Wargames @ farfaraway.org » Terrain

Fences

Owen — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:00:07 +0000

When I was making the Jailhouse I ended up with offcuts from the lollipop sticks I used, so I decided to turn them into picket fences. Simple stuff… I cut two lengths of balsa to secure the lollipop ends to, fixed that to some thick card (using another lillipop stick as a brace) and then used PVA glue to cover the base in sand. I cut the ends of the bases at 45 degree angles and let the fence overhang the ends slightly. That way they can form 90 degree corners.

I think they turned out pretty well.

Owen

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Jailhouse

Owen — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:59:44 +0000

It’s been a little while since I made any terrain and a small shoe box (from a pair of my Daughter’s shoes) inspired me to make this jailhouse. The box forms the basic structure and bit of packaging foam was used for the peaked roof. Lollipop sticks form the majority of the outside with some prefabricated brickwork (from Faller’s Decorflex range) forming the back wall. Balsa wood was used for the door and flat roof area. The metal roof is just some card stuck over the foam with some card strips stuck down to that. The rivets are a piece of rolled greenstuff cut into ~1mm height pieces. The facia on the peaked part is made from ready mixed filler. Finally the metal bars are just the shafts of cotton buds (Q-tips) cut to size.

I painted the wood Khemri Brown, drybrushed with 1:1 Skull White/Khemri Brown and finally washed it with watered down Badab Black. The brick work was initially drybrushed grey over the black undercoat, but I didn’t liked it and ended up painting a mix of Bestial Brown and Mechrite Red over that. The metal areas are simple Boltgun Metal, sponged with 1:1 Bestial Brown and Khador Red Highlight (an orange colour) and then washed with Badab Black.

This didn’t take too long to build and I think it looks great.

Owen

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Flames of War Terrain – Simple Italian Houses

Owen — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:51:57 +0000

Here’s a quick video on making 15mm rural houses for southern Italy. I’m planning a Flames of War campaign based in the Italian campaign.

Owen

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Battlefield in a Box!

Owen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:00:20 +0000

As a small Thank You for hosting me for the day in Orlando I decided months ago that I’d try to make Clay a small gift – a battlefield in a box. We used it during the Scourge Bringer campaign. The idea was pretty simple. I knew whatever I brought over to him would have to go in my luggage and I didn’t want it to be wrecked! So I picked out a plastic storage box and decided I’d fill it with pieces of handmade terrain.

I love making terrain. It’s pretty easy and few things look better than fully painted armies on a nice looking terrain. The materials I used in this project were all to hand – 6mm plastic (MDF would do fine too), foam, sand, mattress liner (cocnut hair composite!), paint and flock. I had a couple of spare Woodland Scenics trees and a couple of precast walls.

Here are some photos I took when making the pieces – they’re pretty self explanatory!

Owen

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Press Ganger Demo Kit (Terrain and Game Mat)

Owen — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 07:36:53 +0000

Here’s a quick video showing my terrain and game mat for doing Warmachine and Hordes demos.

Owen

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Building Balsa Wood Houses

Owen — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:11:19 +0000

Building your own terrain is always easier than is first appears. This article will guide you through making a simple wood cabin suitable for Warmachine and Malifaux. You’ll need the following -

Materials
- Balsa Wood (3mm thick x 10cm wide x 45cm length (approx))
- Card (from a Cereal Packet will be fine)
- PVA glue
- Paints
Tools
- Sharp Craft Knife
- Ballpoint Pen (Black is best)
- Cutting Mat
- Steel Ruler
- Old Paint Brush
- Container to Mix Glue in

You can either read all of the steps below, or watch this handy video!

Step 1 Cut out a Gable End. Measure a 9cm length from the balsa wood. Mark a straight line perpendicular to the long edge. Use the steel ruler to guide the craft knife along the line. Many gentle cuts are better than a few hard ones (and are less lightly to result in loss of fingers!).

Step 2 Make a peak on the Gable End. Start by marking a point 5cm (the wall will be 5cm tall) up the 9cm side. Do the same on the opposite site. Now mark a point 5cm along the 10cm wide top. This will be the peak of the roof. Draw straight lines between the 10cm marks and the peak. Again use the rule and knife to remove these triangles.

Step 3 Make another Gable End. Repeat steps 1 and 2. You now have both Gable Ends done and the hardest bit is done!

Step 4 Make the Long Walls. Mark and cut a 12cm length from the Balsa wood. Now cut this 12cm x 10cm piece lengthways to make two walls 5cm x 12cm. You should now have all of the walls of the building.

Step 5 Make the Structural Supports. If you attempt to glue the edges of walls directly they will be quite fragile. One option would be to make card supports (either inside or outside) by bending a piece of appropriately sized card through 90° If you are using them card on the outside of the building you may want to paint it up to look like metal. Punching out a few card rivets would help with the look.

