Honoured Imperium.

 

The patrol moved with careful sweeps of their lasguns through the cloying clouds of dust thrown up amongst the ruins of Stalinvast. 

Their uniforms, once a pristine royal purple were now cakes in the fine remnants of the once proud city as it hung in the air, lapping around the remaining ruins and dropping visibility drastically.

The proud bastions of the city have suffered under punishing bombardments from both the enemy and now the Imperium as they took back section after section of the now ruined city.

"Sergeant, according to our maps, we should be approaching the Arch of the Aquilla and the Cathedral, but our scouts can't make them out" Lance-Corporal Dillard reported.

Sergeant Leyland Ballard looked round as Dillard made his report.

"We should be" he began, but was interrupted by one of the scouts shouting from up ahead.

The platoon ran forwards, Ballard motioning the men into cover as they investigated the scouts location.

"Sergeant, I've found...well, I've found the Arch of the Aquilla" the scout reported as Ballard and Dillard both came up onto the pile of detritus.

"You're standing on it" the scout replied to their quizzical looks.

Beneath their feet were the marble blocks of the great Imperial Eagle which should have been soaring above their heads on the triumphant victory arch. For three thousand years it had stood watch over the entrance to the Cathedral here.

Ballard traced the outline of the wings buried as they were beneath the flat grey rubble of the city. The platoon moved forwards towards them and stared in silent shock at the desecrated heads of the symbol. Someone had clearly taken a sledgehammer to the monument after it had fallen, bashing in the head and beaks of the eagle.

Tears formed in men's eyes and despair settled upon the platoon.

"Men of Ventrillia, why do you halt? Why do I see despair on the faces of these fighting men of the Imperium?" A strong sonorous voice rang out.

Commissar Loiselle strode forwards out of the dust. His stormcoat flowing, hat and boots still gleaming, powerfist glowing with electrical charge. Apart from the scaring on his left cheek, he was every part the picture of a recruitment poster, even here amongst the devastation.

Sergeant Ballard looked round as the Commissar approached.

"Although Holy Terra is far away from here, the Emperor's Hand is upon your shoulders. He has given us this task to reclaim this planet. Whilst it may be cast down at this hour, you stand upon the symbol of the Him on Earth, know that you men are the true might of the Imperium and to each of us in the guard the Emperor gives a task" 

The men were enraptured by the Commissars' speech, he had their full attention and was casting the doubts from them.

"All that the Emperor needs is for you to do your duty with fire in your hearts and prayers on your lips. Remain faithful and he will watch over you, the Emperor is always with us. Now Sergeant, get this platoon moving".

Sergeant Ballard hesitated, his faith had been shaken by the desecration he was standing upon. He scuffed his boot and looked up, a hollow, unfocused look in his eyes.

"Commissar, perhaps we should go back.." he began to suggest before the back of his head exploded outwards.

His body tumbled, thrown like a ragdoll by the explosive force, his chainsword tumbling towards the Commissars' feet.

The Commissar who held a now smoking Bolt Pistol.

"Weep for him, for his faith was not sufficient. Rejoice for my faith is bottomless! Corporal Dillard, pick up your chainsword and move forwards, for the Emperor!" Commissar Loiselle ordered, not even casting a glance at the twisted body of the former sergeant.

Lance-Corporal Dillard dutifully picked up the chainsword and began to order the advance again...

*****

Well, another project finished and a other terrain piece completed.

This is the fallen stone Aquilla from the Honoured Imperium terrain set (I'm not sure GW still produce it, a shame if they don't).

It came with a Space Marine statue and a small piece of rubble, neither of which I have but this piece I wanted to fit with the city ruins I am glacially building (I know, I know).

So a base of 3mm MDF, edges bevelled as usual and then glued down.

Geek Gaming modelling compound for the contours, and my usual rubble of bits of broken plaster (which I cast up in sheets and then break), clean cat litter and sharp sand.

Painting it was the usual fare of Wilko emulsion tester pots and drybrushing. The only difference was the Aquilla itself which was painted in a bone colour and washed with Sepia before being drybrushed for the dust on it to blend into the piece.

Hobby Bingo this closes another box...AND another line adding 60 points.

This gives me a grand total of 300 points now, I'm running slightly behind my target if I'm honest, but real life has a tendency to get in the way of hobby.

