Tips & Tricks: Speeding up drying time.

It's sometimes really annoying waiting for the paint and glue on your terrain projects to dry. Especially since sometimes it can take all night, and require several steps, all of which take all night to dry. Fortunately, there are some tricks to speed up drying times.

Light Globes:
I used these all the time in the early days. Just move your desk lamp nice and close to your project, and the radiant heat from the globe helps to speed things along. I tried this recently with a Halogen globe, and it put out so much heat the PVA started to smoke slightly... best limited to 75-100 watt tungsten globes I think!

Heaters:
Along the same lines, placing things in front of a heater will help speed things up as well. Obviously there's the disadvantage that this will heat your house up as well, and that's not always something you want! When using a heater, I make sure I turn the terrain regularly so it's evenly warmed.

Sunlight:
On a good, hot, sunny Australian summer's day, just placing things in the sun speeds up the drying time immensely. I have a small table under an area of laserlight (that's transparent corrugated-iron looking plastic stuff in case you were wondering) which is used for spray painting under coats, but also makes a great drying stand during summer.

As you can see, heat helps to speed things up. I have heard of ovens being employed, but I wouldn't recommend it. Especially if you don't own the oven.
Of course, if you object to heat for any reason, just use Tamiya Acrylic paints. They dry so fast you cannot even drybrush with them. This will not help if you want to use PVA glue of course...

Tournaments For Hippos

It's Cancon this weekend, and practically all of my club mates are making the annual pilgrimage to Canberra to participate. Not only are they going to play, but somehow they've wound up organising it. How does a Melbourne club end up running a tournament in Canberra?

Anyway, I thought I'd better take this opportunity to wish them all luck, and present a few tips on how to win tournaments. For hippos.

And now you know why I never win tournaments! Good luck and may the dice gods smile upon you!

The importance of durable bases.

We got some new white boards at the school where I teach, and the polystyrene sheets they were shipped in have been sitting in my office for a while. It's 10mm low density white stuff, about four by six feet. I've been trying to think of a use for it, but so far I have not yet had any really good ideas. I mentioned the stuff to one of my students, an avid member of the school wargames club, and he asked if he could have some. So I cut him some pieces small enough to fit his bag, and sent him on his way.
This morning I asked what he was planning to do with it, and he said he was going to use it to make bases for terrain. This got me thinking.
Years of experience have shown me that low density polystyrene doesn't make for good basing material. It's far too fragile,and tends to break up. Looking at the bottoms of any of the hills at my games club bears this out - they are all made from sheets of low density polystyrene, and all of them have ragged chunks missing from the bottoms after leading a hard life in the club terrain stash.
But when you're just starting out, making a base from polystyrene sheet makes sense, it's so easy to shape!
So I figured I'd put up an article about ensuring that your bases are sturdy enough to survive, and durable enough to see you through years of carnage. And believe me, terrain needs to be sturdy, the base especially.

Bases take a hell of a beating on any terrain item. They need to be tough, and they need to be made from something which doesn't warp. Corrugated cardboard is very tough, but it does warp. If you don't have anything else, you can minimise warping by using two layers with the corrugations running cross-wise.
Foam core is also very tough, but the edges can get a bit knocked about since they really are just polystyrene. You can try to minimise this by painting the foam parts with PVA glue, but you'll almost inevitably get dents with rough handling and poor storage. If you take reasonable care, you won't have a problem.
Then there's MDF, which is also known as Craft Wood. This stuff is very tough. Of course, you will need a saw to cut it (or a sharp knife and a LOT of patience!). It's available in a range of thicknesses, and you can usually get smaller panels from your timber yard if you don't want one of the full 4X8 foot panels. Most places will actually cut wood to size for you free of charge. MDF has the disadvantage of being more expensive and a bit harder to work with. It's also pretty heavy, so stacking terrain pieces on top of one another may lead to a bit of squishing.
You can use polystyrene for a base, but only the high density version will really work. Even then, you will probably find the edges crumble a bit if you have beveled them. A good way to prevent this is to add a bottom layer to the base made from foamcore, cardboard or MDF. This will mean the polystyrene is less exposed and less likely to get damaged.
Of course, polystyrene sheet is great for making terrain tiles and boards, but some care must be taken. On my Portheim tile set, where the edges of each tile were designed to be part of a sea wall, I painted the edges of every tile with PVA glue to add an extra layer of durability. If you will never see the edges, a good trick is to either cover them with gaffer tape, or add a wooden frame around the outside of each tile. You should also think seriously about gluing MDF to the bottom of each tile.
One final option is to use a CD for a base. This limits you to a disc about 12 cm across, but they are VERY hard to damage. It's actually a very enjoyable challenge working out a whole terrain feature to fit onto a CD.

