Quick 40k/Malifaux Terrain: The Next Step

If you haven't already had a read through my previous post about Quick 40k/Malifaux Terrain I suggest you do now. If you find that having read through said post you think the end product is a little boring, a bit bland, not a lot of character then this could be the post for you.

Taking the basic ideas and premise of the last post we're taking it a step further. The piece shown here I built for 40k some time ago (almost 8 years!) and it has proven it's worth more recently for Malifaux – if a little big and rather open.

To begin with, instead of using a triagular shaped base, we use a square/rectangle of hardboard on which to build our ruined warehouse/workshop/munitions factory. Taking the basic foamboard corner built in the previous post the process was modified by joining two together to create the entrance way and adjoining walls. A regular corner piece was used to represent the back corner of the building.

The main difference with this construction was the addition of thick card panels to the walls, inside and out, to give the building more support and more gravitas – a reinforced, armoured building of some importance. The card used was artists mounting board, again off-cuts and scrap – no need to spend money unnecessarily. A rough doorframe was constructed around the front of the building using the same material.

As before squares of paper or thin card were dotted around the interior to represent the workshop floor and chunks of torn polystyrene we shaped and glued to build up the volume of rubble inside. Small pieces of polystyrene, stones and then smaller grades of stones and sand were added around the entirity of the base, but not before characterful elements were added – the buried metal barrels, the vehicle wheel, scaffolding and other metallic structural elements.

As in our previous buildings, the whole thing was gien a liberal coat of masonary paint to blend all the elements together, avoiding anything not meant to be stonework or sometimes painting it anyway to add to the buried feeling.

Styrene roofing structure was added, melting the end with a lighter to imply the intense heat of the building destruction. On top of this off-cuts of corrugated craft card was added showing the remnance of the roof. I poked a hole in the 'roof' with a pencil to illustrate shrapnel damage.

At this point the building was painted using the grey tones of our previous buildings, the metallic elements were painted boltgun metal (as I recall) mixed with black, drybrushed with pure boltgun metal then inked to hell with raw black and chestnut inks.

And there you have it. Taking the simple idea illustrated in the previous post and taking it a step further to create a more characterful element for your battlefield. I admit this piece could also be considered generic maybe even a little bland but it shows that building like this are achieveable simply and for not much cost.

Where you go from here is up to you…

Quick 40k/Malifaux Terrain

The above ruined building is one of a handful made several years ago late one Friday night with leftover bits in order to flesh out the battlefield for an upcoming game of 40k. They've been very useful over the years and have made great generic ruins for several different gaming systems, more recently Malifaux.

I decided to make some more smaller buildings, again to flesh out the gaming board for upcoming games. This time I thought I'd make a few notes and pass on the info –

You are going to need offcuts of foamboard. A couple of larger bits for the walls would be nice but you can make do with whatever you can find and tailor your project accordingly. I used hardboard offcuts for the base rather than cardboard as it lasts a lot longer and doesn't warp as much.

First of all I cut the base into a triangular shape of appropriate size – this will depend on how big you want your terrain to be and/or how much foamboard you have. Once done I rounded and sloped the edges a little to soften the step.

Next I took my two largest pieces of foamboard, cut them vaguely to size, ensuring there were at least two straight edges on each piece – one to sit on the base, the other to line up with the opposite wall. On these pieces I drew out a grid with squares of an inch wide. This gave an inch gap between the base and the ground floor windows and an inch between the corner of the building and the first vertical row of windows. It also meant that all the windows were an inch apart two. Have a look at the photos to better understand what I'm trying to describe here.

Next I made a 45 degree cut along the edges that would meet at the corner of the building, so they would stick together seamlessly. If it doesn't match up exactly you can mask the gaps as damage.

I used a glue gun to stick the walls together and then to the base. Pieces of foamboard were cut into rough trangles to represent the remnants of the various floors within the building. These were stuck into place, approximately 10mm above the top of the window of the floor below. Once this basic shape was done I carved out the damage on the walls, sloping edges and making the walls ragged.

Next comes the decoration. First off I added a strip of decorative wood that I had, halfway between the ground and first floor windows. I cut out squares of paper and glued them across each floor area as floor tiles of some kind. Then I added offcuts of foamboard, stones and finally sand to represent rubble at various sizes. You could add leftover bits from plastic kits – marine helmets, ammo, guns, etc. – but I kept my buildings quite plain as they would be used in different game systems.

Once this was done and completely dry, the whole thing got a couple of liberal coats of masonry paint – if you don't have any around pour some emulsion into a paint tray and mix some sand into it. This helps protect any exposed foam, blend all the elements and just gives a good all round stoney feeling to the job. The buildings were sprayed black at this point, paying close attention to the shadowed areas under floors, etc. The majority of the building was overbrushed with shades of grey, getting lighter and lighter – preferably before the previous coat is dry, leaving plenty of shadows and only highlighting the very exposed areas.

And that was it!
The final result is quite generic and very robust. You can expand on this approach to make more interesting buildings such as warehouses – I'm in that process and will report in due course.

You may want to check the height of your models in situ before doing any sticking as the height I've used isn't sympathetic with taller models, just adjust your grid accordingly.

Quick 40k/Malifaux Terrain: The Next Step

Inspiring Podcasts: Gamers Lounge

I thought it was about time to share some more sources of my gaming inspiration after the last couple of posts about inspiring terrain links and inspiring terrain techniques.

Podcasts are a relatively new phenomenon in the gaming arena (for me at least). I don't have much time to listen so have to choose my sources carefully. After skimming through several I discovered The Gamers Lounge and my gaming life was changed.

The Gamers Lounge podcast is hosted by Bill (from Dead Tau Project) and Jay (from Blood & Blades). Both guys are very knowledgeable about the hobby in general and have very contrasting opinions and characters which makes the cast very entertaining as well as informative.

The thing that drew me in was the fact that they were, at the time, the only podcast with significant Malifaux content. Some very useful discussions with key Wyrd staff and community individuals makes for addictive listening and has contributed heavily to my own gaming experiences.

I've joined the list of listeners quite late on, episode 30 was probably my first experience, and I have had great fun going through the back catalogue of episodes. The earlier casts were very much 40k and Fantasy orientated and the focus has ebbed and flowed through Warmachine/Hordes and FoW to become very Malifaux-centric recently as Bill's passion has been very much centred around Wyd's flagship game. Members of their local gaming group make guest appearances periodically to share experiences and insights. The banter and camaraderie generated makes you feel a part of the crew and feel as if you know these guys – a great feeling to have for a podcast listener.

The Gamers Lounge can be listened to directly from the website, downloaded from the site or found on iTunes – which I personally find the most appealing as I just load up my iPod and listen back to back at work. The website gives a full breakdown of each episode so you can cherry pick the bits you're interested in.

So, I just wanted to publicly thank the guys for their contributions and strongly recommend you take a listen.