Making Warhammer Trees

I wanted to make a forest. I started by twisting together 1.25mm copper wire (Maplins: ~£8), and a much thinner iron wire (Independent Craft Shop: ~£1)

I cut off a few lengths about 15cm and twisted them together using two pair of pliers (I have delicate hands). I then twisted in the iron wire to form smaller branches

Once complete, I covered the tree skeleton with a combination of watered down pva and toilet paper. I used Milliput for the roots as it was heavier than the paper maché. I also embedded a neodymium magnet into the roots. 

 Sprayed Black and drybrushed Scorched Brown

On one of my modular gaming board pieces, I glued a piece of Magnetic Vinyl (Signmakers stock this~£4psqm).

I got some green Finland Moss (Independent Craft shop: £1.10) , stuck it to the branches with a hot glue gun (Wilkinsons £6). I added some more paper maché to the board to try hide the vinyl. I kndda messed this up and wish i'd used putty. c'est la vie. I sprayed the board with my textured spray paint, added some statick grass and some of the black bits from the moss.

Textured Paint Test & Rubber feet arrived

I bought a can of "deep forest" green textured spray paint as I thought it would be great as a surface for the battlefield. I tested it out on a couple of boards and it looks great - albeit a little dark, but I can easily dry brush a lighter colour over the top. I just really need to research aerial view fields for inspiration for the finer details. I'll need a few more cans to do everything as I used a whole can on 3 boards! It was quite windy though, so I'll wait for a much milder day next time!

The other great thing is that my rubber feet have arrived and so I've tested them out on my polished wood floor. They work great! I'm so pleased with my choice here - it was definitely a good decision. Although they don't stick the board's in place, they grip really well. It takes a fair bit of pressure to push just one board, and my thinking is that with boards 4-5 boards deep I'll have the table virtually knock proof.

A concern I had was with stacking the board's - but actually it doesn't make a great deal of difference to the height but in return I benefit from the same grip that I get while on the floor!

Modular Hills

I've had the dreaded lurgey so progress has been slower than I'd have liked, but today I've managed to cut my hills!

I've still yet to decide whether I need another layer. It's important that these hills provide a strategic element to the game, but also allow miniatures to stand on the damn hill (we all know the problem of balancing units on terrain).

Albino Lizardmen

Decided that I wanted to paint albino lizardmen. Partly because it's cool and unusual (everyone else has green or blue [mainly]), and partly because I'm lazy and it's a fast way of painting them. I'm not really prepared to spend hours on models that I may replace with the newer models.

Painted mainly with flesh wash (or whatever they are calling it now) and blazing orange. The paint job is poor but they will look great in a unit on the tabletop.

Brainwave

I just had a bit of a brainwave. On things like coasters and toughened glass cutting boards they have little rubber feet to help prevent sliding. If I attach 4 of these - one to each corner - they will help prevent the board's moving around and save on the cost of magnets. It might even make them more stackable. The more I think about this idea, the more I like it.
I need to save money where I can anyway, as I need to purchase a hand sander to help me with the rivers

New Lizardmen Army

I decided to start a new lizardmen army. I've wanted to for a while but I've never wanted to make the financial commitment of starting a new army.

The more I read about the lizardmen the more I fell in love with them. So today I've placed an order for my first miniature - a skink priest. God knows why my local GW holds so little stock but I digress.

Luckily for me, he is all I need for a 500 point army... oh and I have a load of stuff from 5th edition.

I can deal with the old saurus and salamander models, but the skinks are upsetting me. Skink no longer use short bows, but instead they use blowpipes. Why did they have to change this? The effects are the same!

Well I'm going to have to convert them to be holding blowpipes. There are no two ways about it

Modular gaming scenery

Regular green painted gaming boards that are decorated with out of place hills and rivers tiled awkwardly over the landscape have never sat well with me. Neither has the idea of having a fixed and unchangeable scenic board. The last thing I want to do is hand over £175 worth of my hard to come by cash to games workshop (I'm not suggesting that they are not deserving of my money, but it's rather a sizeable sum to be giving to anyone for a gaming board).

Begin project "Warhammer modular gaming board".

A big sheet of MDF gets you change from a £20 at b&q, and the best part is that they will cut it up for you!
This weekend I shall be making a trip to pick up a sheet and have it cut into 12"x12" blocks. This will be more than enough for my gaming board needs.

I decided to start with a 4'x5' map and designed the tiles on paper.

As you can see there are plenty options for layouts.

My main concern is that the tiles get knocked and the scenery scattered.
Magnets. I LOVE magnets. Rare earth magnets are my most favorite toy in the world. I plan to embed 6mm x 3mm ones
 into the edges of the boards - 8 per board - alternating the polarity so the boards can be rotated 360 degrees and will snap together.


I'm going to need 200 magnets all together but that will set me back about the same cost as the MDF, so I'm going to consider some alternatives...