Circle of Stones

"Behold, ye losers,"  cried the witch, "flowers!"

Our Circle of Stones started life as a small model box bought from Hastings at the checkout.  I think it was meant to be one of those Zen garden style things.  It had puzzle pieces forming a decorative (though flimsy) base.  Foley picked it up and put it together, enjoying it's simplicity.  

Somehow, it sat for ages in a dark and forgotten area of shelf.  Eventually, Foley dug it out and reported it for finishing.  Taking a bit of flat baseboard, she went to work on the project that was at least a year old.

"So, who's got a cool ritual?"

The base was sprayed a nice Hunter Green.  The original base was placed on it, but there was some warping due to the glue.  The original base was even flimsier than I originally suspected.

From there, Foley took to the supply bins and raided a bunch of cool material to flock and finish out the base with.  Notice the Army Painter Meadow Flowers tufts in there.  Very...uh...Spring-y?  Admittedly, not what I expected when Foley told me she was finishing a ritual circle.

I probably should have, though.

The finished product is good on the table.  The little addition of a bright spot on the battlefield can change the whole look of the table layout.  The Circle will probably feature in some objective driven scenario play as well.  All in all, well worth what amounts to just the $5 spent on a box in the checkout line at Hastings.

Scatter Bases: Seasonal Trees

"Nock those arrows but quick, knaves - or the gobs will have our wenches for their pleasures!"

I really enjoy "area terrain".  By that, I mean I like to base terrain abstractly on a base sometimes.  Less clutter to fiddle with.  "True" line-of-sight is neat and is the norm for drawing LoS on the table, but I think that area terrain still has a place in today's world of "true" LoS.

We have a lot of large area pieces.  A lot of them are forests.  So, when our buddy Buff Bagworm showed up with some awesome Hobby Lobby trees, we knew a good way to set about using them that would set them apart from our other wooded terrain features - both in functionality on the table and general aesthetics.

"I say, is it getting dark in here or is it just your rakish photography!?  Philistine!"

The autumn set here was one package Buff brought forth to the club.  We put them on round 50mm bases, which we flocked with a mix of different tones to make an earthy fall basing.  Add a few rocks and some clump foliage from Gale Force 9 and you've got some nice scatter bases.  These are small, but add a lot of flavor.  As these are area terrain pieces, the placement of one of these can dramatically change lines of sight.

It's the host of Between Two Trees, Zacharias Gallifreynovakus.

A veritable autumn forest.  Big thanks to Buff Bagworm and his missus!  They are always looking out for us in their travels, and we really appreciate it.

Obvious Troll is Obvious.

Buff brought us another pack of trees from a local...Dollar Tree?  I think so...it's a thrift mart, but sometimes there are treasures within.  Good looking out, Mr. Bagworm!

These bases were treated a bit differently - we added summer clump foliage instead!  These were some sort of seasonal holiday item, and had "snow" sprayed on the boughs.  A little Krylon Camouflage spray and we're good.  Green foliage and BOOM - summer time scatter bases.

"Steady, Hans...they'll never see us out here!"

I am not sure where these two trees came from.  It was a long time ago, and when I was doing this project I saw them in our bin.  So...pine tree scatter bases!

It's a whole new forest terrain selection for the club, for just a few bucks and very little effort.  Big thanks to Buff Bagworm & Co. (and whoever donated the pine trees) - we really dig you guys.  See you on Game Day!

Terrain Log: Battlefield-in-a-Box Road Sets

Some of the guys from the club were down at the FLGS The Cave, and we were looking through the Battlefront display looking for tanks or some such.  However, we came upon the Battlefield-in-a-Box sets and the guys from the Cave started asking questions about them.  All the Gatekeepers had glowing reviews for these sets, so I thought I'd take a moment and show the road sets.

Forgive my haphazard road building, turns out there's more than one Road to Nowhere.  I simply set up all our sets on a blank Green World.  Forgive the photography - there was no good way to get a pic of the entire table without breaking out the entire studio kit, and it ended up being grainy.  However, you do see a standard 6'x4' table decked out in road pieces (sorta).