Making your base as tough as possible will really help to make sure your terrain stays in peak condition as long as possible, but always remember to store your terrain carefully. Even the mightiest MDF base will be wrecked if you insist on kicking it around the room before throwing it in the swimming pool after all.

SF MONTH: Using found objects

In the SF Terrain Shopping List I mentioned always keeping your eye open for interesting shapes and finding ways of putting found objects together. Well, today I was at the $2 shop looking for wooden cubes for an idea I had (they didn't have them) and I spotted some cheap plastic spinning tops for 25 cents each. They were kinda satellite dish shaped, so I bought four. Then I got kinda creative.It's important to keep all the interesting shapes and pieces you've found somewhere handy. I have a Cupboard O' Doom for that. Everything I used for this project was found with a quick rummage. I have a lot of model kits in there which I bought solely to become parts donors for this sorta thing.

Don't worry, this doesn't mean My First Underhive is being ignored - I knocked this together while I was waiting for the bar-code stickers to soak off the PVC plumbing parts I'm using. And besides, this IS part of the MFU experience - I'll be posting a few other quickies showing some other small pieces of cover which go with the set.

Until next time - treat all objects as shapes and try to see how they can fit together to make something new and different!

SF MONTH: SF Terrain shopping list.

Building SF terrain is always just a bit different from building fantasy or historic terrain because you just about always seem to need some special materials. Hell, some SF projects are based completely on special materials. Fortunately, just about everything you will need is either cheap or free. Here's Grot with a shopping list of things you might want to get hold of for SF projects.

Lots an' lots an' lots of PVC pipes an' stuff.

PVC pipe comes in various sizes from 10mm to 200mm. The smaller sizes are good for huge pipes, while the larger sizes are good when you need round buildings. Of course the most awesome part is all the little fittings plumbers use - elbow joints, t-junctions, end caps and all sorts of other bits which look awesome! There's also a range of similar pipe in black plastic for irrigational use which has some even more awesome parts! Both are available at plumbing or hardware stores - obviously the bigger the place, the bigger the range. I get mine at Bunnings.

Cheap toys.

Always keep an eye out for cheap toys which have good detail on them. You'll be amazed at what you find and what you can do with it. Some years ago, my Brother gave me a $20 'O' gauge model railway for Christmas (I was in one of my model railway phases), and I immediately realised it was the right size to build a 40K railway - I've now got several more of these sets which seem to be at Toys R Us every Christmas. The best places to get toys are $2 shops and Op Shops.

PTFE an' Solder.

Polytetraflouroethylene, or 'Plumbers Tape For Everything' is a really thing and flexible tape. When you use it together with solder, it's great for making huge, industrial ribbed tubing (see the Orky Dropship Ishoo). You can buy both at any hardware store.

Intermaresting shaped packaging an cans an bottles an stuff.

There are heaps of great shapes just sitting in your pantry or protecting your new DVD player during shipping. Polystyrene packaging is often made up of interesting shapes which can become instant terrain with just a bit of paint and a base. Cans, bottles and tins are all very useful - just make sure you clean them out first. Basically, never through anything out until you've looked at it and decided whether it can be made into terrain.

Those bendy straws wot yoo drank out of when you was a kidlet.

Bendy straws are very useful when making SF terrain. They are a good size for pipes, and of course, they bend! You can easily make quite complex pipe networks using nothing else. Unfortunately, they are made from very paint-resistant plastics, so you really need to spray paint the undercoat. Any decent supermarket has them.

Orl sorts of stuff wot Plastruct makes.

