Heresy Miniatures monsters - WIP pics

I took some new photos of my Mucklegeet the Giant from Heresy Miniatures (I dubbed him Magbragog Maneater to lead my Stomper Tribe of Sons of Behemat in Age of Sigmar) and as I was writing about it I was thinking about all the bits and pieces from Heresy Miniatures that I've painted up. I think Andy makes some great stuff - this is a selection of things from him that I've painted. Some of them need some better photos taken, and I have a bunch more that aren't finished yet, but this is a nice little selection. You should check his site out if you are after some fun and interesting fantasy or sci-fi models, good quality and well worth it! 

Heresy Miniatures: , The best miniatures that you never heard of!

Stomping All-Comers! (Sons of Behemat vs. Forces of Order AOS Battle Report)

Blackhole Wargamers, 04 June 2022

3,000pt Age of Sigmar game

Dan – Sons of Behemat, Stomper Tribe

vs.

Tris (Idoneth Deepkin), Tom (Stormcast Eternals) & Phil (Kharadron Overlords and Gotrek Gurnisson)

Battleplan – Feral Foray (General’s Handbook 2021)

Previous - Stormcast Eternals try to stop Mighty Magbragog!

 

It is almost exactly one year (to the day!) that the giants last stomped forth to battle the Stormcast Eternals. I'm not sure what they've been doing in the interlude, but the Tribe's ranks have swelled - doubled in size, in fact! 

We decided it would be fun to put a load of giants on the table (3,000 pts worth) and see if a combined force of 3 players could take them out... so far, the Sons of Behemat, led my Warstomper Magbragog Maneater, have stomped all before them - starting with some Kharadron Overlords in their flying machines, followed up by tasty Beastmen snacks, and most recently the Stormcast Eternals. They seem to be fairly unstoppable, but I'm sure they will come up against something that will test them. One day. For this game, Phil had said that he would bring Gotrek Gurnisson - he actually claimed that Gotrek could take all the giants on single-handed, but just in case they decided to bring some back-up. You know, in case Gotrek was a bit hungover or something. 

I brought along everything from the tribe that was assembled - unfortunately not all painted. I do have a Bonegrinder and one more Mancrusher to assemble, which will bring the entire tribe up to around 3,600 points... a real trouble-causing tribe of enormous monsters to make the ground tremble! For now, we kept it to 3,000 points, which would hopefully be manageable on a Saturday morning. 

I also brought along my temple terrain to give us something exciting to fight over, as bringing that many giants clearly wasn't enough to carry! I also had one of my Deep Cut Studios gaming mats to play on - this one is generic enough to work for a whole bunch of game systems, I really like them. Element Games stocks these mats (check them out here), which is good as the shipping from Europe can be a bit expensive buying them direct.     

Magbragog’s Stomper Tribe (2,905 pts)

Footsloggers Core Battalion  

Magbragog Maneater

(Warstomper Mega-Gargant, General, Monstrously Tough & Ironweld Cestus – 470pts)

The Stompy Brothers – Fat Glurg, Dronk Stonty-Stomper & Grumbog Aleguzzler

(Mancrusher Gargants, Battleline – 475pts)

Wanderers of Albion – Bruinen the Wise, Cachtorr & Bologs One-eye

(Mancrusher Gargants, Battleline – 475pts)

Bosses of the Stomp Core Battalion  

Tarbag Dragon-Smasher

(Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant – 525pts)

Odler the Colossus

(Kraken-Eater Mega-Gargant, The Arcane Tome – 490pts)

Hrothgar Icebreath

(Warstomper Mega-Gargant – 470pts) 

Prelude 

Magbragog bellowed at the tribe, getting them moving forwards. The flashy lightning king and his merry followers had been taking far too many liberties, encroaching on territory that by rights belonged to the Sons of Behemat and scaring off the beasts that he and his brethren fed on. This would not stand. Magbragog Maneater was a mighty Warstomper, a Mega-Gargant of incredible size and voracious appetite. He would lead the other gargants in an orgy of slaughter and take back their land from the occupiers. He licked his lips as he saw the opposing army. Fortunately, this time it wasn't just Stormcast - that was good news, there wasn't any proper eating in those tin cans. He saw some armoured stunties and some pointy eared elves riding on fish. Odler the Colossus, the Kraken-Eater who had recently joined the tribe, stank of fish. It wasn't most appealing to Magbragog, but he would make do with a seafood meal this time. 

