Cheap and easy rubble terrain

 

Easy and cheap rubble

I had some MDF bases floating around and some unused sponge and so I decided to give a go at making rubble terrain pieces for use on the tabletop for both wargaming and role-playing games. The first of the finished pieces can be seen above and below.

The process was very simple. So simple, in fact, that a numpty like me was able to do it. I cut the foam into blocks to represent worked stone blocks. Then I added to that some small river stones I had floating around somewhere. You could use thick cardboard for the base but make sure it won't warp first. MDF is better in my opinion. I then smothered the stones and foam in White/PVA glue.

After a few minutes, I then added river sand across the base to add to the rubble effect.

Below, the foam blocks were arranged to make the base of a ruined tower. In this manner, you could make a larger structure stone by stone. However, I wanted this to block partial line of sight whilst permitting ranged attacks over the ruined wall, so I kept it to a low profile.

Below is a fake stone that I bought from a $2 Dollar store. The stone has a hole in the base so you can hide a spare key in it. I wanted it for a large boulder. Once again, the river stones add to the rubble effect, and I'll add sand later to the base.

I mixed some White/PVA glue with water and brushed it over the foam in order to harden it. This took about 24hrs to dry. I did this a few times to get all the foam blocks hardened.

Painting the finished result was simple. A basecoat of black spray followed by a grey spray lightly over that black undercoat whilst it was still wet to blend the colours. I then followed this up with a drybrush of lighter grey and added some straw from an old doormat to make it look like some grass had grown between the rubble then died.

And there you have it. Cheap, easy, simple.

Easy Vegetation Terrain for wargaming

 

I'm sure others have discussed this before. But I wanted to highlight a really simple way of making thick vegetation terrain for your tabletop. I'm going to use these for our current Pirate Borg roleplaying campaign.

The church is from Sarissa Precision and is a 28mm scale Mediterranean Church

Aquarium and table setting plants pulled apart and ready for use

I started with finding a suitable sized base and, using PVA glue, sanded it. Once dry, I undercoated it in a light brown spray.

I then took cheap aquarium plastic plants and plastic table setting plants and pulled them apart. I then hot glued a random assortment of plant types and colours onto the base. Being hot glue, I had to hold each plant in place as I waited for the glue to dry. I also pulled off the strings of dried glue as I went.

I then used PVA glue to add small gravel stones to the base. Once those were dry, I then added some small grass flock around the base to hide some of the more obvious areas of the dried hot glue.

Just added the grass flock to the base of this one

So pretty cheap and pretty versatile. You can make whatever you want from such plants. You could even use the tiny fern like plants, which come from an aquarium plastic plant, to make corral polyps for underwater terrain.

So, there you go. I'm not the first to come up with this idea. But hope this gives you some inspiration for making cheap vegetation for your own tabletop.

Flak Tower for Gruntz 15mm

 

I wanted a strong point for my Gruntz 15mm games and Dark Castle Terrain has an excellent MDF Flack Tower just right for 15mm. They also produce a larger version suitable for 28mm as well. But you can find the 15mm version here. Just look at their 28mm list of MDF for their larger version.

The 15mm version also works as a smaller outpost for 28mm to 32mm scale. Here you can see a Fallout Wasteland Warfare miniature along with a Khurasan miniatures 15mm scale model. The 15mm model can just look over the crenelation and the 32mm model is covered to its waist.

I added some sandbags to the flack gun positions in order to provide more of a defensive feel to the model and to permit a 15mm model to stand there (this 15mm model is mounted on a 20mm round base)

I also wanted a weatherworn look to the tower and so used Citadel Agrax Earthshade on the MDF.

This model also ended up having one of the inner support strut pieces missing. But the model came together well despite the missing inner strut. I used this to my advantage by adding some thick cardboard to make a door to the model, which otherwise doesn't have an entrance portal. You can just see the door on the left of the model in the photo above.

The stencilled numbers were badly painted on by hand brushing over the stencil. I should have broken out my air brush instead but didn't have the patience for it. However, I didn't think it would matter to much once the model was washed. It turned out well enough for my liking.

I still need to think about how I want to base the model. As such, I haven't washed the full base yet. I may just leave it as is without basing and then finish off the base with the wash. But I want to see what type of walls I can find to complement to tower first.

Anyway, there is plenty of room for 15mm models to hide at the top of the tower and this could probably hold around 12x 28mm models mounted on 25mm round bases as well.

It was a nice MDF kit and easy to put together. There aren't any instructions that come with it. But if you pull all the pieces out and dry fit them first, you can quickly work out how it is constructed.

So given that a certain company's version of strongholds costs a small mortgage and only comes in one size. This option I cannot highly recommend enough. Many of my MDF models you see in this blog have come from Dark Castle Terrain. So highly recommend them.

TRE Games Relaxing Dead Casualty Markers

 The Relaxing Dead

These charming fellows are from TRE Games and are The Relaxing Dead Casualty Markers.

I wanted some interesting casualty markers for Mars Attacks and Fallout tabletop games and my Fallout roleplaying group. The kind of markers that show that someone was ashed by a critical laser beam shot and these MDF markers were just the thing.

They are 28mm scale and a little on the fragile side. So be careful when you push them out of their frames. I had to glue some severed limbs back to bodies on a couple of these, as you can see from the photos below. But they are holding together well despite their little mishap.

I added dabs of PVA glue (White glue) and sand to a number of these markers to give a more 3-dimensional shape to the flat MDF cutouts. This then became the focus for making it look like glowing ash and charred remains.

