Warhound Wreck: Reboot

Image Grabbed from the interwebs

I didn't report back after the terrain contest. I lost. Oh well. Kind of disappointing - it was my two pieces and someone's airport looking piece built for Epic scale. It won. So life goes on.

I'm going to start on the wrecked titan this week. This was going to be my entry into the terrain contest  until I found out the contest had a "communications" theme. All I have of the template is a printout. If I can find it online again, I'll include the link in one of my posts. If anyone else knows where it can be found, please drop the address in the comments.

I've already decided on my next project after the titan. I really enjoyed doing the ork tower and the comms tower/short bastion. I want to continue with the ork theme and create an ork looted bastion. I'll start with the same bastion template I've used and almost complete the building. I want to leave at least one corner and most of its adjacent sides off - as if they have been blown off. Then build those sections up with orky construction. The finishing touch will be to paint the intact part of the bastion like an Imperial building and then come back and give it an ork make-over (some graffiti and other stuff). The ork constructed parts will be painted up similarly to my tower.

Completed Tower

Finished the tower late last night. I've included a few progressive shots of the paint job and the finished product. Contest was today, along with a 2,000 pt tourny. I played my Grey Knights for two rounds and had to leave early. I'm not sure who won the terrain contest, but it was worth the time spent just for the excuse to get started again with the blog and the fun of building stuff. Let me know what you all think.

This post is very pic heavy. Pictures after the jump...

Mick and the boys would be proud

It's all painted black - that is. Since I had a lot of foam from the foamcore showing, I had to brush on black paint first, then spray paint. If you use a rattle can on the exposed foam, said foam will melt. It can create a cool effect if you're trying for it. The brushed on craft paint gives a good seal and then the spray paint helps to hit all those hard to reach spots.

The building will get gradually lighter shades of grey until I get the effect I'm trying for. After the metal look is done, I'm going to back and add some color to a few panels to make them look like scrap grabbed form various Space Marine vehicles. Rust and corrosion will come after that.

Rivets, rivets and more rivets

I've spent the last few nights working on all the rivets for the tower. I bought a multisize hole punch a few years ago just for creating rivets. I used it a couple of times on plasticard sheets. That dulled the blade edges a bit too much. The pieces were also very difficult to get out of the cutting cylinders.

I'm using a cereal box for my material this time. The challenge now is that the blades are dull enough that sometimes that don't make a clean cut - may be time to buy another punch.

The amount of time to cut and glue all of these will definitely pay off. The detail will give this tower a realistic look.

Next steps are to base the base and mount the tower to the base. After that I'll start painting. The competition is on the 27th.

Up Go the Walls

Some update photos of the Ork Alert Tower. Put the solid walls on and then covered them with "sheet metal." Main construction is from foamcore and the sheet metal from card stock weight paper. Next steps are to cut and add rivets and build the alarm horns.

Ork Alert Tower

So I went back to check the details for the terrain competition and found that I forgot to read all the rules. The theme for the terrain should center around "communication." Plus, the size for the piece is 6x6x6. There goes my idea for the wrecked titan. I'll save that one for my next project.

One of the armies I have is orks. I decided to build an orky piece of terrain for the contest since I usually don't see much of it on the table. I didn't want to build a Waaagh tower, but did want to do some type of tower. I decided to go with a tower that has an alert horn mounted on its platform - kind of like the civil defense horns. I also want a large area all the way around the platform that the lookout crew can shoot from.

I've started on the construction. I've got the base cut from masonite, the support beams and floor from foamcore and the ladder rungs and skull from cereal box cardboard.I'll be working on the project this week and will post updates as I have them.

Back from the Warp

After a year and a half, I am back. We've had some major life events that have kept us very busy. We've been able to play every so often and even get some painting done on our models, but no terrain. I no longer have a basement with lots of room to work in. It's been real frustrating to not be able to do one of the things I enjoy the most.

Near the new house we're in, my youngest son and I have found a hobby shop that just recently became an authorized GW seller. The shop has a large area for table gaming of all kinds. The Battle Bunker is about 20 minutes from us now, but this store is about three blocks away. We are excited to now have a close location that we go to and play and paint without having to plan a trip.

I checked the store's facebook page  and found that they are having a tournament and a terrain contest on the 27th of this month. The second item has inspired me to make the most of our current situation and start working on terrain again, despite our lack of workspace. My boys harass me about my plans to scratch build a titan. I found a set of plans years ago, but never started doing it (just talked about it). Well, I'm not going to build the whole titan, just a part of it. I'm going to use a 12" square board as my base and build the wreckage of a warhound and a hill with trees.

I've sketched a few ideas and am ready to get started. I'll start on the feet tomorrow, which gives me 20 days to get the whole thing complete. I'm looking forward to creating and sharing along the way.