The Battle

The Battleplan 'Feral Foray' encourages moving up to destroy the opponent's objectives, while protecting your own from their attempts to take them. Moving forwards to smash things? Yes, that feels right. Hanging back to protect parts of the battlefield from the pipsqueaks? Not so much. But, with a huge wall of flesh stomping forwards, I was fairly confident that the combined forces of Order would struggle to get past my lads to cause trouble anyway. Besides, my Sons of Behemat were far more concerned with pulping the enemy than doing anything so pedestrian as 'tactics'. 

The opposing forces of Order and Destruction

The Sons of Behemat deployed as far forwards
as possible, eager to get to grips with their
lunch. I mean, opposition 

Magbragog and Bruinen looking across the battlefield

The Idoneth deploy behind some standing
stones - like that's going to protect them! 

Calm before the storm

The game was a lot of fun. I didn't manage to record a blow-by-blow account as there were too many giants with too many things to hit, I couldn't keep up! On the left flank, the three towering Mega Gargants (Tarbag, Odler and Hrothgar) were too much for the Kharadron to deal with, but they ended up in a titanic battle with Gotrek, son of Gurni, famed slayer from the World That Was. He really was a total beast in combat (rightly so!). Ultimately, he couldn't stand up to three enormous giants, but he gave it a good shot - it would have been an epic Doom to record, if only Felix Jaegar was still around to do so.  

On the other flank, Magbragog led his Mancrushers against the Idoneth Deepkin and Stormcast Eternals. The Stormcast had some success with their big burly hammer boys, but ultimately they couldn't do enough damage to take the giants down before they were jumping up and down all over their bloodied corpses. Sheer brutality and strength won the day. The gargants probably took some of the objectives too, but that was almost as an afterthought! 

Aftermath

Magbragog pulled another spear from his side, wincing as he did so. Those little pipsqueaks had poked and prodded him relentlessly - it had really started to get irritating. He glared down at the mashed armour of a Stormcast Eternal on the ground beside him and pummelled it with the flat of his hand a few times, grinding it into the dirt for good measure before picking the corpse up and flinging it away into the distance. That made him feel a bit more cheerful. 

Dronk Stunty-Stomper was still moaning about not being able to fight the flying stunties because Odler, Tarbag and Hrothgar had already killed them all. 

"Shut up wiv your belly-aching!" yelled Magbragog as he shoved the smaller giant backwards, causing him to fall into one of the ancient pillars and knock it to the ground where it smashed into rubble. Dronk picked himself up as the other Mancrushers guffawed loudly. 

It had been a pretty good fight, and at least now there was plenty to eat. Odler was stuffing his face with the fishy mounts the pale elves had been riding on, the Kraken Eater clearly enjoying himself. Magbragog was more keen on the taste of dwarf, so stomped over to where Tarbag and Hrothgar were poking through the ruins of the Kharadron Skyfleet. It turned out they were looking for a little orange haired pipsqueak who had caused them all sorts of trouble with his magic axe, but they couldn't find his body anywhere. Magbragog had heard Odler complaining about how painful that axe had been, between mouthfuls of elvish calamari, so he was interested in seeing this dwarf as well. But he was nowhere to be found. Strange. Surely he couldn't have survived all three gargants jumping on him? Well, if he had, it would certainly be interesting to find him again, maybe he would be able to give Magbragog a good fight one of these days. For now, he let the Tribe pick over the spoils of battle. There would be more pipsqueaks to fight another day. There always were.    