The sets we have are the Rural Roads, Rural Roads Expansion, Cratered Rural Roads, Cobblestone Roads and Cratered Cobblestone Roads.  These were some of the first Battlefield-in-a-Box sets we obtained, and they won us over completely.  They are a little floppy, and contour to the table pretty nicely.  They are made of some sort of resinous material with a grippy black backing.  Of course they come fully painted, which is a huge plus.  We elected not to flock ours, but they do come with a few packets of mixed flock each.

My only gripe is that storing these isn't very easy.  The black material on the back seems very tarry.  It will stick to just about anything, and you can't stack these up on one another.  The box they come in is very flimsy, and won't stand up to much general use, let alone real punishment.  Stacking them with the black backings facing each other seems to be the safest way to avoid little black gops of tar-like backing marring the faces of your roads.

Sorry for the long delay in posting!  We're in a big hurry to post some really cool articles and videos.  Watch for changes on the websites, they're coming!  More to come this weekend!

1992 Imperial Firebase

 It's time for another Terrain Log!  Today we're taking a look at another of the card buildings released for Warhammer 40,000, the Imperial Firebase!  As I went over in another entry, Jerry Wargate grabbed us two of the old plastic bulkhead and card buildings that were still pristine in the shrink wrap, and we've been enjoying these pieces for a while now.

This is one of the biggest pieces we own.  It's been put in place on a base like most of the other pieces, and this one's base has been treated with Rustoleum Multi-colored Texture Aged Iron.  I really like the finish of the Aged Iron, and it takes pigment powders really well with it's roughness.  Other than that, the bulkheads were drybrushed in the same fashion as the other pieces that contain this architecture.

The panels with the yellow chevrons were left loose, and can be placed anywhere on the base of the model for increased cover.  There were three in total, and I was loathe to glue them to the card surface of the building.  Even though the card is flat, shiny and two-dimensional the paintings are still utterly awesome, in my humble opinion.

The Firebase is big and asymmetrical, so depending on how it's placed  its effect on the game can be either severe or negligible.  I guess that's your choice when you deploy your army.  The only advice that I can offer is that large pieces like this tend to draw a lot of attention, so bear that in mind when attacking this position or deciding whether or not to defend it.

It's not as rickety as it looks, either - the bulkheads are affixed to the base, and that gives the whole thing a stability it just does not have without it.  I can imagine back in the day that a lot of these met an untimely demise simply from people trying to move it.  Though it wasn't as challenging to put together as the Bastion, it was much less a cohesive whole and definitely required help.

Now both of these pieces rest well protected inside the Terrain Vault, which is growing fat indeed.  In fact, we're going to have to figure out what to do with all the cases, because we need more cases.  We have to use rather large cases for our terrain, because pieces like this need to be able to fit inside them.  Shelves are no good because of the Oklahoma dust, so it has to be a closed case.  The Firebase and the Bastion fill one case by themselves, and there are more pieces already finished.

I guess I should start stacking boxes...

1992 Imperial Bastion

Today we're going to talk about some awesome gear Jerry Wargate donated to us earlier this year.  Of course, we're not talking about it when it was done, because I'm really slow at doing this Terrain Log.  However, in keeping with our plodding pace, we'll now discuss the 1992 card buildings Jerry obtained for us.

The boxes you see in the photo above were produced by Games Workshop way back in 1992, for 2nd Edition Warhammer 40,000.  More than twenty years ago, Jerry Wargate, myself and more than a few others in our tiny little burg used to pine after these buildings.  Of course, that was the days of coke bottle towers, book hills and cardboard tube silos.  We've come up in the world (a little bit), and when Jerry saw these for sale he pounced on them.

Somehow, they were entirely intact!  Both in the shrink wrap - though in that photo above I had already opened it to inventory the kit.  I was pretty excited.  I think our stance on leaving things in the box is known, but in case it isn't - we believe gamestuff was meant to be gamed with, not languishing in a pristine form forever.  So I went to work pretty quick.  Today, we'll examine the Imperial Bastion.

