Cratered wasteland -terrain build.

 

Terrain.

It's one of the most vital things to make an immersive wargame, but often one of the most overlooked elements of the tabletop, often it is either nonexistent, cardboard flats or just thrown up at the last moment. 

With the gaming table having been christened with it's first game, but some of the terrain unpainted, I really wanted to rectify that aspect, and wrote out a couple of lists of terrain I would like to build.

One set of terrain I would like to tackle is a set of opposing trenches and cratered no-mans land in-between. I know my board is only three foot across, but I can position to have between eighteen and twenty inches of no-mans land easily. Historically, frontline trenches were uncomfortably close at times from looking at aerial photographs of World War One (the brilliant Wargames Atlantic kits are something I would like to look at in future and this terrain set is my justification for them!).

Rather then start with the trenches, and only having a few free hours causing me to miss the deadline for Dreadtober, I began with a small set of three craters on scatter bases so I could do a little each day and then leave to dry.

The bases were first cut from some good 5mm MDF I had left over from a previous project, no warping here due to glues and paints.

Then a broken sheet of polystyrene insulation was purchased from the DIY shop for a bargain and I set about it with a knife to make the rough crater shapes in the photo:

Bit of a mess was made though...

A closer look at one of the craters at this stage. I wrote on the base the rough size of the flat space I wanted "50mm" in this case. These being ordered to provide surface area for bases to be placed securely, as I really wanted to avoid "wobbly model syndrome".

Out came the crafting supplies next, and I chose to try a technique from Eric's Hobby Workshop on YouTube. He uses aluminium foil to shape the edges and piles of dirt for his build.

Unlike Eric with his Hot Glue Gun, I used PVA and had to wait for it to dry before moving on.

The next day, fully dry, it was out with the next set of crafting materials, and a batch of filler/PVA/some old brown paint I had was made up and applied liberally over the pieces:

As such, the brown was far too light in shade for my liking, but it worked as a base layer:

And a few rest Kriegers to demonstrate model positioning:

The next step was to start texturing, and builders sand was glued down across the entire set of craters:

These were then sprayed with my last can of Mournfang Brown,vans generously drenched in my homemade brown was, like I use on my tanks:

And the drybrushing layers bagan, first with Baneblade Brown, then with Ushabti Bone:

Before the Ushabti Bone layer, a few bits were picked out in Mechanicus Standard Grey, to represent stones and rocks churned up:

Next was a couple of successive drybrushes, first with Abaddon Black, then Corvus Black both in the main recess of the crater to represent scorching from the explosion. Finally an all over light drybrush of Flayed One Flesh mixed with Ulthuan Grey was given, just to draw out the very highest of textures, the light Fleshtone gives a less harsh final appearance then just pure Ulthuan Grey, which is a near white colour:

And a final "action" shot, with a few of my Imperial Fists traversing the cratered hellscape with the mountains behind:

I do have a light tan fleece blanket to use as a base cloth for the table and these pieces will sit on that and blend well with the colours used.

I want to add the two trench lines to the set, as well as a couple of blown out hills, one covered in craters, the other will have a burned out wood on it, as well as a few loose scatter sections of burned out woods.

I am considering a ruined building, maybe a church, as a centerpiece between the lines, think the Village of Velfwhich they assault in the Wonder Womanmovie set during World War One, or the atmospheric town scenes in 1917.

All in all I think these three craters took me about four hours (minus drying times), done in little half hour stints in my free time each day.

Whilst I wasn't planning on it, the end of October became very busy with a rush of extra trains at work meaning I was called in on my days off and taking the Mrs out for her birthday last weekend as well, far more important, ate into my already stretched hobby time. Things should calm down through November as I have some annual leave coming up at work, so I'm going to try to set aside some dedicated hobby time to get stuff done.

Not sure what to start next, but terrain is definitely on the cards for the time being.

Until next time, have nice day...