Sons of Behemat - growing Stomper Tribe

The Tribe so far

So far I've got about 1,200 points of Sons of Behemat fully painted up for Age of Sigmar, with a load more in progress. I really like the concept of an army of giants led by even bigger giants - they look great on the tabletop and are fun to play. 

Magbragog's Stomper Tribe

Warstomper Mega Gargant - Magbragog Maneater

Mancrusher Gargant Mob - The Stompy Brothers (Fat Glurg, Dronk Stunty-Stomper and Grumbog Aleguzzler)

Mancrusher Gargant Mob - Wanderers of Albion (Bruinen the Wise and Bologs One-eye. Cachtorr still needs some painting!)

Magbragog is my Warstomper leader. I love this giant model - you can get it from Heresy Miniatures here. While you're there, Andy has a load of other really cool fantasy miniatures too. I have more of his stuff painted up, but also a load of demons and other monsters from a kickstarter he did years ago that are desperately in need of me getting them finished. I've even got one of his epic dragons, which really needs painting! Anyway, there are some 'lovely' ghouls (that he has now redone in plastic), which starred in Session 15 of my D&D campaign, as well as a version of Big Boris, his signature model I suppose, and some gribblies here. I didn't initially buy the giant during the kickstarter as I didn't quite get what he was doing with it, but once it was finished I loved it. And, timing wise, it was perfect as it was just as Games Workshop were talking about doing an army of giants!

The model has so much character, and I had the new TerrainCrate stuff from Mantic so decided to make a scenic base to show that the paladin being eaten might have been in the middle of his campfire dinner when Magbragog scooped him up as a snack. I love having details like this that tell a story with a model, and when it comes to giants it's really nice to have something that indicates their sheer size - he clearly isn't an upscaled man, he's a huge and terrifying colossus! As I was assembling him before the official Mega Gargant model came out, I ended up using a non-standard base for him, but the tent and eveything fit much better on this oval base anyway. I think with bases this large it isn't going to make much of a difference in a game, but I have mounted all my other Mega Gargants on the 'proper' bases. Rule of cool wins out over tournament pickiness anyway!  

Magbragog Maneater, Warstomper Mega Gargant

When I was a young 'un, I always wanted the Giants of Albion - I thought they were great, but my pocket money never quite stretched to it! I got them more recently off Ebay. Cachtorr is still being painted, but I completed Bologs. He had a broken let so I repositioned it on a rock so you can really see him leaning back, ready to throw his menhir - I like being able to see him a bit easier from above when playing. Dronk Stunty-Stomper is one of the old Orc and Goblin giants that I had in a bits box for a long time, finally finding his home in Magbragog's tribe!   

The Mancrushers Bologs One-eye and Dronk Stunty-Stomper

Talking about old models, Grumbog Aleguzzler is the classic old Marauder giant. Again, I coveted this model as an even younger young 'un! So full of character, I had to find one to include. As he has a barrel of Bugman's XXXXXXX on his hip, I decided he must have smashed his way into a brewery and used more Mantic TerrainCrate stuff to put some barrels on his base. Next to him is Bruinen the Wise. He's a giant from Atlantis Miniatures (now Blue Giant Studios), though doesn't seem to be available any more. I liked him as he seemed to have a sort of druidic vibe that I thought fit with Cachtorr and Bologs, so decided the three of them could be the Wanderers of Albion. He looks sort of more with it than most of the other giants, so I figured he could be called 'the Wise' - like, he can talk in full sentences or use long words. I don't imagine the threshold for being considered wise is particularly high in giant society! 

