back when you could have mixed race teams that is!]

Dark Angels genesis vol 2.

Although I liked the darkness of my original attempt at Dark Angel power armour I was never fully happy with the quality and it felt like I was cheating. Essentially the paint was only applied at the edges, something most paint guides advocate now but back then it was shadows, midtone highlight [work your way up].

My mate James's Ultramarines were a 'duck egg blue'. They looked cool so I thought the same principle would work on DA's green. They've ended up far too pale but I still like them in a way and can't bring myself to strip them, not yet anyway.

Old school Space Marine devastator squad! Like I say not recognisable as true Dark Angels. Wow, folks that's a Conversion Beamer, when you didn't have to be a forge master to get one and they converted mass to energy, the bigger you are the bigger the bang! NOT the further away you are the bigger the bang, that makes no sense?! Spot the Advanced Space Crusade scout heavy bolter, I have the lead standard ones, I just wanted the massive ugly plastic one instead.

Circa 1992.

Old school Space Marine Chaplain, on a bike! Brother Infernus to the rescue. This was before the 'Ravenwing is all black' info came out, hence the green bike. This guy was supposed to zoom around the battle field dropping Vortex grenades like the easter bunny.

Old school Dark Angel mole mortar! Now no longer available to Space Marines [just Death Korps of Krieg] although the Thunderfire cannon has similar rules to those of the Rogue Trader days [although they're not in the DA codex!]

Old School Tarantula sentry gun from Advance Space Crusade. I've 3 of these babies and was gutted there was no rules for them until I saw Imperial Armour 2. 15pts each for twin linked heavy bolter. BS2, but 3 of them stacked together, you can do some damage on a gaunt swarm!

 

Adeptus Titanicus

Although Blood Bowl was my first foray into Games Workshop's games and Rogue Trader appeared somewhere along the line it was Adeptus Titanicus that was my first choice of game I wanted to persue. My friend had shown me Blood Bowl and RT but when Adeptus Titanicus came out I was the only one to get it and although we went on to play Epic and Space Marine extensively no one ever got Adeptus Titanicus except me.

So I have quite a large Titan force. I also got hold of the Titan expansion box, a further 6 warlords not to mention my Reavers and Warhounds. Hopefully I'll get to showcase my entire Howling Griffons, Ultramarine, Dark Angel Epic battleforce. Meanwhile here's the White Dwarf teaser advert...

Dark Angels genesis vol 1.

For some reason I've chosen Dark Angels as my Space Marine chapter. I think it goes back to that first Epic boxed game - 'Space Marine' they were on the front of the box all dark and moody. Funnily enough I did most of my epic figures as Ultramarines but with a contingent of Dark Angels as allies.

Anyway I started these guys around 1990/91. I may even have been using enamel paints in some parts. I was never 100% happy with the finish, I mean the colour is awesome but the quality just isn't there. If I could get such a deep green/black finish now I'd be happy but at the time I wasn't which is why there is another volume to this saga...

Milliput bases, what was I thinking?

Cheap terrain materials

Cheap alternatives to some of your usual terrain building materials are available at your local hardware store – B&Q, Homebase, Focus etc.

For instance sand you could purchase GW’s own basing sand £5 for 100g or you could get one of the many sacks of sand from B&Q for £2 odd. The difference being GW’s is probably graded  and cleaned, the sharp sand is probably damp contains many grades, which can be frustrating but I used a selection of sieves to get exactly the grade I wanted and left it outside in the sun to dry. I managed to grade some very fine sand, some medium grade, some chunky granular sand and even some pebbles for rough terrain – particularly useful when basing Hormagaunts. They mostly advance through cover/difficult terrain anyway, why not base them with a lot of gravel to offset that annoying tendency to fall flat on their gnashing teeth!

Here's an example of how the sand is graded. Clearly the basing helps pick out the variety but it's there in spades!

You can build plenty of hills with this sort of polystyrene for only £2! Not quite as good as the denser pink, peach or blue insulation foam but it'll do in a pinch. I got some peach foam from B&Q [honestly I don't get commission]. It's not on their website but it is available from the larger 'trade centres'.

Space Hulk freebie

Rooting around in one of my many treasure troves of 40k stuff I found White Dwarf issue 120 December 1989. Aside from the fact this magazine is 21 years old there was a complete article on rules for using Space Marines in Space Hulk. Complete with mission, extra board pieces and army lists.

As far as I'm aware the recent reissue of Space Hulk was exactly the same and included the Deathwing supplements [if I'm wrong let me know and I'll see what I can do about that]. So I've scanned the rules so anyone wishing to try out their favourite marines against genestealers give it a shot and let me know what you think. 