This particular piece is a little large by today's standards.  The center portion is roughly equal to a bastion, but it also has two outside "wings".  Bases of the correct size had to be created, which we took from our standard masonite sheet.  It was given a coat of Rustoleum Multicolored Texture Aged Iron, which is a great material available for a few bucks at Wal-Mart.

We painted the bulkheads, which was a particularly nostalgic experience for me.  It took a moment to figure out how we needed to glue them together and paint them, even though there was an instruction sheet there was definitely a better way to paint the bulkheads after they were already constructed with the building.  Getting it all to go together was more challenging, and took two sets of hands.

I mixed some talus with some dark flock and flocked the inside and pathways of the base.  It's more prevalent in some places than others, but breaks up the monotony of the Rustoleum coat.  It's strewn around as messilly as I could manage and still secure it well with some Elmer's White Glue.

I just had a great idea.  Totally should have hit the base with some weathering powders.  I'm doing that now.  That's a fantastic use for it.  I can blend it into the Rustoleum nicely, and bond it with some rubbing alcohol.  I have no idea why I didn't do that in the first place - I have at least eight more powders I haven't even opened yet...

Terrain Log: Cityfight Barricades

Today we're going to look at a piece that languished in the vault here at the Wargate for quite some time before someone dug it out and painted it.  It's a set of Games Workshop Urban Barricades and Walls for Warhammer 40,000 that we obtained shortly after it's release, but for some reason it wasn't even broken out of the shell until just a little while ago.  These are now some of my favorite pieces, they just add that nice bit of embellishment to the board that makes it come together.

Captain Video took these home and painted them up.  From a plain black basecoat, he drybrushed these up to match our "gothic black edifice" motif and they even got the Quickshade treatment.  Now these pieces are popping up on all the battlefields!  Big thanks to the Cap'n for taking the time to help us build the terrain collection.  Sad thing is, this isn't the only piece that was in the vault...but only one.

Still, this is one set from Games Workshop that I might be inclined to acquire more of.  Aside from one (the one with the wrecked Astartes bike) they fit with any game where guns are involved, especially Warmachine.  It might cast a grim pall over Flames of War battles as well!

In other news, Jerry Wargate has donated a fantastic digital Handycam that we will be using from now on.  I have a few pics already taken that I will use in future posts, but from here on out you'll see a marked increase in model photos and they'll (probably) be a lot finer in quality.  Again, thanks to Jerry for his continued support of the club.  For it to come together, you have to make it happen.  He's been there all the way for us.

If you are a Gate Keeper, be sure to vote on the new games coming up next season.  We're attempting a new outlet here - we now have a Facebook page!  I encourage everyone who wanders over there to answer  any questions posed, since we'll actually be taking it seriously when planning out next years' schedule.  It's new, but we'll be adding a lot to it from here on out.

Terrain Log: 40k Manufactorum

Today we have another piece from the Jerry Wargate collection.  This is a Games Workshop Manufactorum, the kit for which can be had from their online store.  Our building here was actually part of an Imperial Sector that Jerry obtained second-hand and we broke apart into it's constituent kits.  You can check out the first part of this story here, in our last Terrain Log.

We wanted to get more "intact" buildings with these kits, so we set up a few bases and took a look at what made a good footprint for a building that could be stored with the others we already have here most easily.  This is one of the pieces that always seems to make it onto the table for some reason.  Folks just seem to like it.

This building was painted a flat black to evoke the gothic feel of some of the old Warhammer 40,000 artwork.  Details were picked out and the whole thing painted by Jerry Wargate, after I had constructed it and the base (which is just a cut piece of masonite).  After he was done with the building, I affixed it to the base and played with some different basing materials I had managed to accrue.

The Manufactorum is quite nice and large on the board.  It blocks line of sight quite well, and since it's a closed building presents a different challenge than your basic ruins.  Although it's swabbed all over with the iconography of the Mechanicus and the Imperium, I think it works quite well for a lot of different games where weirdness is bountiful.

Still, there are two more buildings in this set that have not yet been built!  We have a lot of terrain to talk about in the Terrain Log, and I especially want to get to the ready made Battlefield in a Box stuff we've obtained for the club.  Also, sorry about the long wait this time between posts - it's been nearly a week.  Time for Bone to get with the program!