Again, Bruinen isn't on a properly legal base, but he was just too big and it looked daft, so I put him on a slightly bigger one. I think it looks much better, and helps him stand out as the leader of that mob. He's bigger than the rest of the Mancrushers but not big enough to be a Mega Gargant. I think some variation in size is good, and the fact he is a bit bigger makes it more likely he would be bullying the others around - just like his counterpart, Fat Glurg! This is a Hill Giant from Nolzur's range of D&D monsters. It's a great model, cheap as chips and a single piece (I know they have a new Frameworks version, this is the older flexible plastic one). The detail is OK on it and he is chunky enough that the flex isn't a problem. As he is a bit bigger, I put him on the same size base as Bruinen and decided he could be the bigger, fatter, brother of Dronk and Grumbog, bossing them both around - he's clearly taken the loot for himself and stuck it in his pack!  

Grumbog Aleguzzler, Bruinen the Wise and Fat Glurg

Might makes right in the Stomper Tribe, so there's no mistaking that Magbragog is clearly in charge, with Bruinen and Fat Glurg commanding the two mobs of Mancrushers.   

Magbragog's Stomper Tribe - so far...

What's Next?

I have another three Mega Gargants assembled and ready for painting: Warstomper, Hrothgar Icebreath; a Kraken-Eater, Odler the Colossus; and Tarbag Dragon-Smasher, the Gatebreaker. 

And then there are a couple more Mancrushers, a Bonegrinder and a couple more Mega Gargants to assemble... lots to do, I think in the end it will be pushing 5,000 points! I'll be hoping to arrange a massive game for the tribe to take on all-comers at my local club, Black Hole Wargamers... that could be a long one! 

So far, the Tribe have been pretty successful in the games I've played with them - I've written up their adventures stomping all over the Realms previously. I've found them good fun to play, but some of my opponents have been a bit dismayed when they've been unable to take them down. As I've said to them, you only need to take out one or two Mancrushers to start really taking a toll on the army, so I think focused fire is probably the way to go... I haven't played any games with the newest rules yet, but I've got one coming up next month so we'll see how Magbragog and his lads get on then. 

I haven't considered the new Beast Smasher variant yet, but I figure that Hrothgar would work well if I want to use him as one (he's covered in pelts and things, very beastly). Likewise haven't really thought about King Brodd, the new ruler of all the giants. I've heard he's pretty useful in the game, but I'm not really taken with the model - it's just a minor variation on GW's normal Mega Gargant and, although the model is awesome, I'm not convinced about the variations they've made for him. The big club is nice, but other than that... besides, I'm too taken with Magbragog, he's my giant boss! I think he'll have to proxy in for the king and use Brodd's rules if I ever want to do that. 

Magbragog's battles against the Pipsqueaks

Taking on the flying machines of the Kharadron Overlords

Brutal battle against the Beasts of Chaos

Taking on the Stormcast Eternals

Fighting a combined Order force

The land will tremble as the Stomper tribe marches forth in search of food, ale and a good scrap! 

Constructing an Orky Settlement

Inspiration!

Back in the early '90s, I pored over these sorts of images for ages in White Dwarf magazine, imagining how these battles played out. I loved seeing the wacky, colourful Orks facing off against the puny humans or poncy Eldar, particularly when they were defending their ramshackle townships (probably erected in the ruins of whatever Imperial settlement the Orks had recently razed to the ground). Although it's easy to always see Orks as the perennial invaders, I loved the idea of recreating an Ork settlement and thinking about what that would look like. These blocky, sand coloured buildings always stood out for me and, though junk buildings made out of scrap have become a bit more the norm, I really wanted to have some of these for myself. 

Objectives

I had a few objectives in mind for making these buildings:

• Make them quick and easy to build using polystyrene I already had knocking about
• Replicate that old '90s look
• Be simple buildings to block line of sight and provide good gun emplacements, so good for gaming
• Provide an opportunity for my young daughter (she was 2 at the time) to paint them with me 

So nothing too fancy, cheap and cheerful and fun for gaming. I don't think there's anything overly complicated about constructing them, but I thought I would do a sort of step-by-step in case anyone needed inspiration. They certainly made a good project to do with a toddler, succeeding in entertaining the toddler and giving me something I could use in my games of 40k! 

