Urban Buildings - Can't have too many of these eh?

So in digging around for pics to post of some of my older buildings, I am really starting to see the progress of my building skills, and more importantly I am seeing all the little ways I would do it differently/better now.  That gives me hope that there is in fact progress in my goal to build better and more dynamic terrain.

These pieces I built over a year ago and they were mostly just experimenting with foamboard and corrugated cardboard.  I wanted a construction site feel to these pieces and this was the first time I had ever played with the wire mesh.

More Urban Ruins

 So I made a few pieces for a terrain building contest on Miniwargaming.com and the theme was Recycled Goods.  I did up a few pieces, and even if I didn't win, I saw with the huge variety of entries just how versatile trash could really be.  I made quite a few pieces revolving around that idea when I have wanted to build, but not spend any money.

The idea behind this set was a quick and dirty assembly of nearly all plastic bottles/cardboard.

Ruins. Quick and Easy.

This set was quick and easy.  Nuff said right?  I have been building for a while now, so this set when handed to me was a very fast turn around.  I immediately saw the potential.  I got handed a set of brick walls made by Tamiya, and they were already red brick plastic.  I knew some finishing touches would make this set pop and it would be really painless.

Mounted on foamboard, and then flocked with a mix of sand and turf, then I just added some grass and foliage.  All I did to the bricks themselves was wash heavily in brown and then lighter in black.  Gave it a worn and dirty look.  Hit the jump for pics of the set.

Alien Plant-life

The VERY first time I went to Hobby Lobby, I fell in love at least a dozen times.  This was for me, the start of terrain building.  Having just walked in and finding literally isles full of plastic plants, I knew that I would be making some alien plant-life for my games.  I will admit I've been to a hobby location nearly every weekend since.  Mostly for inspiration, but also for raw materials.  Foam-board, Glue, Spray-paint, you name it, I get it there.

Urban Set - Game Pics - Black Legion vs Daemons - 1500 Special Mission Arena

  Finally got a game in using the new urban tile set, and I gotta say, this was one of the most entertaining games I have had in a while.  I wanted a massive punchy fight, and that was exactly what I got.  A friend and I were getting tired of the same old bad guys vs Tau, so we decided to mix things up with a special mission.  Using the recently acquired Black Legion Supplement we did the Khorne Arena fight.  SO MANY MC'S AND WALKERS!!  I used every single MC and Walker model I had, and we still had to proxy a Blood Slaughterer.  It was grand.  Many pics after the jump...

Hills and teaching yourself how not to do them.

My very first foray into making terrain, like many others I am sure was to make a set of hills.  At the time I thought I was super slick and the hills I made would be game changing.  Oh how quickly that illusion was shattered.  I thought it would be simple enough to top single level hills with the matching AstroTurf mat that the table used, and it would be done in an hour.  Having completed the set, and looking back, I see just how uncaring of the details I was and just how much more I wanted to rush the build to get to play with it instead of making it great. 

Trees - Go Hug one ya hippy.

Okay, so everyone and their brother has some trees to use for terrain.  I am no different in that regard, so I figured I would show off the ones I made.  I was lucky enough to get handed a box of 10+ year old railroad hobby materials from my dad who was cleaning up basement storage, and he said as long as I posted about it, I could have em.  

Standard pre-made trees from Scenic Landscapes covered in Reindeer Moss.  Mounted on CD bases.  I made a few flavors of these trees, 8-10 of each set.  A few light ones, a few darker green ones, some palms and an autumn set.

I have in the works a coniferous set to go with the arctic mat I have, but those are still very much a WIP.  I will give them their own post when they are closer to done.  

Speaking of Crystals... More Crystals anyone? Now in BLUE!

I have a buddy that plays Dark Eldar.  Haven't played him in a while, so I thought...it worked in Field of Dreams, why not here... so I built it, and... well I figured I had to show it off at least before getting to play a game with it.

Now that the set is done, I can see I really need more line of sight blocking material, so a set of hills will be in the works shortly for this set.  But here it is.  The idea behind this was to show the corruptible power that the Dark Eldar inflicts on the very earth they reside in.  I started with a rigid, much more natural looking set of crystals and go through the corruption process to really see the warping effects on the more complex pieces.  Made from blue foam mounted on CD bases.  I went with the dark crystal with a blue glow highlight to match my friends paint scheme.

Expansion plans for this set are pretty exciting too.  This set goes perfectly on the Ashen/Stone mat as you can see, and as this set is mostly small/medium pieces, a few centerpiece structures would be good.  I imagine a web-way portal, a very spiky landing platform, and some tall spiky towers to go with the current pieces seamlessly.  

Insufficient Crystals - Hey at least we have plenty of Vespene Gas

So everyone and their mother has a few sets of crystals on their tabletop. As I play Necrons, its pretty much a requirement to have some on the board.  Eventually this set will flesh out to become the awakening Tomb-World I have planned, but for now... Just the crystal sets.

Made from Blue and Polystyrene Foam and on my trusty CD bases or mounted on 3mm balsa wood in the case of the rectangular bases.  I made 10 of the circular bases and 4 of the square ones.  Future plan is to make some hills with smaller versions, make a few for the desert set in this color scheme, and eventually make a set of ice crystals for the arctic set.

