Frostgrave, Halo Ground Command and other tabletop minis

[keglo]

Thanks @Hahma . Yeah, I have heard of plasticard but have never used the stuff.

[Hahma]

Finished the base for the tank piece. Center area is a concrete pad where the tank would be placed on, the areas on either side are gravel for drainage, and there's a little grass/weeds popping up here and there.





Yesterday was a hobby package delivery day

I got my Dracula's America rulebook from Osprey Games. Kind of Frostgravish in a general sense with putting together warbands/posse's. Though there are several different factions and some mystical stuff going on. You can play it as a straight up western type game without any mystical stuff or factions, or like the way I will eventually play it, play with the factions and mystical stuff. Each faction has it's own abilities and special rules regarding it's leader and who may be part of a posse for that faction. When you build a posse, you have a $ amount to spend and can have from 3-10 figures per posse. There are different levels, such as novice, veteran and something else I believe and when you buy your soldiers, they will have different costs based on level. You can also spend some $ on abilities for some soldiers, so they can get pretty buffed, and you can buy different weapons, but you can only have 2 of the same type of weapon (other than pistol) in your posse. The game also uses playing cards in an interesting initiative/activation system that is really cool. My buddy Chris has a bunch of Shadows of Brimstone figures (likely hasn't gotten to paint them yet) so we could use those perhaps. There are some neat supernatural aspects of the game, with undead, summoning, shape changing etc.

I also got a 36" roll of Greenstuff. I've heard a lot about it and heard it can be useful for many things. My buddy Chris has some stamps that I can use to stamp a certain terrain type into the Greenstuff when placed on a mini's base. So that can lead to some cool new basing effects.

There's a bag of 15 palm trees in 3 different sizes. No bases, but I will take care of that. More stuff for Ghost Archipelago and The Drowned Earth.

Finally, a 100 bottlecap domed epoxy stickers. I've learned about them from Ash Barker's videos when he plays Infinity. They have a lot of effects tokens that you can print off their site, and some also come in the 2 player starter sets like Operation Ice Storm that I recently got, but they are cardstock tokens you punch out of a sheet. Anyway, these bottlecap dot things are 1 inch diameter (I imagine there are different sizes available) and the Infinity tokens you print out or come in the starter sets are 1 inch in diameter. You simply peel them off the sheet and then stick it onto the paper marker and suddenly you have a real neat acrylic marker that shows the image through the acrylic and is nice and durable. I'll likely do both sides to keep the back side of the marker/token protected. I'll post one up when I do it, but it can be useful for lots of stuff.

[Hahma]

Started this little water/whatever tank a while ago and it sat primed black like a Weber grill until a couple days ago.

I crafted a few more parts and added them. Re-primed it all grey and then painted. Wanted a small base similar to the horizontal tank, so I did the same gravel effect but added some bare dirt and a little grass/weeds. I figured that over time, that area under the nozzle would wash out a little bit.

I had a couple of little salsa containers left over from a take out order from a local Mexican restaurant. Noticed that the size of the bottoms seemed perfectly matched to a plastic piece used to keep the top of a pizza box from touching the pizza. The one nozzle looking piece I had tacked on initially, but chose not to use it. The rest of it was from spare sprues, a cardboard punchout for the hatch lid.

Being that the salsa containers are kind of thin and hollow, I can't squeeze it to hard. Though the paint and varnish might have added a tiny bit of strength













I'm not sure why I have been having the bug lately to build some modern terrain, other than seeing my buddy Chris and another fellow, Josh, in Chicago getting some of those cool buildings from 4Ground games done recently. Josh was one of the guys that setup The Walking Dead All Out War for me and Chris to play against a couple other fellas in Chicago a few months back. I know Chris bought a bunch of Walking Dead stuff, so maybe he's gearing up for that sometime in the future. I also just happened to see so many little things laying around that seemed to be useful to make stuff with, so that was part of the recent obsession. Free terrain pieces to bring to modern games to add to the table is fun. Just cost some time and a little bit of paint/basing material.

[keglo]

@Hahma

Very nice! You are coming up with some sweet terrain using items you would normally just throw in the trash. This is the sort of stuff that I love to see. What do you use for the gravel? Kitty litter?

I have had the desire to make more terrain lately too, but you have touched on one of my dilemmas. I don't know weather to stick with traditional dungeon themed stuff, like what I have already made, or go with jungle, western, sci-fi or modern. As a poor man, I need to pick a game and go all-in I think. But that is a tough decision with so many awesome miniatures games already out and more to come. Speaking of which, I guess that I can add one more category to my list above, and that is Star Wars terrain, as I freakin love the looks of Star Wars Legion, and I'm not even a huge SW freak. I mean, did you see that awesome board that they were playing on when Team Covenant was playing a demo at Gen Con? Too cool.

Decisions, decisions. By the time that I decide on a game my kids will be grown up and I won't have anyone to play with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9INF-tOEUA

[Hahma]

@keglo , thanks!

It's weird now that before throwing some plastic stuff away, I analyze it for potential terrain projects The problem becomes storage of the "trash to potential treasure" stuff. Small things are easy enough, but I have to draw the line sometimes, as my hobby stuff is already encroaching upon my gaming area.