Construction

I had a bunch of blocky polystyrene in the shed to use up. I cut it with a mixture of a big sharp knife (one I actually forged myself!) and a hot wire cutter. The hot wire cutter is an antique relic from the old days of Games Workshop that I still had in my toolbox! I found that the knife was generally better for getting flat surfaces on the big blocks, but the hot wire cutter is good for smaller bits. 

I roughly planned out three buildings of different sizes and shapes (Ork architects don't conform, of course!). I used PVA for sticking the blocks together, with cocktail sticks stabbed in for additional support and holding the pieces together. These worked very well - you could almost get away without the glue. Obviously I kept the toddler away for this stage! 

For this first bunch of buildings, I just wanted them to have a stone parapet round the outside. I had some thinner polystyrene sheets as well, so I used those to encase the larger blocks to make solid walls from ground up to the parapet. I used the Ork models to make sure they were about the right height for providing cover but letting the boyz shoot over the top. Nothing too precise, again, but fairly uniform.   

 

Painting

I used super cheap poster paints to do these. I mixed up tubs of paint, PVA, sand and water to get a consistency I liked, then used that straight onto the polystyrene. The sand gave it a good texture, the PVA stuck it all together and helped fill in any gaps in the polystyrene blocks. The mixture also made the outside tougher, good for gaming. They dried out in the sun and I was really pleased with the results - looked just like what I was after. The little squig had a good go at painting them as well, she enjoyed herself. 

After they had dried, I stuck on some doors, trapdoors and ladders that I made out of lollipop sticks and painted brown. Then I painted grey on the bases to match my gaming mats and did some simple black and white patterns. A lot of the inspiration pictures have more colours on them than this, but my main klan is Goffs so I kept it simple - just pushing the boat out by doing one of them with dags instead of checks! Again, being that it would have been Orks painting it, I didn't measure or draw guidelines, just got the poster paint out and slapped it on! 

Second Generation

I had a couple more polystyrene blocks that were a bit more dense and just the right size for some Orks to stand on, so I made a couple more buildings! This time, I wanted to try using some scraps of wood for palisades round the roof, so I chopped up some lollipop sticks and made some rough walls. These were all glued together using PVA and left to dry before painting them brown and then attaching to the painted buildings. I used PVA again, as well as securing them into the polystyrene with small nails - if these showed on the outside then they would look like whacking great Ork nails anyway! It definitely helps to think a bit like an Ork when doing things like this, and not getting too bogged down in details. The PVA was still drying when I took the photos, I'll have to take some more when I finish doing the bases of these ones, but as they stand I reckon job's a good 'un! 

Final Thoughts

These buildings will easily fill enough of a decent table (along with some suitable scatter terrain) to provide plenty of cover and an interesting battlefield to fight over. They were super cheap to make and good fun with a little helper. I might come back to do a little more details in the future - maybe some more colourful patterns, possibly some graffiti, maybe a bit of a wash on the bases and woodwork. But I'll see, part of me is really happy with them as they are, super simple and effective. They don't need to be overcomplicated. Besides, the boyz wouldn't be bothered about that sort of thing! 

Badtusks on Tour!

Warhammer 40,000 Ork Crusade

We’ve started a Crusade campaign at the club (well, it’s sort of started, been a bit slow kicking off properly but there have been a few games now). I had been debating about using Imperial Knights or Orks for the Crusade. I did play one game with the Knights, but starting with low PL limits meant I could only fit 2 Questoris Knights in my list, so it was no good for securing objectives… I figured I could get away with ignoring objectives and killing the enemy, but it was against Tyranids and their ridiculously overpowered rules that meant they were basically unkillable, so that was it for that game!

So I stuck with the good old Greenskins. Which was just as well as we’re basing the Crusade on the Octarius campaign, centred on the Ork-held world of Badsquig, so it feels right to be using my Orks. I decided to base my force on Beast Snaggas, hopefully getting some time to get the new models painted up.