Plastruct is a company which makes a wide range of very useful plastic H-Beams, I-Beams and other building materials for model railways and architectural models. They also make plastic tubes in various sizes. If you are going to do anything industrial, chances are you will want H-Beams or I-Beams or something, and Plastruct is the way to go. You can get it from any good hobby shop.

Plastimacard.

Plasticard is just sheet plastic. It's more expensive than cardboard, and does basically the same thing. It's one huge advantage of course being that it comes in a range of textures. As an SF terrainist, you'll find that some of these are invaluable - tread plate and diamond plate, and my personal favourite - clapboard siding (used for making the walls of model railway houses, but also wonderful for simulating louvered vent covers). It's available at any good hobbyshop, so go and have a nose around.

Yore bitz box.

If you are a serious modeler, you've got a bitz box where you keep all manner of spare parts from all manner of kits. Sometimes it gets out of hand, and you end up with a cupboard o' doom. No matter how big your bitz box, you will find yourself raiding it when you make SF terrain so you can get the little detailed parts which make the terrain so much better - control panels made from spare gun details, imperial eagle logos from tanks and all of that.

Asthma inhalerators.

Not the old fashioned ventolin puffers (although they could be handy), but the

new style of powdered inhaler. I have a friend who uses 'Fleixotide' to treat his asthma and it comes in an amazingly cool inhaler. The cover is a great shape, and if you open them up they are full of interesting cogs. I think they are u

sed for some other medicines as well. This is what I am talking about:

There are all sorts of other things you might want when building SF terrain - I like to keep a stash of single serve Tuna tins, and I've made bunkers from old smoke alarm housings, but really, there's no space to list every single thing you might want. Just have a look at the supermarket and $2 shops and see what interesting shapes you can find. And never underestimate the Op Shop - everything there is cheap, and although the toys are often missing parts or broken, that doesn't matter if you'll just cut them up anyway! The secret of successful SF terrain building is to always keep your eyes open for new and interesting shapes.

Catch you next time, Hippo Fans!

Pudding's Principals of Terrain Production.

A little conversation I was having with a freind about making a new batch of fantasy buildings to use at Axemaster lead me to formulate my ten principals of terrain production. I really doubt the list is final; I'm sure I've forgotten some pearl of wisdom, but here it is anyway. I suggest you learn it by heart so you can qoute it at the un-initiated. Kinda like a cross between Rimmer and his Space Corps Directives and the Ferengi Rules of Aquisition. But slighlty more practical.

1: A building is a building, not a landscape.
Keep the base nice and tight; it's mostly just waste space anyway.

2: Terrain which does no give cover stays on the shelf.
Seriously, why bother to build an empty field?

3: Infelxible terrain leads to the same battle over and over.
If you make a fully sculpted board, don't be surprised to find the same tactics being used over it every time.

4: There is no such thing as too strong.
Terrain will lead a hard life. It's gotta be tough enough.

5: But there is such a thing as too delicate.
Terrain will lead a hard life. Delicate stuff looks good but it breaks fast.

6: Always provide for troop movement.
Troops need to move over, through and around terrain. Make sure they can.

7: Any terrain is better than no terrain.
So put your back into it and start making some. No one expects you to be a god-king of terrain making first time.

8: Buy your trees.
Seriously, they take far to long to make.

9: Real buildings are just too big.
Scale them down a bit; they look just as good and youdon't use half the table for a house.

10: Green on Green and Brown on Brown.
Seriosuly people, how hard is it to find terrain pieces with bases that match the table?

In which various terrain making myths are debunked.

Myth Number One: Terrain takes too long to build.
Grot sez: "Terrain is ded kwik to makerate."
Just take a look at the Blog Archieve - there are nineteen ishoos in there at present. That's almost two per month. And I don't put everything I build on this blog. In fact, most projects only take a few days, working two or three hours at most each day. Often projects take a while simply because you are waiting for paint or glue to dry, the actual time spent working is minimal. If you don't believe me, I made all of this in a week. A week when my Parent's where visiting and I could not spend all day working on terrain.

