Building some houses

Just before I went on a caravanning holiday with the family around the UK, I made these houses to populate my modular board.

They're both lasercut mdf sets that I picked up for a good price and decided that I should take a break from completing my Nurgle Army (before I burnt out with that project) and sit down with my son and construct and improve these. So we did the assembly together with lots of pva, elastic bands to keep things in place and some coffee.

After assembly my boy decided that one of the buildings should be a shop - we conferred on an Armoury and we then searched my bits box for details to adorn the building. I also wanted to pimp up the kit, the mdf buildings lack detail but more importantly texture. So some polyfilla was added to the walls, cardboard tiles were added and some sand for mossy areas too.

The function of the second building was definitely decided by me. Whilst rummaging around for bits for the previous model, I found a naked dancing girl from Hasslefree and though it would be a perfect sign for a medieval "club". This was placed just above the entrance door. The same texturing and detailing process also took place on this building. 

And then we went onto the painting. Both were undercoated black and then grey from above. Lots of washes of cheap acrylic paint later, followed by some drybrushing and finally some weathering and the buildings were done! As always it was the painting of all the beams that took the most time.

Back to the painting of some miniatures next...

 

Coffee-stirrer noticeboard

Happy New Year! My last post of 2019 was about how a bit of pre-made scenery can save some time (and when painted up can fit in fine alongside scratchbuilt scenery). My first post of 2020 is about a piece of scratch-built scenery that was very quick to make and made entirely out of coffee-stirrers (and a little bit of wallpaper)' the town's noticeboard! I thought it would make a great addition, a place where adventurers can find tasks and missions and where the obligatory "wanted" posters can be found.

Now this idea to make it entirely out of coffee-stirrers was indeed someone else's original idea that I found on the internet and which I cannot now re-find to give the designer his/her credit. Apologies for that. But it inspired me to create my own:

Aside from cutting lots of different lengths of coffee stirrers and using wood-glue to join them, I also used a bit of old wallpaper for the texture on the floor (it look just like flagstones and will be something that I will be using much more extensively going forwards - again it saves time over sculpting bases with greenstuff - and is cheaper!) and used the flat, reverse side for the messages. Very thin wire was cut for the pins that hold the messages in place.

All in all this was probably a two hour piece of work from construction to painting. Which has given me some time to start two new projects; one is hinted at on the noticeboard and the other is Gaslands! More on that on my next post....

The value of saving time (pre-made scenery)

In trying to keep making progress on a multitude of projects, it can seem quite overwhelming for me, especially when it comes to scratch building scenery. So I've decided to buy a few ready-built pieces to speed up the process of populating my Mordheim boards with laser cut houses and some 3d printed items, which will sit alongside my own scratch builds. I've realised that scratch builds are better for partially ruined buildings and ready made scenery for complete buildings, the reason being that purchased/mdf buildings look too pristine for ruins and scratch built ones can be a bit more rough and ready and therefore a bit quicker to make. That's what I'm leaning towards for now anyway.

So here's the lastercut building, assembled and painted:

With smaller, detailed scatter terrain I used to steer clear of 3d prints as the level of finish with the typical horizontal striation lines was far too distracting on items that need to stand up to close scrutiny, however the prints are improving and I can hide any unwanted 3d printing texture with some painting techniques (such as stippling over the top to break the lines or even introducing deliberate vertical painting lines). So here's my 3d printed well and doors to the depths:

Part of the idea with these is that they can be links to an underworld gaming environment and therefore link my modular town tiles to my modular dungeon ones (this is an idea for an upcoming narrative game)

Here's a few glamour shots  for now:

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Modular Town Tile #4

I've finished my 4th modular town tile, having painted it up pretty quickly from the WIP photos I shared a week or so ago. Lots of drybrushing and washes, so it really was a quick process and I'm really happy with the results, my best one so far! I now plan to do 2 more with canal sections built in so I can have a go at some large scael water features and all the details and scenery that I can add to that (I'm thinking large bridges, sunken boats, open sewers etc).

So here are the photos. Hopefully it's clear that each of the four raised sections can be removed, as can the bridged walkways:

One of my favourite aspects of this tile is the alleyways and raised sections where bridges span them:

This one here is a particularly narrow and dark passage:

Some damage and the temporary wooden bridge:

And here is the board alongside my other three (the light in the attic is directly above the two right hand boards, thus making them look much lighter)

And finally some glamour shots with some of my scenery added to bring them to life a bit more:

And then further details with an adventuring Dwarf warband:

Thanks for looking!

Modular tile #4 (wip)

I've finished the build for my 4th Modular tile, using the same modelling techniques as outlined here. There's quite a bit more interest on this tile though, as I have introduced higher levels, which in turn have created the opportunity to make bridges and dwellings within the raised sections (you can see the doors and windows in the below photos).