For Honour, Duty and Death - Warhammer 40K Battle Report

For Honour, Duty and Death

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report
16^th July 2022
1,500 pts – Imperial Knights (Dan) vs. Chaos Knights (Tom H)
War Zone Nephilim: Secure Missing Artefacts

Tom had recently started collecting a Chaos Knight force, which he was looking at playing in a Crusade Campaign at the club (Black Hole Wargamers). I had played one Crusade game with my Knights (it didn't go so well... just two Questoris Knights at 50 PL is a bit tough, especially against the currently massively overpowered Tyranids!). I keep meaning to come back and complete this army but other things get in the way... I have some painting to finish off on these models, and a few more knights to assemble. I'll get them done one day, I love building these things! 

For this game, we agreed on a 1,500 point limit and planned to use the War Zone Nephilim book for a mission. I liked the sound of the changes to CP in that book, reining in the shenanigans that can go on. I think strategems in 40K are a bit of a double-edged sword - they can give some nice flavour to an army, but they do add a whole extra element to think about which slows the game down and can eclipse the tactical considerations on the table. Anyway, with the CPs reduced a bit from Turn 1 that should help reduce them being too powerful. 

The Nephilim book also removes the restriction of only taking a single faction-specific Secondary Objective – we both took advantage of this change by choosing 3 faction-specific objectives. I like this change as it feels good from a narrative point of view (I still think the narrative of a game is important in matched play games), and I don’t think the faction-specific ones are necessarily auto-includes for all armies / scenarios. They certainly felt right in this game though, pushing us towards honour or infernal notoriety and rewarding us for smiting the opposing war engines. Which was all good! 

I mustered my Knights, the noble Scions of House von Ulrich. They swear fealty to Forge World Metalica and the titans of the Legio Metalica (bonus points for spotting the references). I will be assembling an Adeptus Titanicus force from Metalica at some point, and plan to represent these Knights at that smaller scale as well. Anyway, here is my 1,500 pt list: 

 

Knights of House von Ulrich, The Harvesters of Sorrow
	Questor Allegiance:	Questor Mechanicus
	House:	Fealty to the Cog (House Krast)
	Oaths:	Defend the Realm Refuse No Challenge
Dominus Pupulorum	Knight Warden (Warlord)	Warlord Trait: Blessed by the Sacristans (1CP) Relic: Endless Fury (1CP) Order of Companions (1CP)   Avenger Gatling Cannon (Endless Fury), Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Stormspear Rocket Pod, Thunderstrike Gauntlet
Indago Perdo	Knight Errant	Thermal Cannon, Meltagun, Reaper Chainsword
Cupam Urceum	Armiger Helverin	2x Armiger Autocannon, Cognis Heavy Stubber
Wandering Freeblade Hero
	Questor Allegiance:	Questor Imperialis
	Martial Tradition:	Hunter of Beasts
Ferro Brutum	Knight Paladin – Freeblade	Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon, 2x Ironhail Heavy Stubber, Reaper Chainsword
		1,490 pts 3 CP

versus

Chaos Knights of the Infernal House Vextrix

Knight Desecrator, Knight Rampager, Knight Abominant and War Dog 

Ruined Town Terrain - Warlord Games Ruined Hamlet

Ruined Town Terrain

I wanted to build a really good set of terrain to fill a table and that could be used for multiple games - including Warhammer, Bolt Action, Black Powder, Dungeons & Dragons and Frostgrave - so I wanted it to have a fantasy feel, but also work for historical games. I wanted it to be versatile so that I could change the layout easily, and so it could work for both the larger wargames and smaller skirmishes. It really needed the ability to act as a line of sight blocker and obstacle for a larger wargame, while providing opportunity for individual models to get in and hide or climb up to vantage points. Luckily, I found a really good and affordable option!  

