Citadel Elf Boar Handler

Some more recruits for the Everglade Guardians.

First up an old Citadel Wood Elf Boar Herder and his 2 original boars. The plan is that he'll be a Beastmaster to boost the boars and any other animals (I have an eagle on the table at the moment).

Secondly we have a second Ral Partha Treeman from the 70's and a GamesWorkshop Aragon figure from their Lord Of The Rings range. He's been sitting around half finished for ages and at some point had a wash of Debian Mud. His face is a bit bland I feel from having been looked at on and off, but I'm quite happy with his grimy finish. The different sculpting style had put me off including him in the Guardian's pool, but it may help emphasis his different race.

Therapeutic Force

After a long hard week wasn't capable of much (in mind or mood) when it came to gaming night with MacSver. Fortunately he had downloaded a pile of X-Wing 100 point forces from some forums, so all I had to do was turn up, pick one and try not to crash my spaceships into one another.

Early doors and the Empire manage to tightly maneuver
without collision.

The heat of battle. Slave1 is caught out by the 360 degree
firing arc of the Y-Wing Ion Cannon

The end game. The Y-wing is closed down.

 This was the first time I'd played on this star map. 3' x 3'. Nice.#

Quickly into the evening all the stress' of the week were forgotten and fun was had. Cheers ....

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board - Completed

Few words this time from MacSver after all his hard work.The pictures say it all really. I think it's fair to say that the board looks fantastic. I look forward to the the 3 sections of the town.

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 2

Weather: Snow
Scenario: Avalanche
Defender: Everglade Forest Guardians

The scenario is a basic battle match up, with the threat of a loud noise triggering an avalanche which will move across the table, destroying everything in its path.

The table was set out as above, with frozen lakes in the centre and snowdrifts dotted about. Because of the snow the going was heavy, so every figure had it's movement decreased to short.

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board - Part 3

Over to MacSver again...

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board project - stage 5

This is where I got to use the ProPigments weathering powders for the first time This entailed applying the dry powers directly to the board straight from the bottle using a soft brush, either singularly or as a mix. Initially, I only applied the mid-tones, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber and Raw Sienna to allow a little practice and experimentation.

Once I was satisfied with the general application, I dappled White Spirit directly onto the board being careful not to move the pigments too much. This helps mix and bond the pigments - although I discovered using a wider brush to gently mix the pigments in the main street areas helped provide a more eroded effect. Disturbingly, when the White Spirit is first applied it turns the powders into a kind of dark stain effect - which had me anxiously checking reference material to see if I had done something wrong! Luckily this is quite normal and bares no relation to the effect when fully dried (pictures 1 & 2).

 I let the mid-tone application dry over-night, as the colours appear much lighter once fully dried. I then did a little adjusting of the mid-tones, then applied the highlights using Yellow Ochre and a little Mexico Yellow. Again, I let this dry over-night (picture 3).

The final picture (4), although not fully dry, is pretty much what I wanted to achieve and I'm very satisfied with the results. I'll give this another night to fully dry then onto the end stages.

The final stages will be the spray varnishing (Army Painter Dullcote) and then applying the vegetation.

New Fantasy Buildings

Dave Graffam has recently had another $1 sale, in which I picked up some interesting buildings. It has prompted me to take a brief break from painting and put together a collection buildings I had printed out on card ages ago. I'd chosen some of the smaller and simpler designs, as these were cheaper to print (less pages) and quicker to build, as I wanted a bit more ground coverage.

In the last 10 days or so I managed to clear the lot (10 in total). One problem I often have with terrain projects is basing, as I don't have power tools for carving out hard bases. I have acquired a bag of foam core off-cuts in the last few months and they were wide enough to base here. I am very happy with the result. I'd been using cork for the previous builds and some of them have become very warped. The footprints will have to be re-printed and replaced with foam core.

I obviously had to get the other buildings out to see how the coverage was coming on...

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board - Part 2

MacSver's work continues...

Stage 4

Now the base layer has fully dried, leaving a lovely rutted, grainy, surface, I next deployed my trusty sqeezy-tube of quick-drying filler and special applicator tool (a coffee stirrer) to molding the incongruous areas, such as the bases for the cacti, horse-hitches etc.

I added little lumps here and there, heaping in corners and sealing in the building bases - after all, the ground surface won't be all totally flat!

These raised areas were painted a mix of earth brown and umber wash. Once dry, out came the big (cheap!) brushes for dry-bushing the whole area with Dulux 'Cookie Cutter' and highlighted with Sand Shade light (Foundry Paints).

Stage 5 will be the key stage, where the pro-pigment weathering shaders will be applied, using white spirit and a lot of mixing and brushing. At this point the board should (fingers crossed) start to transform into that dusty, rutted terrain synonymous with Hollywood's version of Old West towns! To see where my project currently is, check out the start of the following video - and from 7:36 to see where I should be after the pigmentation process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtbZxWlRxtI

Dead Man's Hand Terrain Board - Part 1

Time for a guest slot. MacSver is making a dedicated Wild West Town board for all his wonderful 4Ground buildings. He's allowing me to post his progress for those interested. I'll hand you over...

"
Stage 1 - 3 of my first D.M.H. terrain board project.

Stage 1: The base board is a sheet of 8'x2' plywood, which I cut into 2'x2' tiles and then cut and screwed in 1/2" batons to the underside. I then painted on a quick coat of wood primer.

Stage 2

Stage 2 (above): I arranged the building bases and board-walks and used PVA glue to affix to the base board. I also glued in the various steps, fencing (around the gallows), water trough, horse-hitches and cacti. The base was then painted with a watered-down coat of the base brown paint.

Stage 3

Stage 3 (above): I filled a large tub of the base brown paint, mixed with general-purpose filler and fine sand. This is liberally applied and will form the 'textured base' for the board.

When this fully dries, the stage 4 will be dry brushing the first of the base tones, using Dulux 'Cookie Cutter' and highlighted with 'Hessian'.

Stage 5 will be applying the process of applying various 'Pro-pigment weathering powders' to bring out the final lighter tones and textures to the board.

Stage 6 will be applying the vegetation, weeds etc, adjusting / applying the weathering effects. Then when all done and fully dry - sealing with a number of varnish layers."

I look forward to more updates (and playing on the final table...)

More Forest Guardians

Another trio of the new renamed Everglade Guardians ready themselves for battle.

We have a female Elven archer (perhaps Chronopia?), Mage Knight Dryad repaint and an old Citadel\Marauder Wood Elf Archer. THe pair of archers have given me a bit of trouble with paint colours. Couldn't seem to get the male one just quite right and the exposed leg, quill and bow of the female making do something slightly different from the others to avoid too much light paint in one area.

I'm also still in a transition with my new light box I've purchased. it takes the direct shine off the mini's well, but I need to work on the light intensity to avoid too much altering the colour and light levels post shot. Work to do (as ever...)

EDIT:---- The female archer is from the Celtos range (Brigade Games)