World building part 3

Moving on from what I was saying yesterday about Cadia and the laws of decipherability and such like, I think that I would like to try an represent this, and other memorial themes on the table top.

Here are some pics I cribbed off Google...  The snowy one next to the bottom looks incredibly sad.

World building part 2

Moving on from yesterday's post, I thought I'd talk briefly about the theme I've got in mind.

The theme that I want my table to have is that of an Imperial Shrine World, in a contested part of the Galaxy. Most areas should be battle damaged, and some should be largely unscathed.

These Shrine Worlds we hear about in the background material are something that I've found somewhat intriguing since I first came across them. Whole worlds dedicated to the Adeptus Ministorum and the Imperial cult. It's a mind blowing concept to me.

I've also recently re-read Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn stories, and there was one particular element in the second book that stuck a chord with me, and that I thought would be interesting to include in my perceived theme.  This was the mention of the "law of legibility" in the cemeteries on Cadia. For those that are not familiar with this, Cadia is something of a fortress world that breeds warrior stock for the Imperial Guard's Cadian regiments. It produces a lot of soldiers. Who then die in droves, and earn the right to a burial plot on their home world.  Unfortunately, space is at something of a premium in these cemeteries, and thus there are members of the Ecclesiarchy whose specific role is to maintain these burial sites, and keep track of whether the inscriptions on the grave markers have been rendered illegible by the elements. Once a marker's inscription is considered to illegible, the dead soldier is considered to have passed from memory, and the remains will then be disinterred, and moved to a mass grave or incinerated, thus making room for fresh (or not so fresh) inhabitants of the burial plot.

Anyway, I found some images on Google Images that I thought might give me some ideas on how things might look. Only when I make the buildings for my table, they'll be crapper.

World Building part 1

Any of my three regular readers will be able to tell you two facts:
1. I visited Warhammer World in December
2. I am working on putting together a gaming table and scenery

With this in mind, I thought I'd share with you some photos I took of some of the impressive gaming tables I saw on the day. The attention to detail is impressive...

Love this abandoned excavation of an Eldar artifact going on in the back corner

Here, the Mustard King, Stevie Boxall can be seen examining a pot of mustard

 

This desert board looks great, but must be pretty boring to play on

I'm into this Tau outpost in the midst of a jungle swamp.

Ork Kill Team update - Spag Boll the Tank Busta!

Painted up this gent the other day, who will be playing the role of a tank busta in my ork kill team.

The minaiture is by Kromlech, and the base is by Scibor.

Look at his gormless expression of glee. And his lovely remote controlled bucket of scrap metal and explosives.

What's not to love?

20,000 views

I feel almost half popular. I think I might build some more buildings tonight.

Here are some other things I built out of plastic:

In other news, The Lawrence Arms are releasing Metropole on the 28th January.

They are streaming the whole thing here - it excites me a lot and has been getting me through the week.

D.I.Y gaming table phase 1 - a.k.a the beast is back

Admittedly, I've been fairly quiet of late, what with Xmas and New Year and all that tripe. That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. Anyway, I've made the tentative first steps in sorting out a gaming table for use at home.

The important thing here, apart from enabling more fun to take place, was to have something that was easy to store, and that would also look good. So I've decided I want to try and do something along the lines of a Shrine World. Although we'll see how that pans out!

Things I have used / acquired:
1.Three sheets of 9mm thick MDF, in 2ft by 4ft size.
2. Another sheet of 6mm thick MDF, in 2ft by 4ft size, chopped into 1ft square pieces - (All the MDF is readily available from B&Q, and they will cut stuff to size for you for free)
3. Can of blackboard paint (can I say this? is it PC? it's what is says on the tin, so I'll go with it)
4. Can of grey primer paint
5. Folding clips (4 of)

Ignore the shit triffid looking thing in the background

Square and beige

Tins and clips

So, by way of explanation, the 3 big sheets of MDF make a modular surface. If I use 2 of the sheets, I get a 4 x 4ft surface, which is ideal for smaller games or for Kill Team etc. If I use 3, it's a standard 6 x 4ft surface.  The boards will be held together with the folding clips, and will lay on top of an old sheet on the dining table. The boards will also easily fit in the cupboard under the stairs, with all the spiders and shit.

I undercoated the big boards with the blackboard paint, which I got because the can reckons it's really hard-wearing. Guess we'll find out in due course.... I then gave it a rough over-spray with the grey primer. It was windy outside, so it blew the spray and produced a nice effect for added interest. Well, better than flat grey at least.

The smaller boards will be used for mounting buildings etc. on. The 6mm thickness adds in a kerb height that seems sort of realistic at 28mm scale too, so I can have "roads" between the tiles if needed.

The next step will obviously be putting some terrain together. I'm quietly determined that this won't turn into another one of those projects that doesn't come to full fruition.

There's orks skulking about in the park... Terrain W.I.P

I've managed to do a bit of work on my first piece of terrain, for my forthcoming, ahem... gaming table.  It's the battlescape made by Games Workshop.

Pretty simple to build, but it did need a fair bit of green stuff around where the trees fix to the base. Given how well GW plastic kits generally go together these days, quite why there should be massive gaps of this kind I have no idea.  In addition, the vision slot on the front of the wrecked rhino needed to have both end cut off to fit on the model. Bizarre.

Paint job is W.I.P. but has been pretty simple so far.

Airbrush undercoat in black, followed by an airbrush overspray of grey and black in a roughly 2:1 ratio.

Trees painted in GW Graveyard Earth, washed in a mix of the old GW brown ink and Devlan Mud. Further dry brush in Graveyard Earth, and a second wash with Devlan Mud.

Rhino had a thinned coat of GW Warplock Bronze applied with a large brush. Was then streaked with GW Boltgun Metal using an old dry brush. The new GW Typhus Corrosion technical paint was then applied liberally to the whole rhino (this is an excellent new paint, by the way - kind of like a textured wash). Once this had dried, a rough stipple of Calthan Brown was applied to the whole of the tank.

Throw in a bit of blue on the marine bits (face it, the Smurfs are boring) and that's pretty much it thus far.