Terrain Log: 40k Basilica

Welcome back for another Terrain Log, where I fumble about the myriad universes trying to bring pieces back for you.  Today, we have our Warhammer 40,000 Imperial Basilica.  Not only was this sanctuary a place of worship before it got bombed out, but you can still take cover amidst the ruin of the Imperial servants whose skulls adorn the walls!

This piece meandered around the club, and actually required the talents of three Gate Keepers before it was finished.  We work at a snail's pace around here, but things eventually happen - usually all at once.  For this Basilica (which you can buy the kit for at www.games-workshop.com, under Warhammer 40,000 Scenery) I think it was almost a year before it was finished.

Jerry Wargate bought a set of used ruins online way back in late 2010.  After deciding we didn't like how they were put together and that we wanted higher standards going forward, I started the long and arduous process of cutting the pieces down and removing the huge chunks of plastic glue that were holding the rickety ruins together.  It took two days to get these pieces ready for assembly.  Jerry helped me take four different GW buildings apart, then we started to put this one together.

I cut a base from mica board, (I cut one for each of these four buildings that particular day) and set about constructing something that resembled what was on the box.  We had a lot of pieces to sort through.  After looking at some examples, Jerry and I set on this neat "X" footprint.  Then, after priming it up and getting it ready, Jerry went over the whole thing for hours with a paintbrush.  After painting the thousandth skull, he decided he'd had enough of it.  That's when we handed it off to Captain Video for another layer of loving detail, and he even added a coat of Army Painter's Quickshade.

After the good Captain brought it back to me, gave the mica board base a spray with Rustoleum's Beaten Iron and attached the building with Elmer's White Glue.  After that, I mixed up some turf with some different flocks I had.  I have huge bags of talus laying around, so I threw some of that in the different turf mixes I was using.  The grey area on the board around the Basilica itself is the exposed Beaten Iron, and I did a little grading on the rest of the board.  It looks great on our boards, that's for sure.

Big thanks to Jerry Wargate and Captain Video for their continued support.  There are still two buildings left to put together from that lot - something I hope to visit soon since we're speeding up production a little around here.  More stuff on the way - don't worry Captain, I'll have your recent work up on this site in due course!

Terrain Log: Warhammer 40,000 Obstacles and Objectives

As you know, we're hip-deep in Warhammer 40,000 season here at the Wargate, and today we also announce that there will be a separate narrative mini-campaign next season running tandem with Warmachine!  More information on that coming soon, so stay tuned if you want more practice with your armies this year.  For now, we'll take a look at some pieces we like to call Obstacles and Objectives!  Yeah, they are in the Warhammer 40,000 box, but a lot of them work for lots of other games as well.

Don't stand so close to me...or near the toxic explosive chemicals.

These barrels have been around for about ... 15 years or so.  Recently rebased, they've seen more action on the field as Battlefield Debris (that explodes!) and the smaller pieces can also make great objectives.  Easy to make, and a little bit of Burnt Grass to simulate oil spills on the ground.

Praise the Emperor and pass the ammo!

These are some miscellaneous pieces we've collected over a long period of time.  The battlefield accessories were painted by myself and a colleague...oh...12 or 13 years ago, but I dug them out of a scrap box and put them on bases.  The grey asphalt style base is made simply by spraying a base with Rustoleum Beaten Iron.  Looks good, we used it on the road pieces as well.  The Black Reach force fields were painted by...you know, I have no idea.  Look good though.  For the shrines, those are made from bits from the bastions we have, and Captain Video did a great job painting them up.

Tank Traps make it hard to drive around most battlefields, but at least they offer some cover.

These old tank traps are something of an oddity.  Based on some really strong type of cardboard (that got hit with Rustoleum Beaten Iron as well) these are just as old as the barrels and came out at the same time.  They still offer that set on Games Workshop's website...the Battlefield Accessories set in the Warhammer 40,000 Scenery section.  These were drybrushed by novice hands long ago... I just gave them a new base and a new lease on life recently.  They haven't disappointed.

Some obstacles should really be avoided if at all possible.  Especially by those with soft, exposed skin.