Ruined Hamlet

The Ruined Hamlet set from Warlord Games looked perfect. it is primarily designed for Bolt Action (so a World War II setting), but as they say on the packaging, it works for older historical settings too. And the rough stone would look perfect in a fantasy setting. 

I wanted to make the ruins look interesting and distinct and, although it looks fairly uniform on the box, the fact that the whole set is plastic and comes in individual pieces meant I knew that, with a little bit of work, I could chop and change it into all sorts of buildings. There are three farmhouses in this set. They also used to sell them individually. I think in the end I got about 8 of the individual houses (after buying one or two initially to test them out). The key was going to be making an interesting set of ruins that didn't look like 8 of the same house.

Building

I didn't add any additional kits to the ruins - they're so versatile, I didn't have to. The only additional materials I put on the structures were some cut up lollipop sticks and balsa wood that I used to bulk out some of the rafters, create walkways between raised platforms, and cover some of the holes in the walls. My main focus was on playability - I wanted the option for players to cross over between higher platforms to gain good vantage points to attack those below, and wanted to fill some of the holes in the walls so that they could properly hide. From a narrative point of view, I figured that these ruins had been fought over for some time, so whoever had been occupying them had been fortifying their position. Doing this still made them work really well for mass battle wargames. 

My wife commented that I was wrong for adding balsa wood doors to some of the doorways, but I think they look good - and there's every chance that a few doors would remain largely intact in the ruins! 

Basing

I use 3mm HDF for basing terrain pieces like this. I like having a solid base, means I can plonk it on the table and it's easy to see the outline of it, plus it keeps the whole thing together and strong. I positioned the pieces on the wood, drew the rough outlines, then cut them out with a jigsaw and fret saw, to maximise the use out of the HDF. I use two-part epoxy (araldite) to fix pieces like this onto the bases, so they are very solid - I think terrain needs to be nice and strong for gaming with. 

After that, the bases were covered in sand, grit and small stones, stuck with watered-down PVA glue. Going up the walls of the ruins a little bit in places really makes them blend in and seem like they've been losing little bits of rubble over time.  

Painting

I started off by undercoating with black spray paint, then grey over the top of that. Laying the pieces out on a 3x3' table with some other premade pieces and a couple of more fantastical work-in-progress pieces of terrain (some of the pieces ended up with my set of Fantasy Temples) looked really good, covering the area completely. This would make an excellent table for Frostgrave with a little bit of scatter terrain, with lots of winding streets, alleyways to hide in and vantage points to climb to. 

I wanted to keep the painting process fairly simple and quick. I've got a lot of things in my pile of unpainted miniatures so I didn't want to take too long over these ruined buildings. I also thing that the terrain is a really important part of a game, but it is primarily the backdrop for the miniatures - if the terrain is more detailed and colourful than the models, it can detract from them. The strong detail on these kits make painting them a real easy job as there is a lot of relief, making them the ideal candidates for heavy washes and drybrushing. I simply painted the patches of plaster with GW Karak Stone, as it gave a good contrast to the underlying grey stones. I didn't want to mess about with different coloured bricks so just left them all as the grey undercoat. 

All the wood was painted with dark browns, with some heavy drybrushing of lighter brown on them (I can't remember exactly which ones, but it doesn't really matter - dark brown and light brown are fairly self explanatory!). 

That was it for blocking in the simple colours, just three elements really. I left the ground as grey as well - I've been doing that with a lot of models recently, it looks like a sort of rocky wasteland or urban rubble, which looks great with some static grass or tufts added on. In this case, I would imagine the ground to be covered in grey dust and rubble from all the destroyed buildings. 

I used Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade for washing. This is a brownish colour, so adds a really natural depth and contrast to the models. I've been using the water-based dropper bottles of these quickshades for years, but recently tried using the oil-based cans when painting scenery - much more cost effective for a large volume of shade. I find that the quickshade needs a bit of thinning with white spirit to flow smoothly (use an old knackered brush for this!). The detail on these stone walls is so well defined that the shade easily goes into all the crevices and really makes the piece look good. I found that there wasn't even any need to go back and drybrush or highlight afterwards - just the wash itself was enough.

