Sunday, March 14, 2010

Terrain - Gettin' a Little Crazy

So, I covered some of the bits and pieces I used for sci-fi gaming and certainly Rogue Trader. However, for this game, I decided to take the plunge. I got really serious and crazy...and bought the Imperial City terrain set put out by Games Workshop. So far, I'm very pleased with my purchase. It is very pricey in that this boxed set of terrain costs $90, but if you factor in that the set can build about 4 buildings; then each building weighs in at about $25, which is a fair price for me. If you're at all curious about these buildings, you can buy them separately for about $25 a pop.
The first building I started out with was the Basilica, which is by far the most complex of the buildings. The pieces were on top when I opened the box, so what are you going to do?
Each of the buildings are made up of square tiles like the ones featured here.
As you can see from the picture above, after you pop the tiles out of their plastic skeleton sheets, you'll need to use an exacto knife to smooth out the tiles. But it doesn't take long. Once the tiles are prepped and ready, they are easy to glue together. Just put the tiles together and stick 'em with your favorite glue. The titles are modular, so you can follow the designs featured in the box or you can literally make up your own buildings and towers according to your taste. If you pursue the latter, however, I recommend drawing up a plan of your building first. When you are putting the pieces together, it's easy to lose track of what you were going to put where.
One massive help to me was the use of accelerator, which I has never used before. It's featured here on the far right.
Guys, I can't tell you how much a difference accelerator has made for me. It has completely transformed how I put miniatures together. It's literally been an night-and-day difference for me. Here's an example -
These overhangs, which are glued to the wall of the basilica would have been a real headache for me normally. Glue, hold in place, hold in place, wait, hold in place. With the accelerator, I could literally glue, place, spray, and walk away. Totally awesome.
After applying my hobby super-glue, I just sprayed each piece one time with the accelerator, and the glue hardened instantly. It made making the terrain pieces happen much faster. I was able to finish the basilica in the span of about 2 days, only casually working, where normally it might be something that I work on all week.
Here's a look at the basilica, just before I added all the fun bits on it. The final constructed basilica I'll post later.

5 comments:

  1. Lookin' good my man! When you're down here next weekend, you'll have to check out all of our 40k buildings, we can pretty much fill up the table now. You want to think about using the red-tube Testor's plastic glue as well (the glue-sniffer's glue), it may work even better for you than the accelerator. These buildings paint up fast too, can't wait to see more progress on them. Are you going to put them on bases?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never thought about the bases. If I did put them on a base, I'd want something fairly generic, so I can use the buildings for a fantasy setting as well.

    As far as the accelerator goes, I will never, ever go back. What is great about the accelerator is that it dries fast when you want it to. If I'm fiddling with something and I -don't- want it to necessarily dry fast right then and there, it's okay. Only when I get it where I want it do I need to use the accelerator. Another good thing - a number of times, right when I've sprayed a piece, it was a little crooked. I quickly just nudged the piece into place a

    ReplyDelete
  3. Any recommendations on what to use for bases and how to do it?

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://miksminis.blogspot.com/search/label/terrain

    What Andy and I use are pieces of MDF board that's been but down to rough squares or rectangles depending on the size of shape of the building's footprint.

    Chrispy has taken plain foamboard, cut it to be just barely larger than the building footprint, then beveled the edge with a sharp x-acto. He then puttied the edges and applied some sand/white glue for basing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just took a look at your tower post. I'm assuming you based the tower with the kitty litter first, then spray painted everything black?

    ReplyDelete