My cheap and lazy rivets Tutorial

So every scratch builder has their own way of doing things, and all work differently. My take on these is below, and my results are here and the easiest process to do them quickly too.

So I had a batch of stuff scratchbuilt and wanted the ability to make them have some texture, without always relying on material like PVA/greenstuff/Modelling clays etc to do so.

DIY Battlefield, third stages

I made a fair amount more progress on the Snow board One of the main things that I see whenever a Snow board is referenced is the disparity between blue and grey tinting to the snow.

Normally when you see these boards completed they always have a very grey tint to them, and that's not necessarily the look that I would expect to have for a field of snow.

See the picture, blue sky, dark shadows on the snow.

You'd expect blue with ice, not so much with snow.

I ran a couple of testers to see if I could identify which look I wanted most across the whole board. 

DIY Battlefields: Laminate flooring?

So I’ve been wanting a decent gaming table for some time so I’ve been through the wringer for what to really pick.

You have a number of options.

1. Battlemat + Table + Terrain
2. Custom tables with storage.
3. Single board battlefields
4. Multi-board

Tutorial; Cheap, easy snow for Warhammer bases Part 2

As the article about Snow seems to be extremely popular, I thought I’d make a follow up.

The prior article is here: a simple recipe for making snow bases for Warhammer. It’s a nice read, some good tips, and processes. It’s a tutorial. Obviously,

The snow mix that I swear by is simply Bicarbonate of Soda, PVA Glue, and Water. Nice and easy and cheap!

The tutorial covers how to mix and apply but it is brief in its description, it doesn’t address some the factors that I have finessed with this technique lately. So on to Part 2!

Make Heresy Era Space Marines from 40k ones on a budget: Part 1; Breaking apart.

Short attention spans can be a boon sometimes, this is my desk at the moment

That big blob of mostly Green are my Sons of Omega 40k force, currently and gradually being converted into a 30k Sons of Horus force. 

I loved these guys, seriously. Look at the beginning of this blog for proof. Lots of attention lavished and time spent. 

They did their job well. And then I read the Heresy rules. 

Bring me my scalpel!

Dark Mechanicus; getting a force going

(Of course my new army is corrupted in some way!) How would you theme them? Would you buy a chockload of Chaos parts, perhaps a Hellbrute or a Maulerfiend and start making the ‘shockroaches’? Would you mix pieces with the Necrons, with the Skaven? Green stuff the entire bunch so that they all are unique? Would you attempt to give them a unique feel that no one else had tried?

Especially when this lands on my desk as a present from my eldest brother.

Bloody hell Nick that’s generous! Now to make it fit. This thing has to be charging, it cannot be static.

(Slightly) Cheaper Zone Mortalis; Scatter Terrain

As well as all the Sons of Sek fun and games, I’ve been cracking on with some generic scatter terrain that will work for Mortalis, and potentially Infinity as well (although this stuff does look pretty gothic).

Some resources first, literally anything works for small terrain, if it looks interesting, grab it, keep it.

Ogryn Flagellants and the Spawn-o-Raptor

Everything in my house is being hacked and sawed to pieces at the moment. Loving the Razor saw (please ignore that last comment FBI scanner), but it doesn't bode well for my childhood.

In other news, Ebay has been its eternally-damned self to me, I won a still on sprue  box of Chaos spawn for £13 (RRP £25) and then lost a fully painted Forge world Imperial Guard Praetor Assault launcher for £46 (RRP £115) , I bid £45 and stopped! Woah woe woe.

(Slightly) Cheaper Zone Mortalis; Deck grating

I have been searching fairly high and low for this and finally I have found what this stuff is called in the UK. 

Plastic Canvas!

(Slightly) Cheaper Zone Mortalis, Part one.

Apologies for my absence. Mortal concerns and all that.

Mortalis is my luxury. Considering how much I scrimp and cost-cut through Ebay and budgeting and scratch building, it’s a welcome relief to just go ‘Yep’ That’ll do for something pretty and easy.

A single tile is £27, a set of four is £90. I could have bought another 5 or so tanks, or a Super heavy for the price of my 2 x 3 section that I'm starting with. There will be cost-saving, and this should give you an idea of where savings will be made. OPEN SPACE!

Before that though, I need some tiles, I don’t need to cover an entire floor with it yet so instead of asking family for vouchers for Games Workshop, I ask them for a Mortalis tile instead.

I think Mortalis sells the atmosphere of 40k much better than most home-made terrain can.

I touched Infinity and I loved it! Part 3; Playing your first game.

Yes its done. I have played my first game, and it was good. Great even.

So 6 months and 30 days after purchasing, I finally had my co-purchaser over to try out Operation Icestorm. Using our figures, and the included pack which starts you like a tutorial mission you would find in any PC game; simple mechanics, basic premise with more and more layers each time you finish a mission. For the moment, lets discuss this using the rules learned thus far. No delayed ARO’s etc.

3 grunts vs 3 grunts, kill the opposing team. Rifle and knife for each guy. No leaders.

Forgeworld Ogryn Charonites; interpretations

So this latest image from Forgeworld I'm going to say is an Horus Heresy Ogryn Charonite. 

So for anyone that doesn't know, the Horus Heresy; Conquest book basically has Marine-murdering Ogryn Servitors as an available Elites choice for the Solar Auxillia. 

They looked awesome, and as I needed a project for my fantasy Ogres that was multi-purpose (i.e. could be both an Ogryn for Astra Militarum, a Ogryn with dags for Traitor Guard, or a Charonite for Solar Auxilia) I started to convert some. Obviously they would be traitors, whether Guard, Mechanicus, or actually traitor so would be fairly gribbly.

And then this dropped into my inbox. Look at the scale of it! The studded steampunk armour format that is very much Solar Auxillia!

And that Fist. Mmmm.

I touched Infinity and I liked it! PT 2: Scenery/Crates

Time Owning Infinity set without having played Infinity Set: 16 weeks and 2 hours.

Blame the child people, blame the child. 

So with the release of Third edition for Infinity (no idea what the primary difference is) Corvus Belli released their rulebook online and free to download, my first reaction...

I need more low profile scenery! 

More terrain in an hour or less; Sewer entrances.

I mean another bit of terrain in a single... Not more terrain in the same singular period but more pieces in successive...You know what I mean.

Some usable pieces for a oh-so distant cityfight board I'll one day own. Sewers!

Less so the 'stewing with faeces' kind and more the 'why don't we pop up and gun you down' kind.

To start, some relatively easy to find objects.Coffee pods. 

Terrain in an hour or less

It can be done. Admittedly you'll need some fast drying glue, and some good weather. Here are four bunkers/storm shelters/domiciles completed in under an hour.

Buying terrain is great. But I can justify an hour of my time to save some money.

Warhammer and babies...

Since I've found out I'm going to be a father I've acknowledged that my painting, modelling and even storage habits will have to change. With that in mind, keen not to lose the focus that I've put into the last year and a half of gaming I've began to make stockpiles.

Seeing the handy comments on a Bell of Lost Souls article (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/06/happy-fathers-day-editorial-gaming-as.html) surrounding having a new baby take over your life completely, I decided to start making some sacrifices early, so as not to put too much strain on the relationship with the hot wife, but also my friends.

So see below the 10 changes that I've made to help me and my gaming addiction.