Myth Number Two: Terrain is expensive.
Grot Sez: "Yoo never have to spend money on terrain if yoo do not want to."
Sure, if you insist of buying all of your materials from premium rate model building shops, using plastic and resin kits for terrain and sticking the latest metal miniatures in as statues, terrain will cost.
But it does not have to cost.
Most terrain projects can be built using cheap or free stuff - you'd be amazed at how much great cardboard you throw out. Foam core is not very expensive (aroung $10aud for an A1 sheet) either, nor are most of the other things you need. In fact, I built terrain using nothing but household junk for years, and never paid for anything but my paints and plaster.

Myth Number Three: I don't need terrain.
Grot Sez: "yes yoo do."
So you actually like playing on a bare, flat kitchen table with maybe an old shoebox to break up lines of sight do you?
Get real. Get terrain.



Myth Number Four: Terrain is hard to make!

Grot Sez: "Iz not."
I think we've proved this one already, don't you?

Delays blamed on Pontiac.

No, I am not dead. Nor have I forgotten about my beloved audience. But there are times in a man's life when he must build custom car models. I call these times 'the bits between building terrain, painting miniatures and building SF models'. And now is one of those times.
I'm currently building a 1962 Pontiac Catalina and ignoring the Ork Dropship I promised. And then I intend to build a 1951 Chevy convertible as a taxi and ignore the Ork Dropship I pomised. After that I'll get back to the dropship. Probably.

Anyway, while you are waiting (presumably tearing your hair out and gnashing your teeth), you can have a read of this extract from the infamous book I am sort of writting about terrain, in which I put forth the argument for making your own terrain and casting aside such childish things as piles of old text books standing in for hills.


Duke John sat his mighty destrier at the head of his army, surrounded by his noble knights, all gazing grimly across the flat, brownish field at the cackling hordes of evil goblins spilling across their border. The Duke's men at arms and archers stood ready, fingering their mighty weapons, ready for the coming battle. Everyman had sworn stern and terrible oaths to defend the great ancestral shoebox from the foes currently appearing over the stacks of tatty old textbooks.

Doesn't sound right, does it? Well, this is pretty much what any wargame would be without proper terrain. It never makes sense to me that so many people are willing to spend so much time developing an awesome army, painting it up, taking it to tournaments and games clubs, notching up victories and grudges, and yet don’t care that their games all take place on their kitchen table with a Shoebox standing in for a castle and some old books for hills. Don't your games deserve to be better than this? Doesn't Duke John, defender of the realm deserve at least a small fort to defend against rampaging goblins? Or maybe a bijoux hovel at the very least?

Terrain makes a huge difference to any wargame, not just a visual difference but a tactical difference (or a strategic difference depending on the scope of the game). In real life armies have to overcome obstacles to get to grips with the foe. Numerous battles have been won by skilfully using the features of the battlefield against the enemy.

So would you rather play out fairly dull and repetitive games on any old tabletop, or would you rather play something more challenging and much more visually appealing using some easily, and cheaply made terrain?

A lot of people never make terrain at all, and seem happy to play on a bare table. I've never understood this attitude.

Could it be that terrain is hard to build? Hardly, I built my first hut at twelve – actually before I even played my first game – so even a child can do it (or a hippo for that matter!)

Could it be that terrain is expensive? Well, that all depends – if you buy it, then yes, it will be expensive, but if you make it it's very cheap. Most terrain can be built from cheap materials, and in some cases, waste materials like cardboard boxes and polystyrene packing.

Could it be that it's time consuming? Well again, this all depends on you. Sure, a fully detailed and totally accurate model of Krak de Chevalier will take a while, but on the other hand, you can build yourself a respectable fantasy village in a weekend!

Could it be that people don't like terrain? Well, everyone at my games club gets excited when I bring in some new terrain, and sometimes it's a bit of a contest to see who gets to use it in a game first. In my experience, everyone who can get their hands on terrain will use it.

I'm not sure here, but I think it's because most gamers are more concerned with their army than the field of play on which it is used. Gaming magazines tend to be full of articles on tactics, army composition, newly released forces, cunning new schemes from games companies to get your money out of you and lots of lavish pictures of awesome stuff, but very rarely contain articles on terrain. Most people seem to prefer to spend their time developing themselves an awesome looking army, which can take on anything up to God himself and still win to building a hill.

