Tuesday 26 March 2013

Hobby update: WHFB terrain

Hi all,

Time for a hobby update. I've been a little bit unmotivated re: painting my armies. My Empire are "done" unless for some reason Griffons/luminarcks become the new broken. Woodies are "done" except for the big smashy unit of Treekin I keep thinking about but would never use, and my High Elves are "done" in that everything I use is painted and all new painting is just adding "more" (2nd unit of reavors, 3rd and 4th RBT, Seaguard, more spears/archers etc) and there whispers of a new book around the corner-so saving myself for that!

On the 40K front my orks are just coming along. Dakkajet done, 2nd boyz mob 95% done...but since I dont use them competitively I dont really have much of an urge to get them finished other than a sense of self satisfaction. Then again-looking at the new NZ 40K rankings...3 events...dont come last = possibly ork Icon holder????? tempting.

So instead I have turned to terrain. Like all gamers I prefer to play on tables with cool terrain. I feel it adds to the experience and if I wanted "counts as" stuff I would play computer games. GW have it right (occasionally) in that games are kinda story telling ("and then the dryads d*ck moved and conga-lined in the forest") and a well terrained table is part of that.

Looking over my reports you will notice that most of the non event games suspiciously have the same terrain set. This is my patented "terrain in a bag" set that I carry whenever I go gaming. 2 Hills, building, 2 fences, GW arcane ruins, 3 forests and a swamp. If I'm playing at home I currently add in the Temple of Skulls.

I now introduce 2 new terrain pieces to make my reports a little different to look at, and my tables more fun:

Dreadstone Blight:




And the Wyrding Well part of the Deathknell Watch:




I have the rest of the tower ready to paint up, but it suffers from my one main complaint about GW terrain-it doesn't glue together very well. I've just purchased some Araldite glue so I can get it to stick together (used it to get the top level of the dreadstone to stay up!)

My other complaint about GW terrain is the number of skullz on everything...but only because the Internetz says I have to complain about this. Secretly it doesnt bother me, but admitting that is almost like admitting you are a fan of the Black Caps (good foundation for a successful couple of years. Vetorri who? forget about Ryder and get Guptill back in but down the order until he remembers how to bat for time!)

I've based the terrain because I like how it a) makes the terrain look better, b) gives a clear defined boundary of where it is (sometimes a slightly bigger footprint makes things easier and interrupts movement in a good way) c) gets me more used to it so I am more tournament ready (local events have 99% of all buildings like this. That is not a big reason, but it helps things be consistant. Case in point: tournaments that use pretend TLOS (oh...these tiny hills...yeah they block LOS...right...) screw me up. At masters I played a game where some of the difficult terrain (how I normally play it) was agreed to be impassible...screwed me up completely as I kept seeing it as terrain I could move through. Oh well.

Next terrain on the go: some 40k area terrain barrels, tank trap line and finishing the tower part of the wyrding well + if I can somehow get it past the other half without her noticing (oh these? nar they aren't new I had them for ages...just never got around to assembling them...) I want to get the Skullvane Manse and the Witchfate Tor.


3 comments:

  1. Hey Joel,
    the dreadstone looks great. It will give your opponents something to hide their terrorgheist behind. Reminds me that I have been talking about terrain as well. Talking is all, I better deliver....


    W

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  2. G'day Joel,

    If all your armies are done, time to take up Dwarves. You know you want to, you're halfway there with a beard already..... [insert smartarse smiley here]

    The terrain looks good, especially the Wyrding Well.

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