Until next time.

 - Lewis.

Urban Terrain, drybrushing is hell.

 

Greetings, this is the third part of the build of these first scatter terrain pieces (I swear I will get round to fnishing the Municipal Building and the Bar I started).

 Part One and Part Two are here for the building process.

This third part is after the last details were added, and the floorboards were blended into the "Bolt Hole" piece. I also added some final drybrushing in a further grey colour and some black on around the upper windowframe of the wall, to simulate where soot had built up as if the building had been on fire and that was the last standing part of it...until a shell drops and blows that bit to smithereens, but I digress.

Here is an overview of all four piece's together:

They really came together well, here's a photo of the two rubble piles, with some Imperial Fists for scale:

The smaller of the two comes roughly to the Primaris Marines waist and the larger obscures the miniature, except for the very top of their helmets and backpacks...or the back-banner in the case of the Sergeant.

The "Bolt Hole":

You can see the darker areas where I drybrushed to make the soot effect. I nicknamed this piece as the Bolt Hole because I originally had in mind gaming using Terminator:Genysis models (more on that in a later post) with this and based the idea a lot on the Future War look with the piles of rubble and randombits of wall left standing which the resistance are using for cover. Adding to this the oil drum (which could, rather dangerously, be used for a firepit) and the fact that I added boards over the window made it seem like an old hideout type place.

Finally, the telegraph pole which I need to finish the detailing for, but is functionally complete:

I took pains to add some black drybrushing towards the top half of the pole, as in real telepgraph poles (at least in the UK) there is often a tar which is applied to the poles, this helps stop the wood rotting, considering our famously wet weather here and was something I wanted to add.

I do have to modelling up the connection box and wiring to add to the piece, as well as finish the camper van for the flat area, but it is usable as it stands.

I'm going to focus on my Orktober project for the time being this month, and work up some more terrain once I've gotten the greenskins sorted I think.

Until next time....

 

  - Lewis

Urban Terrain - LET'S GET READY TO RUBBLE!

Hello again, in Part 1 when last we left our terrain making efforts, I had just glued the former pieces of polystyrene (and been told off because one of the cats managed to snag a small piece without me knowing and was playing with it downstairs in the hallway!).

So this time I will be adding the actual terrain to the pieces and working them up to the beginning of the paint stage.

We'll start by grabbing out the bag of Modelling Compound from Geek Gaming.

This stuff is great to work with, it's a PVA, plaster and paper mix which forms up with three parts compound to one part water, goes on like papier-mâche, and is workable about twenty minutes or so after you lay it down.  Reasonably priced for a kilogram bag, it'swell worth it simply for the ease of use (I am not affiliated with Geek Gaming, just like their products).  

 

Anyway, once a good layer was down, I had to smooth it off to provide a nice key for the next stage to glue to the modelling compound once it had dried. In the words of Luke when he's been advertising/using this stuff in his Terrain videos, "Get your fingers wet and get in there!".

 

This is what I ended up with:

 Looking a lot more natural, rather then bubbly polystyrene all over the place.
The front corner of the bar hasn't been worked up, as this spills outside the walls where they have been broken down, so I'm going to add that section once the interior is finished and the walls glued in place.

I forgot to take a photo of the next step, but it basically involves a thick lyer of PVA glue and then some smashed sheets of plaster which I cast up in my own baking trays (not the ones from the kitchen) glued on as larger pieces of rubble/concrete.

Once this is dry, I start to add various smaller rubble sizes:

 

I have a tub of builders sharp sand, a big tub of smoother sand and a tub of cat litter (clean obviously, I'm not going to be practicing chemical warfare on my gaming table). 

Again, with a liberally thick layer of PVA we end up with this:

 

 

 I stopped work on the Bar at this time as I was having to work on the kitchen side, and there wasn't room for all my terrain AND to keep the room functioning in it's primary capacity. 

Once I had the extra sizes and layers of smaller rubble down, I decided to try out a layer of Mod Podge mixed with grey paint as a sealant/primer coat:

Unfortunately, near disaster struck.

