The day before Games Day: The Tale of the Tables for Heroes of Armageddon!

Phew! I survived yet another Games Day!
But before I start showing you shiny pictures of the event itself let me start with the day before Games Day in which yours truly overslept, the FOUR 3'x4' Heroes of Armageddon tables were finished and then transported to the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL, the Heroes of Armageddon crew finally met in person and the miniatures finally got to see their enemies..

Building the Killzone "Booster Pack" Tables: Part II.5

Today was a very long day which was mostly spent driving from Games Plus to Hobby Lobby for useful materials for our "Booster Pack" tables. I had ran out of most of my balsa and basswood sticks and needed a fresh supply for the rest of my trenches, so I got a handful - probably more than I'll need? Then, at Games Plus I stumbled upon a product that I had been ogling online just a couple of hours before we left on our shopping spree. I didn't have to pay for shipping. Score! What was the item, you might ask?

Masterclass Scenics: Mud & Water Bundle - $20.00
from Secret Weapon Miniatures

Come on! With all of the trenches, piles of mud and mine fields I've got going on I just couldn't say no to a kit that makes such cool-lookin' mud AND has a bunch of "water effect" that does not suck. There's a brilliant tutorial on the website to boot.. I'm pretty excited, actually. I just can't wait to be able to throw some mud on my 2'x2', you know?

This is not the first time I've invested in SWM. If you remember, I bought a Rahael 8404 Kolinsky Red Sable brush which I have been using non-stop and have been loving every single.... er.... stroke (Shame on you!!!) with it?


Also purchased a cheap-O set of small resin barrels and crates, because why the heck not? Other than that, I managed to mix more spackling and planks on the side of the smaller and bigger trench and started a small wooden bridge! Joe also worked on his bridge and bought a few things for his tables as well. Nothing too crazy or deserving fancy pictures yet, I'm afraid.

However, we're are already discussing the crazy shenanigans we'll be attempting at Adepticon 2012, and boy is it going to be phatasmagorian! Let's just say that it is time for the orkz to be more kunnin' than brutal.

Building the Killzone "Booster Pack" Tables: Part II

It's always like a holiday when "Frozencore" Joe stops by for some good ole hobby-time. Even on Memorial Day. That's like a double rain--- holiday, all across the sky. I know I promised you an update on Sunday, but with work being annoying and what not we had to postpone everything. But, no worries - we did meet up and a lot of progress was made.

The materials:
Ork Barricades - Resin. You get 6 different barricades for $22. Amazing, considering some of the bits you would need to duplicate them. One of the barricades is a wrecked Ork buggy!
Dap Drydex Spackling - A pink spackling that turns white when completely dry. Used for the "muddy" surface beneath the wooden boards and planks in the trenches and to raise areas.
Balsa and basswood sticks - Various lengths and widths for the ramshackle look of the trench boards used for support.
Gorilla Wood Glue - for gluing. Duh!
Master-crafted Digital Weapons -That would be yer hands!

Building the Killzone "Booster Pack" Tables: Part I

Yesterday "Frozencore" Joe and I met again, this time to start the 2'x2' modular sections for the Killzone table we're going to be making. We decided to lay down the basics - draw some pictures, outline where stuff was going to be located on each 2'x2' segment, try and loot some terrain, etc.

The materials:
3/4'' plywood we got from Home Depot. Thick, sturdy, no chance to bend and a great support for the..
3/4'' pink foam. Also from Home Depot. Both items were cut for us pretty precisely, giving us a bunch of 2'x2' squares. 
Caulk gun and glue to glue plywood and pink foam together. The bond was pretty rock-solid.
Gorilla Wood Glue donated to us by Brian from A Gentleman's Ones. Used for gluing various pink foam pieces, foam core and eventually sealing the pink foam for sturdiness.
White foam core which Joe is primarily using to create the various buildings for his Imperial city board.

What? Green Vostroyans? Soon ALL will be revealed..

The boards:
"Frozencore" Joe: An Imperial fortified city with a lot of vertical action going on. We're talking about ramps and bridges connecting buildings at various heights, bridges over a river and various ways to go up and down the whole thing. Definitely a complicated and terrain-heavy 2'x2' for Joe's Deathwatch Killzone Team, but in the end we all know that it is going to look awesome. He went crazy with his measurements, making sure everything was going to fit and had a pretty detailed picture of his idea.

The wooden part will be a river and from the raised part - a bridge.

This tree? An aquarium decoration. Of awesomeness.

Skarvald the Troll-faced: I was going to go for a jungle/swamp Kroot Mercenaries camp of some sort, but after thinking about it I decided to use my Kommando Ork-themed list. I never managed to write a good enough list using the Tau Codex. Lots of things I liked, others - not so much and for me every attempt to create a Killzone team was a painful process.


Besides, I spent a lot of time browsing for some big trees, simply because I wanted to have a bunch of them, connected with bridges and catwalks all over the place to achieve that "vertical effect", but lack of models and high prices eventually persuaded me to think of something else.

Thus, the Kommando Mercenary Headquarters idea was born. I'm going to keep the jungle/swamp idea, and found something to use as the big tree. There will be trenches, a lot of camouflage, tall grass, a mine field, razor wire, a watch tower, a Deff kopta landing pad, etc. The tree thing you see on the picture above will be covered with ork... stuff. Platforms, ladders, catwalks.  
I like this terrain piece more and more and every time I look at it I get crazier orky ideas. It looks pretty realistic but then it is not. You know what I mean? Next step is getting some spackle and putting it on the sides of the trenches, before I put wooden planks.

One of the terrain pieces that I will be making is a crashed Deff Kopta and a separate terrain piece will be a tree with the Deff Kopta's dead pilot, stuck in its branches with his parachute. With a raven on its shoulder. Yeah-yeah.

Come back next Sunday for more development on the "Booster Pack" Tables. PART II!

Starting your Killzone: "Booster Pack" Terrain Tables

We live in interesting times, Wolf Brothers! We were made to battle in the name of the Emperor, to lead his armies and rip out the throats of the enemies of the Imperium of Man, but in this new Age of Strife our purpose in life is being taken from us! And by whom? Not xenos, not heretics, nor treacherous Chaos-worshippers. No.. Our one and only reason to exist is being taken from us by scriveners and accountants, by lords who have never seen a day of battle, have never held a dying brother in their blood-soaked hands... Our Crusades used to be fueled by glory, honor and pride - NOT MONEY! The assaults and sieges we carried out on so many planets under the blazing heat and light of a thousands suns and countless stars were done because it was our right to do so, not because they were potentially profitable. Dark times await us and Chaos beckons..    
- Skarvald the Troll-faced

So much for my commentary on the price-hike, the new resin/resin-plastic models and the new embargo policy of Games Workshop. Kirby has a great open letter to GW about it which has been floating around various blogs and forums for a while now. I agree with it, but what can I do? Words won't win against Capitalism, so the best thing to do is to figure out a way to still enjoy the hobby while eliminating the factors that undermine my budget. I love this hobby, I love the models, I lost most of the rules and I love my local Games Workshop store, but unfortunately it seems that none of them love me enough to grant me free miniatures on a regular basis.

Enter Special Operations Killzone...