Get the Space Marines in Space Hulk rules here.

Terrain is everything - modular hill overview part 2.

In much the same way that GW’s battle terrain can split and rotate I wanted a hill that did the same. A hill big enough to support my largest building but offer a split so it can be positioned as corner pieces or board side ridges.

I sourced some pink insulation foam from B&Q. It was about £7 and 50mm thick, twice what I wanted but the 25mm foam was out of stock. I think the sheet was about 5’ long and possibly 3’ wide, big enough for a table on it’s own and after producing all my hills I have half of it left.

Firstly I had to split the foam in two to get it down to 25mm. I used a normal wood saw to do this. It made a really rough surface but I figured that would be the base so wouldn’t matter. One down side to this is that the foam did start to warp a little so if you can get 25mm thick foam, get it! I then traced my hill, with split and a number of other hills, a roughly circular hill, oval and a long ridge. I think all of them can fit on the modular hill in some way to get that double height cover.

The hills were all cut out at an angle. I used a thin bread knife for this as the serrated edges were finer leaving a smoother finish on the slopes. This is really difficult to do and takes a lot of care so you don’t lose a limb. Cutting the hill on the edge/corner of a table allows the knife to cut through without destroying the furniture. I did mine vertically on the wall outside so I didn’t make a mess from the polystyrene.

The hills had bases made out of mounting card, less durable than MDF but I had loads to hand and it’s easier to cut/bevel edges. Obviously the downside is that the PVA used to mount the hills and board together warped them but eventually you can bend them back straight. Around the edges builder’s sharp sand from B&Q was stuck on with PVA.

The hills were painted with a black interior house paint, bulked out with Early Learning Centre art paint, some Polycel ready mix plaster, some fine sand and a good dollop of PVA glue. I wanted a nice impervious coating, like you get with surfboards, a foam core with a hard outer fibreglass shell.

Once this was dry I sprayed a red oxide primer paint [another advantage to red planet battlefields] onto the hill. I’d also managed to pick up some Vermillion artists acrylic paint from Quality Save for 99p. Amazingly this colour matches the base map perfectly. A series of successive drybrushes really picked up the sand and texture.

Below are all the hills I made in one go, as you can see there’s plenty of variety to their deployment which means we won’t get too bored with our terrain. Later on as I present more examples of my red planet terrain, once I've prepped all the .pdf templates to go with them I'll show how the terrain all fits together.

Terrain is everything - modular hill overview part 1.

From day one my primary interest in getting back into gaming has been the fun I had making scenery. Admittedly I’m not talking some of the hyper-realistic sort that some terrain artists can do but functional, eye-catching, game-worthy scenery. Added to this, given our limited gaming table I wanted the scenery to be versatile. Terrain created in such a way that, where possible, it can be used in a variety of ways for maximum effect.

So I started with a list of typical terrain:

• Hills
• Trees
• Walls
• Fences
• Buildings
• Ruins
• Scattered objects
• Rock formations
• Bunkers/defences
• Containers

As you see first on the list was hills, you’re defacto standard terrain. If you’re using a felt sheet for a battle mat these can be as simple as books under the sheet! In this case I drew up a quick sketch for my modular hill.

So, for part two of this overview tomorrow, I’ll go into detail how I went about making the hills.

A freebie - Battlefield Mars

Way back when I went to a Games Day or Golden Demon and I fell in love with a Chaos battlefield. This thing was bright red and the were lots of little mounds of 'difficult terrain' that were made out of massed piles of pure white skeleton warriors piled up on these red ash hillocks [that's hillocks]. Of course you could do that then because skeleton box sets were THE go to army if you wanted to game on the cheap, are there any cheap starter options anymore?

Anyway, I always wanted a red battlefield, if and when I did my own terrain but back when we were gaming as a group of mates our table was made of plywood and we had a big sheet of green felt. Cut to today and considering the large interest in Adeptus Mechanicus armies I found very few Mars/Red Planet terrain tutorials.

So my first option was to look at red felt which I was going to 'distress' a bit. This would have cost somewhere in the region of £15-£20 and although I've since looked at a couple of alternatives GW's own Realm of Battle Gameboard [too expensive], Zuzzy Miniatures awesome looking Terra-Flex System battle mats [a third the price of a gameboard, easy stowage but not as versatile], a big sheet of B&Q insulation foam carved up and ready to game [V.cheap but hard work to make and a pain to store without damage], I opted for the cheapest option available to me - a big laminated print out of aerial photography!