The Mod Podge mixture held fast over a lot of the smaller rubble and created this wierd, honeycomb texture is the only way I could describe it:

 See how it has smoothed off a fair bit of the rubble and sand but left holes in the surface...not ideal when I wanted this sort of texture like on my Municipal Building:

 

Not a major problem though, as once they'd all dried properly, I threw down some more PVA and sand, then gave them a primer coat witha  rattle can of grey paint:

 The standing windowframe and wall got some texture through using baking powder around this time, probably before the rattle can if i'm honest but I can't remember:

 Just some cheap own-brand baking powder, sprinkled over PVA which was smeared over the building wall by my finger to ensure good coverage.

I then thought about adding some boards to the base of this piece as well, seeing as there were floorboards on the ground and some had been used to block off the window, I figured there would be some more littered around the piece

 

Fortunatley, before the 2020 pandemic began and everywhere was open and running as normal, I had steadily been grabbing a handful of coffee stirrers everytime I bought a cup of tea from the cafe next to our depot where I work. I have a tub full of these which are very useful for modelling projects.

I guess I'll have to buy a pack of them off eBay unless things go back to normal anytime soon...which I can't see happening.

 

Before I added them to the piece though, I started painting and made a black wash using Black Emulsion tester pot and water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid added, this breaks the surface tension of the water and allows it to seep down through the various cracks and textures. (I didn't add this to the Mod Podge and that may have been the error there).

Then a couple of drybrushes up through different shades of grey emulsion testers I picked up specifically for this project.

A few spots of colour on the oil drums and the interior wall and windowframe of the pieces left me with these:

Finally, adding some sand to the ends of the floorboards and painting them up to match the base piece gave me this effect on the "Bolt Hole" as I am calling this piece:

 These are coming along well, and in my next post about them, I'll add some finished photo's along with some miniatures added to give a sense of scale to the pieces.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

Urban Terrain, let's make some more.

 So, at the beginning of the year (February if i'm not mistaken) I bought a load of MDf and supplies to build a ruined city for 40k/Bolt Action/Any other 20th century on forwards game in 28mm.

I began building a municipal/government building type piece and sort of got sidetracked...this happens a lot I find. One of the main things has been the whole pandemic situation as I originally thought what was the point as I wouldn't be able to get it over to my friend's house where we have a table set up, and won't be able to use it, etc...blah blah blah, I procrastinated because I was using the pandemic as an excuse.

I thought it was about time to actually get the lead out and make some progress with this project, especially if I actually want to use the bleeding stuff and not have it sat around taking up space. The fact that I'll be able to use it for slo games until I can get over to his house and drop it off has spurred me on a little.

So, I gathered supplies, warned the family that there may be some polystyrene loose and set to...

Well...

 

After I'd spent half-hour looking for my terrain knife I did, the "tidy-away-fairy" visited when I upgraded my display cabinets, and my knife had been put away "somewhere safe", yes, somewhere so safe even I couldn't find it!

Anyway:

The usual suspects for terrain, MDF bases which I had precut and snaded the sides down on. Some cardboard and roof insulation polystyrene. I managed to bag a load of this which was going spare from another friend who was moving house and had tons laid around not being used. 

I began with a couple of smaller scatter pieces, which I plan to just be cover or LoS blocking rubble piles:

I think the hardest part of the first ten minutes of building was trying to not let polystyene balls fly everywhere as I was cutting it up.

Preservering on, I becan a smaller ruined piece:

 

This smaller piece is kind of whats left of a majorly bombed building and a sniper hole all in one I imagined.
The floor started out as a piece of underfloor insulation which I carved with a pencil to make the floorboard texture (too bad most of it got covered up later one). The window panel is from an MDF building which was left over from the municipal building I already started. 

It's based off of this photo from somewhere in Germany in 1945:

With the singular standing area and the crashed ruins around it, the polystyrene was placed to this end but I didn't want this piece to be as big as the previous attempt. It's more of a smaller piece of scatter terrain which could block LoS if needed to a specialist or provde cover to an infantry unit moving through.
The resin oil drum was added along with the boards over the windows to give the impressions that it has been used at some point as an ad-hoc fort/command camp.

Having liked the texture made by the underfoor insulation, I decided to attempt a larger piece and began with this:

This piece will end up as another major ruined building, so after the floor was finished, I snapped off some polystyrene to create the rubble piles just as in the municipal building, I pushed these more towards the corners to create spaces for miniatures to be placed later on. I also ripped off the celophane of another MDF kit I had picked up, the Wild West Furniture pack from TT-Combat. I only built the bar for this piece yet, but the tables and chairs will be added once this piece reaches a better state to add them:

With things in place, I turned to the outside a little and had ordered some 1cm square Balsa wood sticks, with a little cutting to create an indent, I managed to create the impression of concrete support pillars on the corners.