Razor wire!  These pieces were based just like the tank traps, but I drove a nail through each end and connected a piece of Games Workshop's Razor Wire.  One of them got a little bent, and the hard cardboard that they are based on is sorta warped now.  Lesson:  don't use hard cardboard for items with tension.  Even the little bit of force exerted by the Razor Wire pulling together was enough to warp this piece.  Next time, I'll stick to the ol' masonite sheet.

That's it for today.  Thanks to everyone for a great game day yesterday.  Next weekend, Imperial Assault will be ending the final few phases of the war for Caelum Subterraneous.  Also, The Temple of Elemental Evil continues to be the most wanton deathtrap of all time, consuming souls at a frightening rate to produce a staggering death toll so far.  Be warned, and stay tuned for more gaming goodness later this week!

Terrain Log: Brown World Badlands!

Welcome back to another Terrain Log!

Over the past few months, we've gone buggy for Battlefield in a Box.  These inexpensive pieces are well made terrain that comes already painted, so the hardest part about getting it ready for the battlefield is taking it out of the styrofoam packaging.  When I first heard about this line, I didn't think it would really take off.  Yet, here we are a few years later and we've obtained several pieces from the company.

The pieces have really added to our battlefields for the last two campaigns.  Today I want to talk about one of the collections we've obtained that's taking center stage in the battle for Caelum Subterraneous - the Battlefield in a Box Badlands line!

Currently there are three items available in this line:  The Badlands Bluff, the Badlands Plateau and the Badlands Rocks.  We picked up all three from our friendly local game store, the Cave, for about $85 give or take a buck or two.  Well worth the investment, as together these three sets can make a compelling battlefield for 4'x4' skirmishes!

Badlands Bluff.

The pieces are very solid, and look great.

Badlands Plateau.

After being won over by some other Battlefield in a Box terrain, the club quickly obtained this set and it's been on the table ever since.  These Badlands pieces have served big duty representing the underground rocky terrain of the fictional planet we're campaigning on this season.

Badlands Rocks.

The smaller rocks provide cover or block LOS to infantry, and the larger pieces completely block LOS on the table, unless you have a higher vantage point.  Negotiating these pieces with different games means that each has a different functionality in each game, and they are varied enough that it doesn't look to "samey" on the table.

Badlands Battlefield.

All in all, this was one of our better buys this quarter.  There's one more campaign before we open our Piggy Bank for a large club terrain purchase again, but remember next month we are taking orders for the upcoming Warmachine campaign.  Don't have your 25 points of your faction?  Get it together, and talk to one of the Gate Keepers on Game Day.  See you then!

Terrain Log: Brown World Temple

Quick post today!

We've been finishing up a bangload of terrain this month, and I've not showcased some of the more recent pieces we've added to the collection.  Today I want to talk about Games Workshop's Arcane Ruins!  We got these painted and on the table several weeks ago, and they've been a really neat addition to our games.

Currently priced at $29.75 USD, the Arcane Ruins are available in GW's webstore.  We got these several months ago, but I'm a snail when it comes to completing projects.  Usually I have what seems like thirty projects going on at once, and they all seem to complete around the same time - six months later.  However, after I'd glued the columns and skull-face blocks together it sat around in it's box, for months.  That's when the vivacious Miss Foley found them and declared she was going to paint them for us.

After a quick examination of the paint job on the box, she painted in the club's Brown World scheme!  Behold the Ruinous Temple!  She did a great job on the layering and shading, even if my neglecting to Green Stuff those seams did leave a few of them visible.  That's my fault though - I should have noticed that but somehow it got away from me.  Working too fast on too many things, but hey, I'm working to narrow my focus.  Oh well, it's not so bad - and I didn't even have to work hard for it!

We didn't glue the pillars to the base, so each piece can actually be used on it's own.  The arches are great across roads and other conspicuous places to place arches, and the individual pieces make great scatter terrain.  So the whole thing comes apart and has already been used liberally to help create some interesting battlefields.

Definitely recommended for your battlefields. Remember we are starting AD&D this week at 3 p.m., so make sure to get there early to get in on some interesting conversation and exciting, riveting, action-packed dungeon delving!

