Scenery Update

I have had a productive few months indeed! A very 'old' friend of mine has arrived back from the UK, known only as the mysterious docwholigan. He is equally as (if not more, having worked for GW) obsessed with this hobby, and we have found mutual support in making time for some projects. Early discussions are even in place for one of those 'cast-pods' that are all the rage these days.

We picked up some Flames of War armies (British 8th Army versus Deutsche Arfika Korps), and should hopefully have them finished in the next few weeks. We have also been working on our respective RPG games (WFRP and Dark Heresy) which are also trucking along nicely.

In the meantime, our Monday paint nights have been the perfect vehicle for me to tackle my growing scenery collection. I am a great lover of the tabletop scenery that GW produces. My Realm of Battle board is due to arrive in just over a month, so I wanted to get as ready as possible!


Dreadstone Blight

This took ages! I am actually kind of

scared of buying Witchfate Tor now...

I was originally going to paint the tiles on the magic circle all one colour, but eventually gave in to peer pressure and bought all the missing colours to do it right. I am glad I did, because it is a nice focal point on the table.

I was also able to have a go at painting bones (all the skulls) in advance of starting my undead army. I really like how they turned out, more proof of concept for the vision I have for that army.













Temple of Skulls

Not 100% finished to be honest. After the Realm of Battle table is all painted and flocked I want to make sure all this terrain fits in with it. I will probably add the flock and more static grass to the earthy bits once I know how the table tiles turn out.

The major problem with this model (aside form the spikes, which just this morning drew blood) is the gaps where you glue the pillars and skulls together. I tried green-stuffing them up and filing it down, but it was a bit of a failure. Luckily I can pass off the effect for being 'chiseled rock'.











Warhammer Forge Town Well

A very cool model I was able to swipe a while back before they sold out. It is so characterful, and fits right in with the buildings I have.  I use it as the 'Wyrding Well' from the rulebook.

This was also the model where I learned to paint the wood effects, and where the benefits of painting all the parts before gluing them together became apparent!













Siege Tower

New siege rules in the Blood in the Badlands campaign book prompted me to invest a bit in getting the right models in place to give this a go. Since seeing the GW siege releases in the 90's, I have wanted to own these toys. Like the well, this benefited from being painted in parts first and then glued together.

The light in this picture makes the wood look whiter than it is, but at least you can see all the nails in the wood that were individually painted on! I plan on affixing various emblems and shields of the Empire onto this.

I really like how the drawbridge is actually attached to a working winch.














Warhammer Fortress

Instead of undercoating with Chaos Black, I used the Flames of War spray can German Armour, which is more of a dark grey. That meant I just needed to drybrush successively lighter shades of grey up from that. I am quite happy with the final effect.

 Now I just need to get some of the guys keen enough for some siege games! It's understandable that they would think twice before assaulting fortifications held by the famous Iron Companies of Nuln I guess.

As with the siege tower, I want to add Empire shields and icons to the fortress.

I also acquired the Siege Attackers and Siege Defenders kits from ebay. So future siege projects will be things like battering rams, ladders, stone droppers and boiling oil!









I have also been inspired by The Recidivist Gamer's Citadel Wood effort, and picked one up for myself the other week. My goal is to have three of four of them. Then it's on to my many fences and walls,and y various modular hills. Once my Realm of Battle is complete, it will be time to make a fancy-pants table for it to go on!