There are some issues with the quickshade. It dries glossy, but not to worry, as soon as you spray it with a matt varnish it looks great! The photo below shows a piece looking shiny (pre-matt varnish) while the one below that shows two pieces side-by-side - the left-hand piece has been matt varnished, which takes that sheen off it. 

The other issue is the drying time. I had an older can of quickshade which was still tacky 6 or 7 days later. It's supposed to dry in 24-48 hours. This can worked well for me on my last lot of terrain, but was still quick sticky after 2 or 3 days - perhaps because of the humidity, I don't know. Either way, I was a little bit impatient with the static grass, and found that there was enough tackiness in the quickshade to cause some of the grass to stick up the walls, where there was no PVA to adhere to. It's a bit annoying, but not too noticeable unless you look closely. Some hints of green on the walls are OK for this sort of thing where some weeds might be growing on the ruins, but wouldn't be ideal on a lot of things. But that was probably down to my impatience more than anything, though the shade should have been dry by then. That's not an issue with the farmhouse ruins anyway! 

Applying the static grass was the final step before spraying with matt varnish. I used a Flockbox for this - a static grass applicator that uses an electrical charge to cause the static grass to stand up in the glue when it's passed through a metal sieve (or can cause the grass to jump up from the plat and onto the miniature). For convenience on smaller miniatures, I tend to use pre-made grass tufts - it's much quicker and easier. But the Flockbox is great for making larger patches of grass, really showing nature gradually reclaiming this ruined town. I was also able to combine a couple of different colours of static grass together to add some variation.  

 Complete!

I took some photos of the full set of ruins out in the sunshine, with some of my D&D characters for scale. 

I certainly could have gone further with the detailing on this project - added some small bushes, vegetation growing out of the walls, highlighting the details a bit more, adding some additional colours to the stonework... waiting a little longer before flocking it so the flock didn't stick to the walls (actually, matt varnishing before as well as after the flocking might actually have been the answer)… but this was intended to be a relatively quick and dirty project, to get a good result on the tabletop without taking forever to complete. It took long enough as there was a big hiatus between construction and painting due to other projects and real life distracting me from it! Overall, I'm very pleased with the finished result, as it looks effective and achieved my objective of not taking too much time. It was also very cost effective and made great use of a single plastic kit. 

I think this shows the versatility of these ruined farmhouses from Warlord, as, with a little bit of cutting and ingenuity, I've ended up with a wide array of terrain to fight over that looks like it all fits together but is varied and visually interesting. Plus, the hard plastic is extremely robust and will stand up to having models placed all over it, something that some other materials struggle with. I've used this terrain in a few games prior to it being complete, and it works really well from a gameplay perspective. Now it will also look good whilst we're playing! 

Final Thoughts

This is a great terrain kit with a lot of versatility to it if you are willing to chop it up and experiment with different ways to put it together. The simple addition of a few pieces of balsa or lollipop stick helps transform the kit into an exciting setting for a skirmish game. Aesthetically, it looks great and the detail takes paint very well. These ruined farmhouses fit in perfectly in a variety of historical and fantasy settings and are well worth buying to accompany a number of mass battle or skirmish miniature games. 

You Might Like:

• Design fits into multiple historical time periods and fantasy settings
• Hard plastic is robust and easy to work with
• Kit is highly modular and customisable
• Sculpted detail is good, enabling quick painting with washes / drybrushing

You Might Not Like:

• This is a model kit that requires assembly and painting, and a fair degree of modelling experience to get the most out of it - not recommended for novice modellers

Rating:

• Aesthetic: 4/5
• Difficulty: 4/5
• Modularity: 5/5
• Playability: 5/5
• Quality: 5/5

Overall Score: 92%