With regards to the gravel, I haven't tried kitty litter. I'm not sure about its soaking up qualities and how it will glue down or hold paint. it may work great though. The product I used is Medium Basing Grit by Gale Force 9 (GF9). I bought it for use on miniatures bases, so that little container goes a long way....unless I keep using it for bigger terrain bases But I also got some fine grit that is a more sand consistency (sand would work too), and static grass by GF9. I have some basing material from Army Painter also, some brown grit a little finer than the gravel sized grit, and some tufts and little shrubs. Then a decent sized container of Woodland Scenics blended turf. I've collected it here and there over the past year, so it ends up being a decent collection and options.

The way I did the gravel, was to use Elmer's Wood Glue (could be any PVA glue, but this is what I had for use with wood too) and spread it to where I wanted the gravel to go. I put the base on a sheet of paper to catch extra grit, and I pour the grit on. I used the edge of a toothpick to kind of tamp it down a little and then let it dry for a couple hours. Then I tipped it over the paper and tapped the back of it to knock loose pieces off onto the paper. I have the paper already creased in the middle longways, so that it's easy to loosely fold and use to pour it back into the container of the material. Since this grit was a sandy tannish color, I sprayed the whole base with the grey primer I use. Then a little drybrush of a lighter grey and then another light drybrush of white. The brown dirt in the water tank piece, is the fine sand grit that I put on after all the gravel drybrushing was done. Then I thinned down some dark brown paint and painted it to look brown, then a little drybrushing of some lighter brown and tan. There are a couple larger pieces of grit in the dirt, but that's because I have a little jar that I poured some remnants of grit of a couple sizes into, and used that for this dirt. Then I spray varnished the whole thing a couple coats and from several angles.


As far as choosing a genre and going all in with it, it's tough for sure. I guess if you are limited in how much you can or want to spend on a game system, then find maybe a couple that you can do crossover terrain for. It also depends on what genre you and the people you game with are into, as that's ultimately the deciding factor . The only reason that I have gotten into so many is because of my buddy Chris that I met about a year or so ago when he joined my gaming group. He has a store's worth of board games, but is also into tabletop minis games, as he used to play Necromunda and War Machine when he was younger (he's still a youngin' at 36). He got into Guild Ball and Infinity, but then when I got Halo Ground Command, he got into that too, then we both got into Frostgrave at the same time. I eventually got Guild Ball stuff, and Infinity stuff because I knew someone that would play it. Some other guys in the group started getting into Guild Ball and have joined us in playing Frostgrave. So while I wasn't looking to get into all this stuff, knowing others into it has gotten me more into it. But I have pretty much stopped buying new board games for awhile, other than a couple things I had kickstarted a while ago. I have sold some board games that I don't play anymore and don't see myself playing, so that has helped fund this new hobby of mine.

Star Wars Legion does look cool for sure, and I have pre-ordered it. I'm not a total Star Wars nut like some of my friends, but I will play Star Wars games, I just don't geek out over it or know all the lore etc. I believe we have 4 of us so far that are buying into it. But yeah, that terrain piece at GenCon looked great! I have yet to attempt the insulation board use for terrain making. The 1 or 2 inch pieces that people cut and shape to make neat hills and such. One day perhaps, but then there's the issue of storing the bigger pieces.

If you can find a couple genres that you like, you can make some of the terrain multi-use so it can work for both genres. I have a resin hill piece from Battle In a Box that I am able to use for just about any outdoor setting. The painted Heroscape rock outcrops can be used for various things, as well as the Heroscape trees. The wood chips that I painted and added some mossy look to, can be used as scatter terrain for various things. These tanks I just did can be used for modern, post-apocalyptic, or even SciFi settings like Infinity or Star Wars Legion if the rest of that setup is perhaps on an outpost or frontier type planet.

To me, that's the best way to get the most bang for your buck.

[TREX]

The modern stuff looks good hahma. Keglo. Ive used kitty litter for terrain before but simple gravel does soak up less paint. I also plan on building a bunch of star wars terrain and post apoc stuff as well. Like hahma said. The sweet spot is terrain that is modular that you can use for multiple genres. Ill most likely buy star wars legion as well. The foamboard stuff is surprisingly easier than youd expect.

[Tornado]

Nice Hahma.

I just wish you had this type of enthusiasm for C3G terrain.

[keglo]

Originally Posted by TREX

The modern stuff looks good hahma. Keglo. Ive used kitty litter for terrain before but simple gravel does soak up less paint. I also plan on building a bunch of star wars terrain and post apoc stuff as well. Like hahma said. The sweet spot is terrain that is modular that you can use for multiple genres. Ill most likely buy star wars legion as well. The foamboard stuff is surprisingly easier than youd expect.

Yeah, that is why I was doing grey dungeon terrain. I figured that a dungeon is a dungeon and that I could use it in many different genres. Still, it's a bit boring, especially for something like Star Wars.

If anyone knows how to make something like those awesome redwood-like trees like the ones in the video that I linked above, please share

[TREX]

On youtube theres a guy that has tutorials for the giant trees for tabletop games. The dmcraft is his channel. Its dm scotty. Type in how to make trees in his channel. Very cheap. Very easy. Looks awesome.

[TREX]

https://youtu.be/bJ-ZvGMnTIM

Here you go @keglo
I use this guys tutorials all the time. Sometimes ill swap out some of the materials for different ones id rather use but use the same ideas.

[keglo]

Originally Posted by TREX

https://youtu.be/bJ-ZvGMnTIM
Here you go @keglo
I use this guys tutorials all the time. Sometimes ill swap out some of the materials for different ones id rather use but use the same ideas.

Awesome! Thank you TREX! Going to watch it now.

[keglo]

Does anyone know the official size of game board that Star Wars Legion will use? Is it 3×3, 4x4, or something else?