Some sets of terrain I did for GEG

It was great seeing my terrain in use during the opening of the CoC. Based on the responses and opinions I got from some of the players, it seems that the terrain not only looked well, but played well. Here's a few pics I took at the tournament.

 Island terrain set.  I'm planning a fully modeled board with larger pieces of terrain that can be moved about for variety.

 Here's a detail shot of the Island center piece.  I like the way the cave turned out.

 Here's the Snow set.  Based on the Battle of Hoth complete with a Wampa cave.

A detail shot of the Wampa along with gratuitous art label nested in the cave.  Sculpting the Wampa was a lot of fun.  I researched the creature through several sources and noted that it would only be a head or two taller than a Space Marine. I went with a slightly larger scale to make it look more menacing.






Here's a shot of my brother's army on the board I made him.  It's 24"x24" on expanded foam based on hard board and included some ruins and rubble terrain.

Great Escapes' Contest of Champions 2012

1250 Blood Angels
Opponents:
Raven Guard
Chaos Daemons
Black Templars

Results:  3 losses
Impressions:
I feel I performed better with my Tau in last year's opening event than with the Blood Angels which only reinforces what I should have remembered and done: play the army you plan to play.  To be honest, I built the list from a gun line perspective with  Laser Cannon Razorbacks and a Devastator when I should have remembered that the Blood Angels are all about Close Combat. I gave myself only a few practice games and really should have clocked at least a game a week over the winter break.  Familiarization of a list is not something you have just by building it; there should be as many games as possible with that list before the tournament.  So I'll not be faulting my choice of units but rather my poor tactics and limited strategy. 

As for my opponents:  Each was as much fun to play against as I could hope for.  It's a good feeling to walk away from a lose and still feel that the game was good. 

Some shots of the games and the armies my Blood Angels faced

First Round: Raven Guard featuring 2 Landspeeders, Bikes, Scouts, TermiCaptain with Terminators and two Tacticals.  You can see from the first photo that I wasn't really paying attention to the missions and the army.
Sometime along mid game, I remembered that I was playing Blood Angels and having lost the LasCans and Demolisher, dove into my opponent.  Live and learn...assault marines are for assaulting.




Not too sure what I was hiding for...old habits?

 One fun moment of the game was tank shocking terminators. 

Round two was against a beautifully modeled and customized army of Chaos Daemons using mostly Slaanesh units.  My deployment felt a bit more thought out. I knew that the Seekers would be fast, but somehow forgot that my Baal Preditor would have more fun with them than the Daemonites.







Daemonette "Mermaids" advance on an immobilized Razorback.  It got exploded,  so the AMs inside weren't destroyed right off. Lyzz had the Daemonettes encircled about the Razorback.

 A Herald of Slaanesh; my VIP target. 

 Another fun moment:  Terminators, led by the Librarian, versus a Daemon Prince/King Crab.

 Last round of the day went fairly quick.  A single objective with table quarters added to the fun that is the good old fashioned annihilation mission. By this time, I was really getting the swing of the Blood Angels and was having a good time with the Baal Predator. Deep Striking Terminators into the open, while good for avoiding mishaps, is lethal when done in front of a Land Raider.  Last time I challenged one of them was the last time I used Tau Stealth Suits with Fusion Blasters.

 The remains of the Terminator unit scrambled up the hill to claim only to be reminded who the true king of the hill would be.

The southern end of the field was pretty much too far away to do anything useful.

Forest Battle Terrain

The Forest Battle.  Approximately 6 square feet of terrain.  This set was originally themed on the Battle of Endor and was to include ruined huts and platforms. (You can see the original notes here)  After I began to assemble the core elements I began to see the set for what it wanted to be.  So I set aside the original concept for a latter project.  This result is more flexible as it could be used for both 40k and Fantasy Battles.
I'm looking forward to playing it.

Enjoy!

Ideas for Terrain Sets

I've been designing and building sets of terrain for my local game store, Great Escapes Games and it's been a great opportunity and lots of fun.  The only problem is that I've yet to build a set of terrain for use at home.  So, while I work on a Forrest Battle set for the upcoming Contest of Champions, I began work on a set that could be used in 40k.

After some initial sketches and a rough plan for number and size of pieces, I start off the building process by making a test piece.  The one pictured here is near completion with only the windows and door to be detailed.  There aren't any other in progress photos because I didn't think to take any...I'll try not to let that happen any more.  The concept came from Riddly Scott's approach to set design in Blade Runner - Retro Fitting.  I'll have several structures taken from various architectural periods and regions and then muck up the facades with bitz and gubbins.  It'll have an overall Steam/Diesel Punk feel but be well within the scope of W40K.

As for the Forrest Battle set:  I've completed the test piece.  It measures 6" x 9" by 5" tall.  The fallen branch was sculpted out of balsa wood, the broken tree trunk was sculpted from polymer clay. 

Here's a shot of the notes for the set.  As you can see, it's themed around the ruins of a forest encampment. The dimensions indicated are just a rough idea based on 25% table coverage.  After the test piece was done, I'm opting for many smaller pieces of terrain that could be grouped together to form large areas of cover or spread out to allow for more open play.  Smaller pieces, like the  6"x9" test piece, can be inter mixed with the existing terrain so several tables could benefit from the theme.  There will be one or two larger models with multiple levels.











To be updated....

C!nder

1750 Raven Guard vs. the Firewalkers

I've been playing the Tau for almost three years straight now.  There have been other armies: Tyranids, Orks, the odd Vanilla Marine, Dark Eldar (4th edition) and now Blood Angels.  I don't know what the appeal really is.  The army as a whole lacks in several key places even on it's strong points: having access to some really shooty toys as it is hobbled with a poor BS.  In spite of having skimmers and jet packs, they're not nearly as fast or fast enough to outrun assaults which happen to be their weakest point of all even among their so-called "best close combat unit" - the Kroot (which don't even have a save!).  So why play them...like I said, it's hard to say.  I guess it's really the challenge. With the Tau, there is no forgiveness for shoddy tactics.  Strategy is solid and widely accepted:  as many Crisis Suits as you can, the minimum troops anyway you want them and get some rail guns and markerlights in the mix.  Tactics is where it all comes together or falls maddeningly apart.  It's kinda the reward for this army.  You know that if you loose, it won't be because you were faced down with an army that rolls 2+ on everything except it's leadership...it's because your strategy went up table while your tactics loitered in the deployment zone.  I'm not going to talk tactics because I still have some go-to generals that can talk a lot better on the topic.  Just remind you that all the list echoing means nothing if you don't know how to use the units at the right time.  That being said, these five little Shas-Las lasted one turn after their Devilfish was vaporized.   But it was enough to whittle Shrike's Wing down to one.  Ultimately, the game ended with Tau at 8 kill points and Raven Guard at 10.  Not bad for a mission Tau don't play well into and it could have been a draw if I remembered that rail guns ruin SM vehicles quite easily.

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.

Old Collectable to Functional Terrain

A few years back these cold cast statues were released for Warhammer 40K.  I bought two, one of the Firewarrior and the other a Space Marine.  During a recent foray into some storage boxes, I found the Space Marine...off his base and busted.  Seems that was one of the boxes that got dropped during a move.  It happens and isn't the end as I'm well versed in the repair of fragile collectibles.  As I worked on the statuette, I got an idea: why not convert it to terrain. GW has released several monument styled models for use in Imperial settings, this statuette is just the right for that job.  So, with a few rough ideas, materials and a handful of hours, I was able to produce this monument to the tactical marine.

Enjoy.