One flash, and your ash!

The paint job was basic and so it's nothing to write home about. Just black primer spray and the sand painted a few shades of red to orange, and then a drybrush of grey over the whole model. They are casualty markers. No need to bust a gut doing an amazing paint job. Just get them on the table.

Spoils of MOAB 2024

 

Gale Force 9 Gothic Sector Orbital Relay.

Some of the spoils I purchased at MOAB last weekend were for my Gruntz 15mm games. I purchased them with only the box size and art to go by. But I took the conservative punt that they would be usable at the 15mm scale despite the fact that one item was aimed at the 28mm scale and the other at the Battletech (epic) scale.

The Orbital Relay is a 28mm scale piece of terrain. However, it does work with the 15mm scale as well. As can be seen below. For comparison, the Stalker with the AK is a 28mm miniature I use for Zona Alfa. The smaller figure of the two is a Khurasan 15mm Felid Alien Warrior.

I didn't unwrap the additional parts that go onto the building. But these come with magnets for easy connection and disassembly for storage. Without the additions fitted, the Orbital Relay does look like a futuristic Conning Tower on a submarine.

Gale Force 9 Hextech Power Station Battlefield in a Box.

Hextech is designed with Battletech in mind and makes some very nice scenery. The good news is that you don't have to apply the hex base to the terrain piece if you don't want to. So, this scale can fit nicely with some other scales. Above is the power station from Hextech that I purchased with a view to use it as a power generator at 15mm scale. These generator's tunnels representing power conduits at 15mm rather than elevated walkways at Battletech scale.

I believe that my bet has paid off. These nice terrain pieces would be able to be used as terrain at 15mm scale and I will likely get some more similar terrain in future.

Empress Miniatures BTR-70 for Zona Alfa

 

This is the Empress Miniatures 28mm BTR70 (available here). These appear in every S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game. Given that Zona Alfa takes its inspiration from that franchise (as well as other near post-apocalyptic style settings like METRO 2035 and the METRO games), I had to have at least one as a cool bit of terrain for my Zona Alfa games. So here she is finally painted up and on the table.

Part of an abandoned military convoy.

As you can see above, the turret comes unattached and so can be swivelled as you like. There are also two headlamps and a searchlight to go on the vehicle as well as two guns. I chose to go with just the one gun and not put the searchlight on the very top of the vehicle for ease of storage.

The paint job was simple. I just spray painted the entire model in grey and then applied two different green spray shades over the top of the vehicle and the sides. The wheels were sprayed in grey also and then I lightly sprayed them with an olive-green spray paint to give a dirty look to them. I then washed the model in Agrax Earthshade. Done!

Zona Alfa table layout

 

The table set-up, looking northwards.

I've been reading my way through the excellent Zona Alfa ruleset. The game has been out for some years now, but as I am ever late to the tabletop party, better late than never, right. So, as I am with what spare time I can find right now, feverishly collecting and painting miniatures for the game I decided to show off the table setup for my first foray into the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe via the tabletop.

The south-western corner

The battle mat is from a gaming company in Armenia, if I remember correctly. Its 4x4ft and cost a small fortune to ship by UPS only to then get stung with an $80 GST fee to release it from customs. DAMN YOU online Goods & Services Tax!!!

The vehicles are all 1/43 scale diecast vehicles from ebay. The factory, industrial bins and power polls are from Dark Castle Terrain. The junk tower was my own creation. So too are the rock hole breach and the crater filled with toxic barrels that will be locations for Anomalies.

The south-eastern corner

The north-eastern corner

Eastern edge looking westwards

The two crystal rock formations are just $2 Store cheapo coloured rocks from a craft section formed into a ring. These will be additional anomaly locations.

It does need more trees I feel, so I am working on that now. The scenario isn't chosen yet. But I always find that setting up an interesting table and then choosing a scenario seems to add more flavour.

I also have a 28mm scale BTR-70 coming from Empress Miniatures that I intend to add to the table also. I need enough cover so that a STALKER team can attempt to move up on the factory with decent enough cover to hide them. What's in the factory? Don't know yet.

Junk Fences update and a Junk Tower for Fallout

 

So, remember those Junk Fences I posted about previously (see here). I've added some extra little features such as some Army Painter Razor Wire and some fine size gardening mesh as well as those excellent cardboard coffee cup holders from my local bakery that I get each time I buy coffee (the one that looks like corrugated iron).

I used PVA glue for the mesh and corrugated iron. I hot glued the razor wire in place sandwiching it between some match sticks that I cut in half. All in all, it does the job nicely and wasn't too expensive. The Army Painter Razor Wire being the most expensive single item in the whole build. I spray painted it in a thin coat of brown which still lets the wood grain come through.

The gates are half sized bits of cut tongue depressor sticks with fine sized gardening mesh added. I thought about adding a few more items to the gate but haven't decided on anything as yet. I may add some tires or something else. But for now, this will do.

The Junk Towner is comprised of bits of balsawood from a craft pack I got from Bunnings. That pack came with a whole assortment of shapes, sizes and thickness of balsawood. It was what I used to make the main house of the Wasteland Farm you can see here.

The height is set so that it stands at roughly three stories for 28mm scale and is open on one side. Ladders can be placed within for movement and there is a mid-story where I can place miniatures traversing the tower. The top of the tower permits a 28mm miniature to stand half exposed looking over the top of the tower.

And that's another project done!