I placed everything together to get an idea how it was shaping up, but left the buildings removable as yet for ease of modelling the interior:

Finally, I began work on the final piece for this batch.

One thing I have always wanted to see on ruined city boards, ut which are often impracticle, are things like streetlights and telegraph poles. They are everywhere ad here in the UK are a distinctive part of any town or village you pass through.

Not worried about practicalities on the tabletop I set to work with some 1cm dowel rods I picked up from the DIY shop. These were cut to eight inch lengths, this was based on looking out of my house window at the one across the green where I live. The telepgraph poles here are just taller then the rooflines of the houses oppsite mine which are two storey tall semi-detached. 

With a guestimate at the roofline of a two-story MDF ruin I had in my hand I landed at eight inches roughly, which seemed right so I went with it. I'm going to work up the flat juntion boxes which the ones round here have using some plasticard layering and then I'm thinking of using garden wire for the actual cables. Yes most of this stuffis oversize in diameter, the doweling certainly is, but it's a tradeoff between looking right and durability on the tabletop which I am going for here.

I am toying with the idea of using some magnets to mke wires which are still attached to the ruins, but I feel that they may get in the way of gameplay too much..
Finally I decided to add a crashed vehicle to this piece. I've been collecting a few of the Roadsterz 1/48 toy cars as and when I can find them at a reasonable price (not going to pay premium pounds for something I am going to smash with a hammer!).

A quick root in the supply drawer and this camper van was selected:

Two minutes with a screwdriver to take it to pieces and then a hammer to wreck the front ennd and it was nearly ready to go. As an afterthought I decided to add a couple of 3D printed damaged fuel barrels I bought off eBay at the beginning of this project.

Next post I'll be adding the Scenic compound to make everything smooth and then starting to texture these pieces.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

Throwback - Background Writing

Many, many years ago, before Facebook really took over Social Media, Forums were the king of the internet.

I was a member of a few such as The Ammobunker, The Waaagh! and Boot Camp.
This last one, Boot Camp, is what brings my post today, for I discovered some old background fluff I had typed up and posted on an old hard drive, in a different folder to the Chaos stuff I posted a bit back!

This was written around ten to twelve years ago, I was building up a different Imperial Guard army and posting my progress on the Boot Camp forum (all about Imperial Guard). We we're playing a fair bit of Cities of Death during 5th edition and with the Forge World Destroyer Tank Hunter and stuff being released around the time I decided I wanted one.

Then I looked at my finances at the time and decided that probably eating, paying rent and feeding my cat was more important. So I decided to create my own Destroyer, sadly the model is long lost to time, but I still have the background I wrote for the crews.

I also wrote a small piece about the build up of an assault which I have added at the bottom of this page.

Grab a drink, sit back and enjoy reading.

***

Sargeant Gerritz looked round, the clanking and squealing of approaching armour echoed around the small buildings. Second platoon was deeper into the township of St. Lyllease then any other unit, and now they faced a serious problem. He cursed under his breath, his squad had run out of missiles not ten minutes earlier, and now they had this to deal with.

"Everyone take cover, enemy armour inbound!" he shouted to his nearby squads. The men spread out along the cobbled road, but Gerritz knew that it wouldn't be enough, the street were just wide enough for their own armour, so one tank round would take all of them out.

Gerritz felt a chill run down his spine as the enemy tank, a Reaver AT-70, crept to view through the smoke. Its blackend, pock marked hull ground into view. It was covered in symbols which caused all the guardsmen around the curse, and pray. It clanked forwards threateningly, spiked treads digging up cobblestones and dirt.

Lasshots burst at them and he realised for the first time that enemy infantry were advancing with the tank. Two troopers near him died before his platoon could return sporadic fire. Their fusilade seemed puny and insignificant compared to the roar of the enemy tank's battle cannon as it fired. The shell sailed high over them,
and demolished a building somewhere else in the town.