The option I used for the building pictured above can be achieved pretty simply. I cut a 5cm piece from the balsa (making a 5cm x 10cm piece). By cutting along the grain (which is very easy to do) I cut a 5mm (i.e. 0.5cm) strip. I make three other pieces so there is one for each corner. These will be internal supports. The building above has external ones too,
but they aren’t necessary for support.

Step 6 Score the Wooden Beams. This can be done after the building is assembled, but it’s easier to do now. Using the ballpoint pen mark the wobbly edges to wooden planks by drawing straight lines freehand along the grain of the balsa wood. Roughly parallel lines about 1cm apart look good. Do this on each of the four pieces of wood.

Step 7 Assemble the Basic Structure. Start by gluing the supports to the inside of the long walls. They should be positioned 3mm from the short edge, parallel to that edge. There should be two supports on each long wall, located at the far ends of the wall. Once the glue has set a little brush glue down the right angle made by the support and the wall. The Gable End will connect here. Be careful not to use too much glue as any visible glue will effect the final paint job. Glue all four corners.

Step 8 Making the Roof. Measure the length of the fall of the roof, or work it out using Hypothenuses theorem √52+42 = ~6.5cm. You’ll need a piece of card about 13cm x 12cm in size. Bend it down the middle and glue it to the top of the structure. Take another piece of card and cut a load of approx 1cm x 1cm tiles. Starting at the bottom of the roof glue these in rows, with a slight overlap between tiles. For the top cut a 12cm x 3cm strip. Divide it lengthwise and cut 0.5-1cm cuts along it. Glue this to the crest of the roof.

Step 9 Details. Doors and windows are pretty easy. Cut 3mm strips from a piece of balsa and cut them to length for a door frame. Cut a small piece for the door handle and glue all of the pieces in place. For a window, cut a piece of card the required size and them make a frame for the window from balsa.

Step 10 Painting. I undercoated the house with black spray, then painted it brown and highlighted with a lighter colour. I drybrushed the roof with a dark grey and that’s it!

So, that turned out longer than expected, but trust me, it’s cheap easy to build your own balsa houses. Go on, give it a go.

Owen

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Building a 4′ x 4′ Wargames Board

Owen — Sat, 15 May 2010 10:05:18 +0000

I’ve been using the same flat battle boards for the last 5 years, so I decided recently that it was time to build a slightly more contoured board. I didn’t want it to be flat, but I also didn’t want the terrain to be so specific that I’d only be able to use it rarely. To that end I went with a dried riverbed theme. This way the river could be treated as a shallow water, deep water or nothing depending on what game we wanted to play. I also wanted to make sure the terrain was flat enough to position miniatures without too much difficulty.

The materials and tools I used were -

Frame and Base

4 ‘ x 4′ 6mm thick plastic sheet (thicker MDF would also be fine)
2″ x 1″ x 4′ batons
12-16 ½” brass screws
4 x 3″ brass screws

Terrain and Sculpting

Several different pieces/sheet of 1″ and ½” of packing foam
Plaster Filler (I used a brand called Polyfilla)
PVA Glue (I used 1:1 watered down Durabond)

Painting and Finishing

Acrylic Paints
Flock (Static Grass)
Matt Varnish Spray

Tools

Dremel
Electric Drill
Electric Screwdriver
Jigsaw
Sand Paper
Hot Glue Gun
Rubber Gloves!
Paint Brushes

STEP 1: Put a Frame on the Board
Okay – this is pretty straight forward stuff, but like all woodwork you need to measure twice and cut/drill once. Also, be careful – all of the power tools can do a lot of damage to a person, so pay close attention to what you are doing. First up you need to drill some guide holes in the 4′ x 4′ sheet to fix the batons through. Make sure the holes are not too close to the corners as you’ll be using the 3″ screws to secure the batons together and you don’t want the screws that hold them to the board to get in the way. To that end I measured and marked eight holes – each 4″ from a corner and 1″ in from the edge. I drilled this with a small bit on the Dremel. I then grabbed the real drill and sunk wider holes (just wide enough for the ½” screws). I positioned a baton flush with one edge and then attached it to the board using the screwdriver. I attached the opposite baton. I oriented the batons so the broader (2″) side ran flat with the board.

Next I needed to cut the other two batons to length. Rather than measuring the 44″ (48″ – (2+2″)) I lay them between the fixed batons and mark the length to cut. I then cut them to length with the jigsaw and fixed them in place.

This step is optional, but for more rigidity I drilled holes from the longer batons into the new shorter ones and secured them with the 3″ screws.
I drilled four more holes through the board in the centre of the batons and fixed with screws. There are now three screws holding each baton to the board and four screws connecting the batons.
The board and frame is now solid and pretty well supported.

