More Terrain

I didn't go to Salute unlike a lot of people.  I last attended the rather washed out 2021 running a particiaption game and couldn't raise the enthusiasm to go this year.  There isn't much I wanted to buy and it is impossible to talk to traders at Salute which is the main reason I go to shows nowadays - to catch up with friends in the industry.

 Currently on a terrain painting kick and haven't managed to get any figures finished for a week or so.

I bought some XPS foam tiles from Firedragon Games which are pressed with a flagstone pattern.  Good service and tiles are £2 each and will save hours of etching foam with a biro!

The tiles are 11" across (285mm) so I am using that for my tile size with the intention of making 9 tiles initially and then expanding to 16 for a 4' x 4' (ish) table.

Here is a test painted tile:

Which has been washed with Supershader Black and then drybrushed in various greys up to an almost white.  Really brings out the tiles quite nicely.

Also shown are repurposed LOTR Balin's Tomb scenery as scatter terrain which have been drybrushed lighter and had snow painted around them.

So, 8 more tiles to paint and 9 to stick to lasercut MDF tiles, then I can layout some terrain and see how much more I need to do.

More Frostgrave Scenery

 I found this temple in a box while looking for some other things.  I made it over 20 years ago for a Dinosaur Hunting participation game in Darkest Africa run at Valhalla...

I've sprayed it and snowed it up a little to use in Frostgrave.

Test Snow

 

A quick test of drybrushing and snow effects on the ruins for Frostgrave.  Has come out okay, I think.

Frostgrave and Fantasy Skirmish

 I have always been interested in fantasy gaming having played a lot of RPG games in my teenage years and the desire to play Dungeon Crawling games has never really gone away.

I have tried a few different boardgames and have Heroquest whch is painted and I have nearly finished a 3d board for it, but it is a little too simple and nothing else has grabbed me.

I have collected a lot of Reaper Bones figures over the years from various Kickstarters and managed to paint very few of them.  I think part of the problem with deciding on a games system is that most systems are so open-ended that I don't really know where to start (or end) and I have never quite managed to get things together.

I was idly surfing the web when I came across some Frostgrave reports and scenery builds.  I was aware of the game and had not bought into it when it came out as it seemed a little too limted - being based around a single wizard and his party of an apprentice and 8 soldiers.

This time, however, I realised that this limited nature could be a good thing!  It gave me a basic framework of a very small number of figures to start gaming with and Frostgrave now has supplements that cover dungeon crawling and solo gaming.

So, I have bought the rules and a couple of supplements and dug out the Bones figures I had painted and rebased them.  

As you can see, I haven't managed to get many painted over the years since the first Bones kickstarter!

I am also intrigued by building a 3' x 3' board to play Frostgrave with other people as I have never built a winter scenery collection and it strikes me as an interesting challenge.

I have discovered the Ulvheim 3d files on Thingiverse and have started printing out a number of the ruined buildings and second stories - they are really nice models and cost about 90p each in materials (but can take up to 9 hours to print!)

 

 Two of the buildings with 2nd floors and a Bones figure for scale.

I have also ordered some flagstone sheets and  an Amera Moulding pyramid and river sections to add to the board.

I'll document here how I get on, but I think painting a couple of fantasy figures between other stuff will make a nice change of pace.

Hex Tiles Finished

 I managed to finish painting and flocking the last of the tiles and the hills over the weekend.  I set them up in a small battlefield to see how they looked.  

I'm pleased with the multi-layer hills but probably need to add extra hill tiles at some point to get the upto 5 layers look I want.

Waterloo British Officer

 

Managed to get this 54mm figure quickly painted over the weekend.  This is the Wellington figure from the Allied command set painted as a general British Officer to lead my British forces.

Still needs varnishing and the base finishing.