The enemy lasfire grew more intense as they advanced, things were beginning to get desperate. Gerritz was thinking about calling for a retreat when he was forced to duck. Walls and rubble crashed down further down the street as another armour piece tore its way through a building! A long barreled, low slung monster of steel, it turned and fired, destroying the traversing tanks turret in a blossoming explosion, the AT-70 slung to a halt.

He looked closer and saw the Imperial Aquilla on the side armour of the new arrival. he watched dumbfounded a the tank reveresed back into the ruins and turned on the enemy infantry. The top hatch flung open, a crewman appeared and started to punish the traitor infantry with the stubber on the hatch. Men were gunned down as they tried to run. Without him realising it, Second platoon had opened fire as well, in a matter of seconds every traitor was dead.

"CLEAR UP!" came a shout from the tank.
"CLEAR DOWN" he replied, "Second platoon move out".
The men moved out down the ruined street and he thought about how battles change in an instance. Not more then a minute ago they had
been under heavy fire from the enemy, now they were advancing against
said enemy with armour of their own.

***

Lieutenant Koffzca grinned as he called out to his crew.

"Enemy tank, Reaver pattern dead ahead! FIRE!"

The destroyer lurched as the cannon fired. Smoke backwashed into the crewspace and was sucked out quickly by the louvres on either side of the hull.

"Target elimination confirmed!" called his targeter, who immediately started to search for another target.

Koffzca smiled to himself as his crew took a quick note of the kill; that was his eighth kill in this battle. Surely a new record in the company! He was jerked out of his thoughts by the urgent calling of his targeter.

"Enemy to front, enemy to front!"

"Address and fire at will, Markus! Keep us in cover, but preferably with good shooting angles!" he ordered calmly.

The vehicle shook as a round exploded harmlessly off its angled hull armour.

"And for throne's sake, DO IT NOW, MAN!" he bawled.

The destroyer reversed away from the approaching traitor tank, but it was not fast enough. A shell hit the ground near it and ripped away a section of track. They ground to a halt in the middle of the open street, a clear target. Koffzca gulped.

"Abandon! Get out! GET OUT!" he shouted, as he watched the stubby barrel of the AT-70 traverse downwards to point directly at them.

***

Major Rummel stared unblinkingly through his destroyer's scope. He waited patiently for the right time to fire, although some other armour commanders would have opened fire already, ruining the chance of a clean kill. Rummel truly understood the power of the destroyer that he was commanding, however. A quiet position and quick fire with maximum chance to kill was how he operated his tank, and this fact alone had led to him being called an 'ace', and had racked up eighteen kills in his career. He was glad that the infantry which had just begun supporting him from the last street had followed his instructions and kept their heads down. He waited...

"What the hell are you waiting for?" came the clipped vox signal, no doubt from the sergeant.

"Be quiet, you fool!" Rummel spat into the vox.

"You have a shot! What are you waiting for? Personal orders from the Emperor himself?" the infantryman voxed again.

Rummel sighed and ignored him.

Wait for it, wait for it!

The time for action was now.

"FIRE!"

***

The flat crack-boom of the Destroyer's cannon firing echoed across the street. The Reaver AT-70 which had been so focused upon Koffzca's stricken Destroyer shunted several feet sideways, its tracks sparking on the hardpan. It ground to a halt, turret swung completely around, its main weapon hanging on a single hinge. Fire ran across the side of the tank from where the explosion had ignited the electrics and motor servos, before reaching the main magazine.

The Chaos tank blew itself to pieces in an explosion so powerful that it shook both Koffzca's and Rummel's Destroyers and left Garrond and his infantry cowering in the rubble. Looking up to where once before there had been a tank and the road, they saw only a crater- nay, a hole, several feet deep, covering almost the entire width of the road. The walls of the building directly opposite had also been mostly destroyed.

"Target elimination confirmed!" called Rummel's spotter.

"Thank you, Wolfe, but I think we already knew that." His crew laughed as the tension eased.

"Get us out there," he ordered. "Rummel to Support. We need an Enginseer at 60/81b ASAP. Destroyer damaged."

The vox crackled to life.

"Support section to Rummel. Request heard and approved. Will be on site in approximately twenty minutes. Out."

***

Lieutenant Koffzca had climbed out of his Destroyer and was inspecting the damage to the track section as Rummel's Destroyer tore its way free of the ruins, sections of prefabricated Ferrocrete bouncing freely off the slanted armour of the tank as it drove clear and turned to them.