Terrain Log: Fantasy Village

Welcome to Hatesville. 

Earlier this year, the club's benefactors appropriated this awesome village from a caster in the UK.  I'm not sure what the brand name is, or if there even is one.  The caster no longer has these sets available, but they did have several sets and styles available, each one weighing in at around $220 US.  We got the one that had a lot of variety and best depicted what we thought of as a typical village.

Duplex Residence and Small Inn.

These are all made of good quality resin and are very resilient to chips from jostling.  The buildings are all made with removable roofs, and removable 2nd stories.  Best of all, they came entirely assembled and painted.  Well, part of that large price tag was shipping...but bang for buck this was a great deal compared to the alternatives we were looking at.

Church, Warehouse with Shop and Small Barn.

 The package was a great starter deal for a village in 28mm, and has served quite well over the past several months.  This was the first part of our "New Terrain" initiative that was a larger undertaking by the members of the club.  We'll be adding small doo-dads such as wells and fences and a host of other things to the village, but this collection is the basic building blocks we'll have when constructing new scenarios and placing terrain.

Residence and Large Home with Shop

 Those dark alleys make great spots to get ganked!  Keep your torch high, and remember:  when trodding the streets of Hatesville, make sure your blade is strapped close.  You never know who might rush at you from around the corner...

Brown World Hills

 Howdy folks!

We're going to be working on a lot of terrain in the near future, so to kick things off we're going to take a look at these cool gaming hills the club got ahold of!  We've been using them for a while, but there is an interesting thing about these hills:  they've been refurbished.

Sacks the Giant, out for his evening stroll through the Badlands.

Jerry Wargate brought the three gaming hills (the roundish three) a few years back.  They were covered in a green flock that had lost it's adhesive, and the flock was peeling off.  Any touching it, and it would come off.  So, we did what anyone else would do.  Underneath the flock was a styrofoam hill that was in great condition, and I was determined to keep that.

The flock came off relatively easy, but it took a moment and everything had to be as smooth as possible on the surface.  A layer of white glue went over the entire hill, and we allowed that to dry.  This created a second "skin" on the hill and made it a bit denser, but the real reason we put that on there is so we could spray paint the white hill with a light brown satin spray.

Oh no!  Sacks will have to walk around the steep part of this hill.

 The irregular piece was done the same way, but it was carved from some leftover foam tiles.  Once they were dry, another layer of glue went on in places (but not the sides) for some light brown flock, or dark brown, some talus and some dead grass for the irregular piece.  I hate putting flock on the sides of hills where it will be rubbed away by gamer's hands.

Such a jolly old stroll!  Now, to head back home and have a snack!

These hills turned out to be quite interchangeable.  They can be stacked and arranged in many different ways, which is always good for terrain.  They fit right in on the Brown World table, but don't look out of place anywhere else so they are good for a lot of table configurations.

Well, that's it for me for now.  Until next time, try not to die of thirst in the desert.

Terrain Log: Some 40k Buildings!

I thought I'd take today to show off some of the ruinous buildings we use in our games of Warhammer 40,000.   Players who frequent the Wargate will note that these buildings are all ancient, at least ten years in some cases.  We'll be showing off some of the new cool terrain kits we've been hoarding and painting, but for now lets check out these oldies but goodies.

This building has been around for about 12 years.  Like a lot of the buildings here, it was made with a masonite base, drybrushed Necromunda bulkheads and some sturdy card.  Also, we had some empty cartridges around, and they made it onto the base as some sort of run down tank set.  Don't shoot around them, it could be dangerous!

This is one of our larger intact buildings.  It also uses masonite and the bulkheads, but this particular building has been with us for about 14 years.  Over time it earned a base, and you can't see the styrofoam it was built around anymore like you could back in 1997.  Every few years when I do a terrain review to fix the broken stuff, I try to add in a few more details.  However, people keep snapping the lights off accidentally...

This particular building is also a decade old, again using spare bulkheads and masonite as a base.  However, as you'll see in the pic below where all the buildings are arranged, the actual roof is a piece of the card terrain that originally came with the Necromunda boxed set way back!

