Monday, August 23, 2010

Tau Terrain - Crashed Lander

I've always been impressed with the crashed Aquila Lander that GW included with the Battle for McCragge boxed set.  The idea that terrain needn't be just ruined buildings and foliage was exciting.  I experimented with a few models of my own:  wrecked Dread Naught, burnt out automobiles and mass grave pits.  All were kinda fun to build and gave a slightly more grim feel to the game, but lacked any great versatility as they were mostly single piece terrain.  I wanted something a bit more complex, larger but without dominating the table.  The result was my own take on the crashed lander but with a Xenos twist: The Tau Lander.
Battle Suit to show scale



The ship itself is from the sci-fi story Perry Rhodan and is called the Glador.  The kit was fairly unimpressive and had been knocking around on my hobby table until it got knocked off the table.  That's when the idea hit me to build a xenos version of the Aquila Lander. The crater walls are polystyrene, plaster and HO scale coal all coated in a heavy application of glue.  The lander was called the Twin Blade.  Here's some more photos.  Enjoy!

UPDATE
The Lander terrain is now on consignment at Great Escapes Games.