Wednesday 20 September 2017

Jungle terrain


Some years ago I decided to create some scenery for 40k, we are talking 3rd-4th edition.
At the time the rules on LOS were more liberally understood the area of terrain was considered to be the jungle edge and you could only see 2" in, anything beyond that or behind the scenery base was out of LOS. Later versions of 40k played if you could see it you could shoot it. Scenery therefore had to be more substantial if you wanted it to block LOS.

After a hiatus in gaming of two years I came back to my scenery and found it has been mouse chewed and soiled. (it had been stored in an outdoor shed) apparently there was no room in the house.

The original layout had been three pieces of terrain that worked individually or could be grouped to make one large piece. I'd done this by cutting the bases out of a single piece of 6mm mdf using a jigsaw.

No the picture isn't washed out, but the flock had come off  and it looked tired. In addition I had learnt new skills. So it was time for a full refurbishment.

When I first created them the supply of scenery items was from a florist supplier, this warehouse had occasional sales and I accessed my materials there.

I've since discovered plastic aquarium plants, although one of their biggest faults is a lack of height, However I worked out a way to get height, I also used plastic xmas tree branches.

Using a painting brush I removed the dust and debris, cleaned it up best I could. I then applied PVA where I wanted rough stone areas and then sprayed black undercoat over the entire model to sterilize it. Dry brushed the stones with two shades of grey in two stages, then applied PVA and flocked those 'grass' areas I wanted.

The aquatic plants usually come attached to a mat, a ball or individually based on 'stones'. I avoid the individual pieces as they are more expensive. If you look closely you can see the plastic is assembled using small spikes onto which the individual elements are pushed, I gently pull these apart with the intent to reassemble the elements onto a kebab stick or dowel.

First I drill a hole into the base where I want the 'tree/bush' cut a length of kebab stick and glue it in the hole if you get the drill size right it's a tight fit, a quick wash of brown for the dowel and then I push on the plant material, adding further pieces separating them as I see fit to produce my tree.










By using different plants you can produce quite a variety.

In some instance the dowel mab no more than 10mm high in others 60 mm.

Sometimes the elements break off or like the xmas tree elements have no hole to thread so I drill holes to size and glue in with PVA or 'No Nails'.

The stone slabs in the picture are simple squares cut from a cereal box.




If you do enough you can create quite an interestingly terrained tabletop. Of course it's up to you to decide if LOS is stopped by terrain pieces or not, but with enough as shown below, you can use actual LOS











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