Sacrificial Altar / Chaos Warpgate

So a few months back, I participated in a monthly terrain building contest on Miniwargaming.com.  The monthly theme was Harmony/Despair.  We were supposed to use that theme to create whatever terrain we wanted, and users would vote on the best representation of the theme.  As I play Chaos primarily, I wanted to build a themed piece of terrain that would look good, and fit my armies.  This was a month or 2 before the new Daemons codex dropped, and I had no idea how fluffy it would end up being totally by coincidence.

As the theme was Harmony/Despair, I wanted to take a piece of terrain that looked completely in harmony with it's surroundings and make it completely turned to the dark side and forever more used only for evil purposes.  It starts with a fairly normal color palette of slate grays and earth tones.  Only the corrupting effects spoil the otherwise mostly natural setting.

Bio-Spores - Infecting a planetary body near you!

My last post teased about showcasing my all-time favorite project thus far.  I saw a similar idea posted and immediately knew I had to do something similar.  I built this because a buddy of mine just got engaged, and I wanted to give him a hand made gift.  So I made twice as many as I would otherwise, with the intention of splitting the set with him.

Goals for this project:

• Spend less than $10 Total
• Use as many scrap/trash materials as necessary
• Show movement and growth of the plant life
• Have both Line of Sight blocking pieces and area terrain pieces

Hot Feet! - Desert Terrain Set

I did this set at the request of a friend to have terrain to match his army.  He plays Tau, and thus... Desert Theme!  

Made from Foam, both Blue and Polystyrene and the smaller pieces are mounted on CD's covered in sand which have quickly become my favorite basing material.  

This set of terrain was a TON of fun to build, but I really wasn't happy with the paint scheme the first go around.  FAR too yellow.  I redid it to much more dulled earth tones, in browns and grays, and then finished it with a light coating of earthy yellows to simulate the desert wind blowing all over everything.  Very sparse vegetation, mostly just small shrubs and brown tufts of grass with a few low cover tiles with a few cacti and succulents.  I think it blends well with my grassland hills and other earth tone terrain pretty well, but eventually it will include sand dunes, and Tau specific buildings and fortifications.

Urban Tile Set

This project has sat on my shelf half finished for nearly a year.. It was primed black, and at the time it felt like it was taking FOREVER, so I put it down.  If I am not enjoying my hobby, I set it aside, and find something that sparks my interest.  In going through my basement storage area a few weeks ago in an attempt to clean and hopefully find more room to store terrain... I am finding that I had half a dozen half finished projects in various places.  That led me actually winding up said half finished projects, and TA DA!!  I finally got a great working compressor for my airbrush, and now I get to breeze though applying paint on a massive scale.

This tile set is a layer of foam-board topped with a 1" thick polystyrene foam cut into 1'x1' squares.  Yes, it is still a work in progress, but with a little color, I wanted to show my progress on it.  All of the "Sewer" tiles match up and as usual my rule of infinity configuration was my inspiration in this set.  I wanted a set that could really make a wide variety of setups, and with 40 tiles that always leaves me with extras to play around with.

Battlemats - Change up your battlefield!

Tired of an inter-galactic scale war that is fought on the same planet with the same look battle after battle?  Me Too!!!

I kinda teased about the post topic earlier, but I thought I would showcase the mats I have made thus far.  Mostly I got sick of playing game after game on that boring field of generic green turf, and I disliked the seam in the middle of my table.  As the table is modular and divides in half, mats were a simple solution to seamlessly change that up.

I can't believe how easy these were to make, and I highly recommend them.  For ~$22 per mat, you can make some really interesting boards that will go with you very easily.  When you are done, I simply roll them up around a cardboard tube, or PVC pipe.

Urban Catwalks and Platforms

The first project I want to share is my most recent... I'm so excited about it, and it is very much still a work in progress, but as you will see, it's playable, so I had to snap a few shots.  More detail work will come soon, but so far, I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out.

The idea for this project is simple... I wanted platforms and catwalks to make a variety of urban settings.  To be able to bring a civilized element to many other terrain groups.  I wanted a set that was highly modular and infinitely configurable, While fitting in a single shelf of space for the entire set.  That being said, I needed to keep the colors simple, and what better than... GRAY!!!  Exciting I know, but it goes really well with all of the other sets I have going right now.  It is constructed out of foam-board and granny grating.    TL;DR... Platforms and Catwalks.

Introduction - Welcome!

Welcome to the blog... This will be the place I dump my projects, and show off my slowly but surely growing collection of terrain for war-gaming, focusing on Warhammer 40k.  I play semi-regularly, but for the most part, enjoy the building side of the hobby the most.   I play Necrons, Chaos Space Marines, and Daemons, and have a fairly respectable army size for each.  I just like playing the bad guys more.  Always have, always will.  Been playing for a few years now, but what keeps me playing is the picture that evolves in front of me that I get to interact with.  The better the picture, the more entertaining, and interactive.  I strive to build good terrain to make the games I do play that much better.