Of course you need access to a large scale printer and laminator for this sort of thing and if you even look at high street printers who offer such a service you're better off with the felt route, or even the B&Q foam route if you have the skills to model such a board and store it. However if you can access such things here's a copy of my red planet battlefield to print out. It'll easily cover 4'x2' at 144dpi so you could blow it up to do a 6'x3' with only a little loss in quality. It's just over 2MB if you're worried about filesizes.

You can download the full hi-res version here [using Shift+D] https://photos.app.goo.gl/wVvX3TIZ3veLDuS53

40k future container scatter terrain

Here's a little tutorial on some 40k future containers that I made. Get a Mentos Cube Chewing Gum box [currently available in most Home Bargain/Quality Save in the UK for 59p]

Remove all labelling and take the lid off without breaking the sea;
After emptying the contents, preferably into your mouth, slice off all the protruding parts on the lid.

Add cereal box card reinforcements and undercoat. I've .pdf templates for the reinforcements if anyone wants to give it a go. All you need do is print them out, pritt stick or spray mount them to your card and then cut out with a craft knife or scalpel [watch your fingers].



Turn them upside down and add granny grating to the top, brass picture hooks can work as crane pick-up points, but you won't be able to stack them directly on top of each other if you do.

Stack 'em high. Probably big enough to hide a Tervigon!

Currently trying to paint them with some nice rust effects, will update when they're done. Note that some have extra reinforcements in the corner for variety. The .pdf template has these extra pieces, they're the centre reinforcements cut diagonally along the dotted line, good for half your container being ultra-strong.
Also if you take the lids completely off most poster tube end caps make ideal liquid-tank lids. Perhaps some of that square mesh often used as railings wrapped round and you could create something like these.

I'll get round to the half height .pdf at some point and updates of the finished painting as and when it's done. Hope you get some use out of this.

A freebie - wound markers

Here's a little thing to be going on with. If you've got plenty of high wound characters, or if like my son you are running Tyranids then sooner or later you're going to have to deal with recording wounds. There's a number of options, put a dice down [preferrably a small one], buy wound markes or note it down on a piece of paper. The first two cost money, or are annoying if you're using all your lucky dice just to keep track and the last one's also a pain in the hive mind.

Alternatively you can make your own, so I did. All you need to do is print them out, attach to mounting card, cover in sellotape for pseudo one sided lamination and then cut them out, voila!

You can use the blue markers for your Doom of Malantai, thanks to his Spirit Leech having a maximum of 10 wounds! There's also a few 3-5 wound markers for you Tervigon, enjoy.

Usual step-by-step:

1. Print
2. Apply double sided tape to back
3. Stick to mounting card
4. Carefully apply sellotape to top if you want them pseudo-laminated
5. Cut out with craft knife/scalpel
6. Amaze your friends and enemies with these cards
7. Tell them to visit 40kaddict.blogspot.com for their own free markers.

I've really fallen of the wagon now!

OK, so no ones reading this because I'm a new blog that's not going to be advertised but I wanted somewhere to store all my newly rediscovered passion for all things Games Workshop [the passion that dares not speak its name]. I started my interest in little toy soldiers before high school in 1985. Round about that time I was frequenting a local newsagents that sold Citadel miniatures but I'd also been to an independent gaming store called Game in Liverpool and proudly returned with my first lead miniature that cost about 50p!

Anyway I'll maybe spare some time over my history with this hobby over the course of the blog but I'll state that from 1997 to 2009 I was 'clean'. I'd managed to kick the habit and was firmly on the wagon for 12 years despite an increasing amount of occasions where the family would wander into a GW and I would make the store personnel regret ever sidling up to me with the classic "so what brings you here today?"

Still when the kids reach the age where massive super-powered space warriors and space aliens capture their imagination and a downturn in your other passions converge it's easy to suddenly fall of the wagon and indulge your passions. The fact is I always loved the creative side of GW, the painting and model building. I wasn't too bad at it either, just not very prolific, until my college years when I had more time to develop a painting style I was comfortable with. So that's what I'm going to focus on, the bits and pieces that I can collect together that I've made. Hopefully there'll be things people can benefit from, the shortcuts to managing your addiction instead of your addiction managing you. If you end up following me, huzzah, that's a bonus I hope I don't waste your time.

Stay frosty

dwez

PS a random image to start you off. Here's my Harlequin jetbike, painted in the style of the Joker from Tim Burton's Batman. Along with the rest of my 'quins he was sold off on ebay in 2004. Altogether I made a pretty little profit on these guys, more will follow over time.