However before I started painting, I just wondered whether anyone has any suggestions of extra details that I could add? Perhaps this is enough and the extra interest will be added through my scatter terrain and the like.

Family Gaming in Hauntsville

Kids imaginations never fail to entertain me, so I devised a very simple rule set for them to play with some models and some scenery. Too many rules constraints their imaginations so we played very much in the spirit of an RPG with some Mordheim and WFB mechanisms thrown in. Quite simply, they could do what they liked! The only restrictions were movement; 4" for humans and dwarves, 3" for the undead (apart from the Necromancer). Models could take two actions, but never the same two, the only exception being move and move (sprint) - which the undead could not do. Examples of the two actions might be: move and search, climb and shoot, fight and move, spellcast and communicate etc.

Dwarves and Humans (including Necromancers) hit on 3+ and wounded on 4+ (shooting and fighting). Undead (4+ and 5+). A model in cover got a saving throw depending on the type of cover. Skeletons were also armoured so had a 5+ save including a magic ward.

Each warband had a leader and second in command. One of which had to be a fighter and one a spellcaster. The fighters increased their hit and wound by +1 and had a save of 4+. Spellcasters could cast any spell they imagined, the difficulty (determined by me) affecting the difficulty of the dice roll. For example a simple flight or fireball spell might be a 5+. A destroy building a 10+. 

And that was it and even then I changed some rules as we played to help them engage with the game and do as they wanted with their warbands.

 So my 13 year old daughter, seven year old son and I went treasure hunting in a village named (by them) Hauntsville.

Three warbands were on offer, Undead, Humans and Dwarfs. My son was desperate to play the undead and my daughter wanted to play with the human heroes. I was left (but quite happy) with the Dwarfs. 

The Undead (my sons)

The Human Heroes (my daughters)

The Dwarves (dads)

I set up the village using my scenery and gave them a bit of background information:

The village of Hauntsville had been long abandoned by it's inhabitants. Stories of unparalled riches combined with tales of never-returning adventurers were told by neighbouring villages and spread through to larger communities. It was therefore inevitable that more professional adventurers would band together for safety in numbers and descend upon the ghost town looking for that treasure to fill their bags and pockets.

We set up along different edges, diced off for who would go first each turn and decided how many miniatures we wanted to bring on each turn.

My son went first and advanced all his skeletons forward in a long line. I went second and moved my Dwarf scouts forward towards the town center, taking out a skeleton with a well aimed crossbow shot. My daughter than came on and charged my dwarves with a successful Charge! spell (9+)!

A slightly rueful smile as my other dwarves back away and my leader knocks out one of her humans! (I decided at this stage that death after wounding was too harsh - therefore after a successful hit and wound the model was killed on a 5/6, knocked out on a 3/4 (recovers on subsequent turns on a roll of a 4+. 3+ etc) or lightly wounded on a 1/2 (-1 to movement and +/- to hit/hitting etc)

My dwarven boar then charges into the skeletons, taking one down

Before all the other undead gather and close in, eventually killing the tusked mascot. Some more skeletons fall to crossbow bolts and I decide at this point that I have run out of quarrels as my son is not enjoying removing so many skeletons to shooting. I remind him that he can raise the dead and he does, successfully passing his spell test and bringing 3 zombies back.

From the town center and in retaliation, my dwarves cast fireball and return those 3 zombies to the dead undead.

Meanwhile, my daughter has seen the folly in attacking the dwarves and decides to use one of her actions to communicate between her leader and mine, brokering a peace deal. We agree and concentrate our combined forces on the growing undead menace. My son (slightly surprisingly) relishes this!

A massive melee ensues, the action so frenetic that I can barely focus my camera

My daughters humans then decide to break off from the engagement and start searching for treasure in the houses and in particular in the graveyard. Searches were successful on a roll of a 7+ and D6 x 10 gold were found and kept a track of. My daughter was very successful gaining around a 100gp! My son's undead wanted some of this and broke off their engagement with the dwarves and also started searching! He got about 60gp and some new zombies from the graveyard! 

Her barbarian is still knocked out!

All combats are now off  (apart from a couple of skeletons who clearly want to cause more carnage) and everyone goes off searching. I think the wifes shout of "dinner's nearly ready" sped up the game to a conclusion!

The humans continue their successful search for treasure, with the occasional attack by a creature of the undead.

A mad dash for the only building not to be searched, the human second in command gets their first using her sprint, but is then caught, attacked and slain by a wandering skeleton! The dwarf wizard closes in  and destroys the skeleton with a slay undead spell. He then hoovers up the last of the gold coins before dinner is served. 

We tally up the gold coins (humans easily have the most), although the undead have swollen their warband significantly. For our next game I will write up ways that each warband can spend their coinage to improve their warband (extra members, weapons, equipment etc).

It was a fun couple of hours for sure.