STEP 2: A decision to make?!
I now had a decision to make – which side of the board would I build the battlefield on. The ‘top’ side is a flat 4′ x 4′ area with the frame underneath. Building on the bottom would mean loosing 2″ (the thickness of the batons) from every edge, but it would be more robust for storage. As can be seen in the photo I opted for the later an decided to build the battle field between the batons and sacrifice some table area. If I ensure the battlefield does not rise above the baton edge I should have a board that is less likely to be damaged.

STEP 3: Shaping and Gluing Foam
As mentioned earlier I used basic packing foam, you know the kind that electronics and the like come in. I shaped most of the foam using a bread knife, but before doing so I drew the shape of the battle filed onto the boards. This way I could position the available foam, which was a hotch potch of hoarded bits, before cutting. Once all of the foam was cut I used a hot glue gun to fix it into position. The glue melted the foam slightly, but since it was melting it where it wouldn’t be seen that didn’t really matter.

STEP 4: Conturing the Foam
I grabbed a large tub of Polyfilla (or Spackle) and used it to contour the edges of the (low) hills, riverbed and river bank. To do this I wore a pair of rubber gloves and had a small container of water hand. This is a messy job, but produced a great looking result. For the dried riverbed I ensured it looked like it had been shaped by flowing water by working it in the same direction. I gave the Polyfilla 24 hours to dry before moving to the next step.

STEP 5: Applying Sand
This is a straightforward, but time consuming step. I watered down PVA glue and applied it in 1′ x 1′ sections, being careful to avoid the bottom of the dried pond and riverbed (the previous step gave them enough texture). I then tilted the board and poured sand onto the wet area. I repeated this process until the board was covered in sand.

STEP 6: Painting and Flocking the Board
Painting the board is pretty easy. I wanted the sand and textured Polyfilla to give natural highlights so I used a heavily watered down mix of Burnt Sienna artists paint (you know the kind that comes in a tube). This is a pretty quick step, but because it is so watered down it can take a while for the paint to dry. I left it 24 hours. Next I used PVA glue to judiciously apply flock to certain areas of the board. As I was aiming for a dried earth look, I didn’t want too much grass. I also painted the wooden at this stage.

STEP 7: Sealing the Board
There are a couple of different approaches to protecting a board, but I decided to use spray matt varnish. This only provides a small bit of protection, but it also helps to keep the flock in place.

It seems like a lot of work, but it is worth it to have a good looking board to field your battles on. Here are a couple of pictures of the board in use -

Owen

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Warmachine Terrain: Explosion Craters

Owen — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:05:24 +0000

What You’ll Need

An old CD
A small piece of card
Some air-drying clay
Some sand
PVA Glue
Flock
Paint
Black Spray
Modelling Knife

Making the Crater

Score the CD using the modelling knife and then glue a small piece of card over the centre hole.
Create a doughnut (or donut if you’re from the USA) of air-drying clay and place it on the CD. Smooth the edges into a peaked ring. Leave this to dry for about 24 hours.
Glue the dried clay to the CD (even after scoring the CD the clay will not adhere well by itself). Coat the piece in watered down PVA and cover in sand. Leave to dry for a couple of hours.
Paint the piece to match your wargames table. Heavily watered down earth colours work well. When this is dry carefully spray the centre of the crater from about 45cm (1½’) directly above. Don’t spray too much. Dry brush this area with a grey paint.
Sparingly flock near the edges.

I made five of these in less than an hours assembly and painting time and they make for a great pieces of terrain. We usually count them as rough terrain for all models and providing concealment to models in the within the terrain or in an 1″ of an intervening edge.

Owen

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Warmachine Terrain: Water Tower and Coal Store

Owen — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:17:51 +0000

After seeing this excellent video on the Iron Kingdoms at War blog I decided I’d dig up a few supplies and make my own water tower. With ‘jacks being used in everyday labour in the IK setting I decided a store of coal would also be useful.

The tube I used is wider than a Pringles tube (I can’t remember the specific brand) and I cut it in half to make the two towers. I used more-or-less exactly the techniques described above.

The coal is decorative stones mixed with PVA glue (and a small amount of water) and place on the top of the tower. I should have photographed a miniature for scale, but they are 6.5″-7″ tall and about 4″ in diameter.

I made a couple of minor mistakes (both of which are visible in the coal store photo). I should have undercoated the tubes black before sticking on the coffee stirers as the colourful artwork is slightly visible in places and near impossible to get a brush (or spray) at. The other mistake was not mixing black paint (or Gesso maybe) into the ‘coal’. Again it was a pain to undercoat.

Those small issues aside I think they turned out pretty well.

Owen

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