Horsa Glider WIP For Pegasus Bridge Game

This is terrain. Hugely annoying terrain to build. I think game day payoff will make it worth while. The bridge is built, and is an impressive kit by itself. Cafe Gondree has been 3D printed. The British airborne just lack bases. I should probably finish this piece before moving on, but I think the buildings need to be painted next. That will provide a sort of rough in for the table.

Do I need to paint the remaining two gliders? From where I'm standing, one seems like more than enough. This mode kit is 40 plus years old. It did not benefit from computer aided design. That said, it is a fairly nice kit if you are into scale model building. (which you shouldn't be, because it is hell)

Back to the board. The actual table is going to require a lot of water effects. Clear resin smells. I dread that part, but weirdly look forward to it. I love the look of nicely done water. I figure a gallon of resin is enough.

So happy D-Day +2

Epic 30k Table

We got in a little learning game of epic 30k last week, and despite lots of rules questions, I am sold on the game. Epic 40k has an almost Bolt Action feel to it, which I really like. The ability for units to go on overwatch really changes how involving a game can be. Suddenly fire lanes matter, and properly positioning forces requires skill. Sure, it can be played fast and loose, without relying on supporting elements, but I suspect players who play that way will quickly grow frustrated at the lack of momentum they are able to maintain with their forces.

This is a good game.

Terrain-wise, I think thing the quality of the mechanics and miniatures is going to dictate that a new table be constructed. I might start with this existing table as a base, and just clear of the stinky resin pools. Alternately, this table could go to the table graveyard that is my storage unit, and wait for the day when we can have two or more epic tables in play at the same time.

Quick & Dirty Epic 30K Terrain

I have an epic 30k game coming up this Tuesday, so I figured I could use some family down time while everyone is out being cheerful, and upgrade my post apocalyptic city ruins. I've added several types of weathering powders, and static grass. Hopefully when this all dries it will look a little more consistent. The little buildings came out vastly darker than I expected, but I think it will work on the table.

I hope everyone is having a relaxing holiday.

Beginnings of an Epic 30k Table

With our first Net Epic Gold 30k game coming up, we needed a table. Instead of repurposing an existing table, I decided to make a whole set of terrain that we could futz with until we figured out how terrain works. I think this is an ok table, but not what I wanted. While the ruined church reads well, the rest of the city blocks look terrible to me. I may have to crush up the bases and glue them directly to the board before I move onto water effects for the holding ponds, and scatter debris. Anyone have suggestions for how to fix this terrain? I love building terrain, but on this table I'm struggling a bit. It might be the huge time constraints, but I think I just got over zealous with making portable city blocks. 

3D Printed Terrain Painted

I've been printing out loads of terrain on my 3D printer, but this is my first finished piece. This building represents a French town hall typically found in Normandy and will be used in our WW2 club games. I wasn't sure how well the print would take paint, so I painted this fast and loose using a giant brush and very little care. This was completed in about two hours. For a piece costing around fifty cents of material, I think it works pretty well. I did have to sand the raw print and fill in some holes using green stuff.

I guess the question now is whether this terrain is good enough for a board, or if I should go back to buying resin pieces? I like this more than MDF buildings, but maybe I should experiment with some kind of hybrid MDF+FFF.

3D Printed Terrain is Here

I've been experimenting with 3D printing for a couple of years now. I started using an XYZPrinting SLA printer, and after that failed decided to try one of the inexpensive filament printers. It turns out that two years make a huge difference in quality. Using a Prusa i3 clone, made by Wanhao(duplicator i3 plus), I've been able to print at lot of interesting terrain. I'm only printing at .2mm resolution here, which is half the vertical resolution possible, but that is just due to impatience on my part. My goal is to have a new model to paint every day. The prints do require finishing, but the bones are here for some really nice resin-ish quality terrain.

Since I'm currently printing in PLA, the only way to finish a model is to sand it. However, once this spool is done, I'm going to switch to ABS (lego plastic), which can be smoothed using acetone. With that with, the time between printing a model, and having it ready to paint will be nominal.

I'm still dialing in my printer, so the quality keeps improving. I've even printed out some printer parts to upgrade the printer itself!

Space Hulk Blood Splatter Technique

This is just a little video I show showing how I have been doing the blood and gore on the Space Hulk table.

Space Hulk WIP Blood

Space hulk is about horror, so as I started adding layers of weathering, I paused to add some blood. I think the carnage looks pretty cool. In my imagination, the guys boarding the hulk would be entering a crime scene of sorts.  I am so grateful all of the doors are done. Those were tedious.

Space Hulk WIP 3

The space hulk is getting close to completion, but even in this state there is a lot of work to do. Many of the panels are not glued on yet, which will take quite a while due to the vast quantity of them. The doors need to be completed, and all of the grey exterior panels need to be filled and painted. Fortunately that is the easy stuff. Rather than make this easy on myself, I ordered another batch of this stuff before I had completed the first batch. I'd really like to paint a miniature at this point, but I must keep plugging away.