"That damn b****** will have another mark to paint on that barrel now," he thought. "That should have been mine!"

Rummel climbed down and walked over to him.

"Support is on the way. Twenty minutes."

"Thank you, sir." That was all that Koffzca could say before Rummel had climbed back into his Destroyer and started to back up into the new ruins to await and cover the Enginseer's team when they got there.

***

Rain poured down, droplets bouncing into the air when the hit the water-logged ground. Street lamps flickered in the wet night air, casting inane shadows over the alleyway, sparks flying from broken cables. Ahead through the gloom, the flashes of weapons fire marked a fierce firefight in progress, though the sound was muted by the pouring rain. Private Dieck watched the flashes impassively, cradling his lasrifle, knowing that he would be in amongst that hell soon, scowling at a noise created behind him. Private Viby had stumbled on a loose piece of rubble and had fallen headlong into a large pubble. He splashed around for a few moments, trying to find his feet, and scrabbling for his rifle in the puddle.

"Emperor's sake, Viby! We're trying to be stealthy here!" Private Dieck whispered harshly to him.

"Ease up, Dieck. Any one of us could have slipped on that." said Corporal Jakobson.

"Come on, lad." Sergeant Kambietz said, offering Viby his hand and pulling the young private to his feet. After making sure

Viby was steady again, Kambietz moved to the front of the squad. The ten men were crouched in the cover offered by the sides of the buildings around them. The Imperial buttresses of the ruined Basillica, that had been fashioned into Imperial Aquila heads long ago, were merely pitted and rusted now. At one time they would have been a brilliant gold, but now they sheltered the guardsmen from the prying eyes of the enemy. By the time Dieck looked back to the fight, the area ahead was still and silent. The firefight seemed to have ended.

"How's things looking out there, Beynon?" Kambietz asked, coming up alongside his grenade launcher specialist.

"Mighty quiet out there, Sarge. Helluva noise not more than five minutes ago, but now mighty quiet. Almost like..." Beynon trailed off.

"Almost like they're waiting for us." Kambietz spoke the unspoken end of the sentence, staring at the windows across the street. He was sure that he had seen movement up there, but with the bad visibility from the rain and the failing street
lights, who knew what he could have seen?

"Orders coming through, sir. We're to advance and take Building 619 in Grid 60/18b. That's the one across this main street, sir." Jakobson said, pointing at the building in question. "The rest of the platoon will be assaulting from their positions, sir, as well as Third Platoon and elements of Sixth as well."

"A major offensive, eh? Well, let's look alive!" Kambietz said, starting up his chainsword. He raised it in the air and grabbed a grenade. "Come on, lads! We have our orders! Assault formation! Enzmann, I want you to hit that wall with everything your missile tube has. Make a breach large enough for us. Beynon, target any windows and put a grenade through them. I want you to keep them pinned down. Everyone else into the breach with me. Any questions?"

"Sir! Behind us!" cried Private Viby, pointing down the street from where they had just come. A large shape loomed out of the mist, its autocannon protuding from the front as a greenish glow lit up the pilot. A faint buzzing and clanking accompanied its movements.

"A Sentinel..." Jakobson said. "If they're also being sent in for support, it looks like this is bigger than we thought."

"Looks like the assault is starting, lets move!" Kambietz said. They broke cover as one, Enzmann's missiles flying past them, blowing chunks of ferrocrete into the building. Grenades hurled from Beynon's launcher peppered the windows facing them, exploding violently inside the upper stories of the building. Brilliant red stripes of energy spat from the squad's lasguns, the las rounds cutting steaming paths through the rain. All along the street, as he looked left and right, Kambietz could see ripples of lasfire from the advancing squads. Explosions lit up the darkness and fires began to crackle amongst the debris.

Return fire began to pepper the street around them, hard rounds glowing and leaving tracer trails in the air, enemy lasrounds a lighter shade of red pierced the darkness. A Private in front of Kambietz doubled over and dropped dead as two separate lasrounds found him, blowing out of his throat and making a large hole in the top of his chest. Still holding the grenade in his right hand, the clip held in, Kambietz raced towards the objective. A cry of terror and fury erupted from his throat...

"For the EMPEROR!"