Jerry Wargate made this piece way back in the day, circa 2000 A.D. or so.  It also has a masonite base, but the foam was built so perfectly he just stuck these bulkheads on it and painted blood everywhere.  It's a great ruin to take cover in or put a gun nest!

These buildings are medium to large size bases, and can form the bulk of a ruinous city with ease.   We've used these buildings for so long, I'm kinda sentimentally attached to them.  Even when we have awesome buildings like the Cities of Death buildings and the newer terrain kits, we just didn't have those back in the day.

Shame to get rid of them just because they are older.  Every year when we fix things up, you can bet these bad boys will be on the table, for a quick fix adding flock or repairing structural damage.  Then they'll be back on the battlefield, doing what they've done this entire time - giving us some familiar terrain to jockey about during our games!

Green World Ruins!

So I've been slacking off this week as far as the blog goes, I have a few articles that are a few days late.  That's ok, since we'll be picking up Pathfinder this weekend anyways.  However, we've not been lax over at the Wargate, and we've gotten so much stuff together that we've had to add another bookshelf to the game room!

I'd like to take advantage of this lull in activity to talk about our Green World: Ruins terrain set!  We've had these for quite some time, and they've pretty much been the staple of the "Forbidden Planet" for as long as we've been in Ada!  

These guys have been around for quite some time, as some of you can well attest to.  A lot of blood has been spilled by many, many warriors over the years, but recently these structures have undergone a bit of a renovation.  Now there is an entirely new piece, and additional details have been added to the bases.

For this iteration, I've added more talus to the flock on each of the bases.  There's more scatter and moss all over, and a few new large stones as well.  The grey ruins are the newest of the four bases, and it looks so good we'll be constructing large amounts of new structures based on the techniques used to paint it, which basically amounted to laying on a light coat of paint onto a darker under coat, then inking all the crevices down and painting up the details.  Easy.

Those bases are from the original sheet of masonite I used to create our first table, back when the club was headquartered in a trailer park.  Don't even get me started on all that, but these guys have stood the test of time and weigh in at over a decade old.  That's respectable, considering the punishment these bases have had throughout their long and dedicated service to the Wargate.

There are a lot of new ruinous terrain boxed sets out there, and we'll be picking up quite a few to build the Brown World with.  Expect to see some interesting takes on the idea of ruins, as we've learned a lot about what can be done since these bases were first constructed.  How about multi level ruins (on hills and mountainous boulders) or perhaps a pool, or recess, or other terrain feature merged with the ruin?  We're going to have to explore a lot of this going forward, so that we have more pieces that are multi-level to break up the monotony of the playing field.  For Brown World, I see this being lots of multi-level ruin bases.

That's all for now, but there will be a flurry of activity here at the Wargate tomorrow.  Pathfinder characters begin in the early afternoon, but you can still make one if you can make it by our normal time.  A second Magic: The Gathering has been proposed, and we'll talk about that during our pre-game meeting.  Happy Game Day, everyone!

Terrain Log: Green World Rockies!

Howdy!

Sorry for the gap in posting, been a little wild around the house with Summer drawing to a close. We have lots of cool articles written by some of the other members of the Wargate coming up, so you can hear some more opinions by your fellow gamers on some subjects that are relevant to your interests!

In the mean time, I want to talk about our 'mountainous' terrain - the Green World Rockies! Ok, so they aren't really mountains...just kinda rocky. Hence, the names...but honestly I think I still prefer "mountainous". Lets go with that instead.

These two formations are modeled after some actual rock edifices we have here in Oklahoma. If you've ever been out in the wastes on I-35 near Ardmore, you will pass between them. They might be a little thicker, but on the table these two pieces are quite dynamic. As they totally obscure line of sight, it adds a dimension that was lacking in our games after Warhammer 40,000 5th Edition came out. We played with them for quite some time before I finally put the bases on these...what a pain that was. Now they are a mainstay on the table, and a a great many warriors have felt these walls concealing them from fire or closing them in for an assault massacre!