The things we do on vacation

So I took vacation time to get a lot of things done. Obviously, none of them included anything related to 40K. Haven't posted in two weeks because I've been clearing out some "real world" projects during my vacation. The biggie was to finally rebuild my 1971 Honda CB 750 engine. All the aluminum is buffed and chrome polished, new gaskets everywhere, and soon to be painted - just hope it will run. As far as the photo, that's not my entry in the "Tool Time" fastest lawnmower entry. That's the mobile workstation we put together. You try moving a 300+ pound engine around!

I arrived back at work Monday to find a huge item wrapped in brown paper in my office. They finally had taken down the org charts and someone had put them in my office. Seven 3x6 sheets of foam core!

Looking forward...

I have several projects I've wanted to do and with my cache of board, I'm ready to get going. Just a quick list and short description of some of my ideas.

Ruined Cathedral - I've seen several buildings created with massive cathedral facades and features (large windows, long stairs, flying buttresses, etc.). I want to create a centerpiece item with multiple levels. A great example of this FTW's Ron's cathedral.

Drop-Bunker - I had the idea for this during one of our games where we used our bunkers. We were about to set up bunkers on both sides when I thought how "not real" that set-up would be. In a battle, how would both sides be able to build bunkers that close to each other? I like the idea of a bunker dropped into battle much like a drop pod but done without passengers and put out when the terrain is put out.

Wrecked Titan - A couple of years ago I found LackOf's scratch built titan and various plans for titans. Instead of jumping in and creating an entire titan, I thought it would be cool to test the waters by creating a wrecked walker. That would give me a chance to try some variations on the plans and still have a functional piece when I finished.

Themed Terrain - I've found myself creating terrain that loosely fit into categories. Natural terrain, wrecked ships, ruined buildings, and complete buildings (mainly Mechanicum buildings). Not everything fits into these, but I think it helps the feel of a game if the terrain is coherent. As I work on some of my larger projects, I'm going to fit in as many small ones that build on these different themes.

That's just a few ideas. I've got plenty more that I now have the material to build them with.

Ork Wreck is Completely Wrecked

My Ork wreck from a fast food kid's meal toy is now complete. Spent the evening painting and adding grass. I think it fits what I was looking to make - a functional piece of terrain. It's got enough space on the flat hills for a small squad to snipe while under cover.

This was my first time to ever use static grass. I may go back and some more to give the wreck an even more abandoned look. Enjoy the pictures.

Speeder Wreck Complete - Orks are Next

Really busy week this past week. Weekend has been full as well so it's been a slow process working on the two wrecks. We spent all day today with my mom for Mother's Day. Got home late tonight and I was able to finish the speeder and start getting base coats on the Ork wreck. I'm ready to hit the sack, so I'll just post my pics and say goodnight.

Two Working Wrecks

Bad weather here in the South for half of the weekend usually means I would get to spend lots of time indoors playing with my little army men, but I had honey-do stuff that took up most of my Sunday afternoon. I did get to spend some time on two of my terrain pieces.

Psilencers, Speeders, Jetbikes and the Motherlode!

I work for an international company whose main offices are here in the US. We have a process we go through approximately once a month where the entire company's organizational chart is printed on large sheets of paper then mounted on foam core. When I heard that they changed them out that often and they THREW AWAY the foam core when they were finished the current month's chart, I immediately found the person responsible for the project. She got back to me today and let me know that I was welcome to the boards if I wanted them. This is the Motherlode the title eludes to -  seven 3x5 foot sheets of foamcore! That's enough to build a couple of hive cities and a Mechanicum outpost. Not sure when this set comes down, but when it does, you can be sure I'll start putting it to good use immediately.

Land Speeder Wreck

I really wanted to take my boys to the Memphis Battle Bunker's birthday celebration this weekend. They had a lot of stuff going on that sounded really fun. We've never been able to be out there when they gave tours of the building (where they actually do production work on the models). I had to do big boy stuff instead so we missed out.

Dem 'umies - dey broke me ship!

Ok, so it's not broke yet, but that will soon change. I abhor fast food joints, but my kids want the toys junk the comes with the food. That enjoyment lasts until they get home and the stuff usually ends up lost under a seat in the van. This guy to the left is one of the latest victims. I'm saving him from that life in the land of forgotten toys. I think he looks orkie enough to be the start for a great piece of wreckage terrain. I'll post some more of him once I get started.

Tonight I started on another wreck that I came about working on unexpectedly. I bought bits from a landspeeder on ebay so I could use the engines for a set of speeder bikes I'm building. Well, I didn't look at the picture well enough when bidding and ended up with everything except what I wanted. So I decided I had enough to do a good piece of terrain with a wrecked land speeder.