***

Well, I hope you enjoyed that, it was a trip down memory lane for me at least.

As I continue on with my Ventrillians, who knows, perhaps the destroyer crews will be renamed something more suitable for that army and included eventually. I have much stronger converting and modelling skills then I did back then and am not as worried about converting things such as tanks and expensive kits nowadays.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

Urban Terrain: Municipal building progress.

So, things have been rather busy at work as of late.
Last minute schedule and timetable adjustments, staff going off sick, coming back, stress levels at everything are high as we deal with the public at large. So hobby time this past week or so has practically disappeared.

That's why I haven't posted any 30 minutes for 30 days recently more on that soon!

Today, I got a day off from work and the world, so cracked on with some hobby to relax.

When we last left the Municipal Building (as that's what I am making it), I'd gotten the base bevelled and the foundation applied.

Progress has been rapid.

I started with thinking that the build was missing something, looking at some old world war 2 photographs on Google I was struck by how often a chimney would be left standing surrounded by rubble. This phenomenon was very common in Stalingrad, must be how the Russians build their houses.

So armed with some hasty measurements:

 A sheet of foam board and 15 minutes or so, I had this:

Another 15 minutes or so with some rapid drying PVA and things were progressing, a few snippets of an old plastic straw also produced chimney pots:

It was then placed in a test position on the build:

You may think it's a little tall, but look around at houses and building near you. They are often a lot taller then we actually think, andd most wargaming buildings are just shells placed to represent a building. With this project I figured why not actually try to make stuff to scale, especially height as that is one of the main things I found lacking in the terrain collections at Element Games and Warhammer World.

Whilst that was off drying, I got to thinking about the front garden area.

I wanted to include a fenced off area, generally make this one of the more well looked after parts of the city before the war came.

I had picked up some MDF laser cut fencing and with some cutting and sanding:

 To see how it looked together I threw a few Ventrillian Nobles on:

These steps were mainly done over on Saturday evening when I got home from work.

Leaving the chimney to set overnight, today, being bright and sunny, I moved outside to work.

First thing was to get the chimney a coat of the textured PVA, sand and black emulsion mix, then glued down and foam formers added around it:

I hadn't glued down the fence on the front, as I needed to keep the building frontage removable until the next steps are complete.

In order to build up the ground forms and not have it just look like polystyrene foam, I bought some of the modelling compound from Geek Gaming, time to figure out how it worked, Luke makes it look so easy...but that's his business so he has to.

 Armed with this and some water, how difficult could it be?

Turns out not that difficult*, and as he says in as lot of his videos, you just slap it on, and have about 20 minutes to work with.

As I was out in the sun, it was more like 15 but working in small area's at a time it was really easy to create the landforms I wanted:

Now remember, all this will be covered with rubble, sand and gravel soon.

That's the next job, even though it says on the packaging that it is ready in about an hour, it does say it can be damp for up to 24 hours, so I'm going to leave the build overnight to cure properly before moving on.

I am aiming to create a few flatter area's with the next stage where miniatures can perch when fighting within the building.

Once this stage is completed I can can glue the building in place proper and start landscaping the front, including ac blown in the fence on on of the corners (I messed up when cutting the fence to size).

And a few "action shots" for scale:

 Burna Boyz lead the way in for the Evil Sunz Klan.

View through the front door, there will be a stone path leading up to it.

A Ventrillian fireteam, with Sentinel support patrol the ruins.

Lastly:

"Private Jenkins, No grenades inside the building...get back here you stupid boy!"

(I could have called him Private Pike, but these guys aren't that much of a blundering set of fools).

Before I leave the cityscape, as this build is progressing, thoughts inevitably turned to the next one.

Browsing eBay I found this kit:

Something different, what about a Canal?

Running across the width of the board, it would give a piece of blocking terrain which would hinder movement but not range or LoS, something not often seen on a table (or I haven't seen it anyway).

I went searching through my cityfight book for a particular image, the Imperial city of Tsaragrad:

Complete with canal...mine would be a slightly raised one with the canal water level on the same as the board, but I have 12% of a plan to deal with it.

Well, this was a huge post, hopefully I should be able to post updates more regularly.

Until next time...

*I am not affiliated with Geek Gaming or sponsored to include this in this post, I just like to share awareness of products I find good and useful.

 - Lewis