These two pieces have phallic nicknames that I won't repeat here, like Low Schlong and Penis Mountain. I'm not sure why they acquired those monikers. It was probably Warmaster Laserwulfe, but I digress. These are interesting pieces on the table, as the low one is good cover and difficult terrain to cross, or perhaps a barrier. The larger mountain is an important tactical piece due to it's sheer size...you can hide siege tanks behind it or get clear views for weapons teams on the summit, even claiming cover for the large phallic rock.

All these pieces were made from random bits of packing styrofoam. I cut them to shape with a hot wire cutter, then glued them together. I then coated each piece in a layer of elmer's glue, just like the hills. After that, it was safe to spray paint them black, then grey. Add a layer of flock, stones and peat moss and VOILA. Penis Mountain.

Terrain (Back) Log: Green World Hills!

Yo, it's Bone again! This time I'm here to talk about more of our 'Green World' table - our hills!

These hills are only made of styrofoam, and they get a lot of use here at the Wargate - but the edges of the hills always flake away no matter what we do. I nicked a piece off with my fingernail just the other day during a frantic battle with the tyranids. When it comes time to make the 'Brown World' hills we'll be using some sterner stuff, as well as some molded components to try to avoid that issue.

All in all, we have 5 pieces for the set. I formed them from various trash bits of sytrofoam packing with a hot wire cutter, then used Elmer's School Glue all over the entire mess to create a sort of 'shell' for the hill so I could spray paint it. After that, another layer of glue, flock and details and that's how each one was made. It makes a pretty firm item that will stand up to most things. The styrofoam on the surfaces of the pieces does not crinkle due to the thick glue shell, and even the heaviest dreadnought or daemon prince need fear damaging them. Just those pesky nicks on the edges.

Very old Wargate veterans might recognize the hill in the lower left corner of that pic. It's another surviving piece of the 'ice world' table from the '90's! Now of course, it's been repainted and flocked but it's a very functional hill.

The best part about these hills is that they are easily replaceable! Built for literally pennies, these babies are also quite simple to make. If one ever gets destroyed or degenerates to the point of uselessness, they can always be recycled or a new one generated from crap laying around the house.

Terrain (Back) Log: Green World Woods!

Greetings!

I've decided to document the terrain we built this last year in the same manner I intend to document further creation of terrain, such as with the "Brown World" project Skim and I will be beginning soon. I've actually got a design spreadsheet with nothing but terrain interactions and iterations guiding these projects along, so it's already conveniently broken down.

Many astute Wargate veterans will notice that these woods in their current iterations were actually much earlier this year, and for that reason these articles will be labeled the "(back) log". We'll be starting the (back) log with this article.

I love trees. Especially on the tabletop battlefield, nothing says 'this is a nice table' quite like trees. I'm not sure why...probably because they jut up from the ground in a very phallic manner.

See what I mean?

We have two strains of Green World trees, coniferous and deciduous! Yeah! Variety rocks! The old pine trees have seen their share of duty, some of them are at least twelve years old. Some of you may remember the Ice World table of the late 1990's we had, and those trees are almost all that remains of that old set. Also, all the bases in this article are reused from the last iteration of terrain we did in 2000-2001 ten years ago. Recycling does, in fact, rule.

The deciduous trees were bought from China earlier this year. I got a bargain on them, and was able to build 4 more bases of woods. I learned to differentiate woods in Battletech - that is, usually you can categorize woods as 'light' or 'heavy'. At the Wargate we use the 'house' rule that if a piece of terrain has clump foliage on the base it is 'heavy' woods and thus difficult terrain. If you look at the photo below, you can see only 1/3 of the pieces are actually light woods (the pines on the right).

Yes, the woods are quite hairy around the Wargate.

There is also a deadwood, made from old Woodland Scenics trees. I used the wrong kind of adhesive on the trees way back in 1998, and the clump foliage you're supposed to use to flesh them out into deciduous plants just fell off. I think that's where the "foliage on the base" rule started, actually. Anyway, now they are dead, and they look cool. (Sez I).

That's it for now, but we'll be posting some nifty articles later this week. Just remember what we've learned today here at the Wargate - don't poke the underbrush, unless you've got an assault cannon.