Thursday 20 March 2014

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 5

Weather:Calm
Terrain: Mountain
Scenario: Man Hunt

The battleground was set as above. At the end of the first turn Scourge appeared on the high Mountain tabletop on the right and would move randomly until within 2 x Long of any foe. Also Nicomo Cosca was identified as the adventurers murderer from the end of battle 4, with an extra XP reward for his death.

Monday 17 March 2014

Making Geysers - Part 2

The Geyser construction continues from part 1. Apologies for the quality of some of the photos, I was having a bit of glare trouble to add to my drying time problems - Early March in Scotland isn't the best time for projects with many paint and wash layers!!

 Primed in Halfords grey auto primer
And completely covered in a cheap art store Burnt Sienna acrylic.

After the brown has dried  a dark wash of Burnt Umber and Black is applied

and then a dry brush of the original Burnt Sienna. As a note a this stage the colour scheme was matching in very well with the GaleForce 9 "Battle Field in a Box" Badlands kit that MacSver has.

 Now I wanted these to be definitely seen as geysers, not craters, so I painted some bluey\green and then blue to the base of the geysers and dry brushed the inside, edge and outer rim with green, yellow and some stippled orange to represent the colourful algae and moss you sometimes get round these water holes.

A weak wash of the brown\black again over the "algae" to tone them down a bit.


 A quick spray of matt varnish and then I used White Glue to represent water, with partial success (after 48+ hours of drying time!).

and the finished product...

Friday 14 March 2014

Dead Man's Hand Boards 2 to 4 Update

MacSver has been continuing his Wild West board build. Thought you may be interested after the comments on the first board. In the words of the man himself...


DMH project - terrain boards 1-4 sneak peak!

It's been a busy time in the Battleshed, so I thought I'd share the progress so far and provide a peek at the eventual four-board combination


Board 2 is now finished and this completes the 'urban' part of town.

Board 3 - with the just completed 'Livery' - is awaiting corral fencing which will join the main panel fencing at a right angle and section off the area between the livery and the out-house. This is the only terrain board that does not have its supporting battens in place, hence why it is currently lower than the other boards in the pictures. I needed the livery to be completed and positioned first as I plan to add some small guide battens on the board surface to act a sub-base for the livery. The lump of foam core you can see will eventually be modeled as part of the extension / access point to the board 4 hill section - complete with rickety old bridges!

Board 4 - the mountain! The 'heavy' work is now completed, with the basic outline of the feature now in place. For this I firstly added vertical hardboard supports on two sides then used cut foam core to form the foundations. Then I used combination of plaster-cloth, Hydrocal and a little art-mache to shape from the foam core foundations. There is still a lot of work to do modelling and shaping the rock features - adding boulders and features onto the 'flat tops' for example. This all needs to be in place before I even start on the colouring process, let alone adding the vegetation! Still a way to go, but I hope this gives you a little idea of the overall plan

Monday 10 March 2014

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 4

Weather:Calm, nighttime.
Terrain: Border Town
Scenario: Snatch

The scenario revolves rescuing a blacksmiths daughter, accused of witchcraft, from imprisonment in the centre of a town. One character per warband has a key to unlock the prison door. There is a local militia guarding the prison, all Quality 3+ Combat 3, so just as strong as most the campaign characters. Also it is a night raid, so player characters can't run (only one move action) and shooting ranges are down to short. Militia are run by game mechanics, roll on 2 activation dice, can run but can't power attack.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Making Geysers - Part 1

With a "Song of Blades..." battle soon taking place in the mountains with geysers as fantasy terrain, I thought I'd have a bash at making some. This is very much a "documenting the experiment" set of posts - not a tried a tested method!

Conveniently recycled pie moulds were washed out

and pushed down carefully in the centre to make the main geyser crater (these are going to be the rocky geysers, not the flat lake\pond type)

Some foam core was cut to a random shape and bevelled at the edges before the pie tin crater was hot glued on top.

Wall Filler (spackle to our US cousins) applied to bring everything to the same rough level. I've also tried to make a couple of small craters for water to sit in as well. 

The whole lot has now been left to dry until the next post.

Monday 3 March 2014

SoBH Campaign 4 - Battle 3

Weather: Calm
Terrain: Border Town
Scenario: Raven Barracks

The Scenario is quite simple. The barracks have been abandoned and in the centre of the town there are still some crates available for "retrieval". A small force of  looters is also sneaking around somewhere, with a player deployed random roll.