So really, there isn't any reason why you shouldn't make yourself some terrain. It's not hard, not expensive, not time consuming and it's oh so very rewarding. And dammit, even a hippo can do it!

Planning a terrain set

Since the glue is taking a long time to dry on Ishoo Nin (curse this unseasonably cold weather!), Ive decided to take time out to knock together an article on planning your first terrain set (most of this is modified from 'Terrain Crusade'; the book I am sort of writing on and off about making terrain)

When you build terrain, it might as well all match right? A terrain set is a great way to make sure everything works together. A terrain set can be as simple as having all of your items based with green static grass or as complex as building several tables worth of terrain which match your army! One thing you need to do, of course, is plan things out a little.

Alright, how do you come up with a plan? Let's go through some considerations.

• How big is your table? This is the first thing to ask – if you are playing small games on a small table, you don't need as much terrain.
• What scale am I playin in? Obviously this will have an effect on your terrain; in 28mm a castle will takeup most of the table, in 6mm it will be considerably smaller and there will be plenty of room around it for troops to manouver.
  
• How dense do I want the terrain? Some games need a lot of terrain on the table – urban combat scenarios especially, some work better on a more sparse layout.As a rule, if your game focuses on regiments moving in formation (Like Warhammer), it's best to have a low density so they can get around. If the game uses skirmish order (Like Warhammer 40,000), then you can have dense terrain as the units can change shape to fit.
  
• Where will I store the terrain? A VERY important, although often over looked question. You will damage terrain by storing it poorly, so you need to find someplace safe. Don't make more terrain than you can store, because this will lead to trouble.
• How confident do I feel? (aka: Am I a nutter or not?) If this is going to be your first foray into terrain making, start with something simple to get used to it. If you are a seasoned veteran, then you might want to tackle something totally insane (like a life size replica of Amon-Hen or something)
• What will the ground be like? Do you want to go for rolling grassy fields, rolling muddy fields, ice, snow, lava? This is important because getting all the bases to match is a great way to tie the terrain together. Also, you might want to make the table match the terrain or vica-versa.
• What features do I want? Do you want hills and lakes, or do you want a man-made area?
• What buildings do I want? You may not want any buildings at all, or you may want an entire table load of them, but you need to make a decision.
• What style of terrain? Will the trees be pines, or ball-on-a-stick type trees? Will the water be clear or murky? Will there be rocky outcrops, or craters ripped into the ground by powerful engines of destruction?
• What style of architecture? If you are playing a classic fantasy game set in a medieval world, there's not much point building a super market in concrete and glass, is there? Try to have the architecture match the world, or even better, match your army. Nothing gives home team advantage like personalized terrain!
• What'll it cost? Okay, so you have decided on building a six-foot cube representing the interior of the Dreaded Dungeons of Doom, Death, Destruction, Doom and Death (a firm of demonic attorneys). It's going to have incredible details, be completely carved from high-density foam, adorned with about three hundred miniatures to represent bits of furniture, daemon office workers, prisoners etc, and it'll have central heating. Oh, and you have $7.25 and a used bus ticket as a budget. Some times, you need to work to a budget, and this sounds like one of them.
• Is it practical? Yeah, see above really. Will you have time to make it? Will it be easy to use anyway?
• Is it versatile? Can it be used in more than one way, or will it always be exactly the same? It's okay for a building to always be the same, because you can put it anywhere on the table, but when the whole table is always the same, you quickly learn the best tactics and always use them. It's also good to make terrain that can be used in more than one game system (although this is not always possible if you play both Fantasy and Sci Fi games the buildings will not match!)
  
• Is it useful? Terrain needs to add something to the game. You can make an awesome piece of terrain representing the face of the Arch Nasty Man Grak'Grafnugik carved into the very living countryside like a crop-circle, but since it's basically just open ground there doesn’t seem much point, does there? Unless is offers cover, breaks up lines of advance or lines of sight, or offers an objective, it's not that much use, is it?
• Are people gonna camp in it? Sometimes a piece of terrain offers such great cover and such a fantastic arc of fire without exposing your troops that you just stuff it full and turn it into an impregnable fortress. Okay, so you're happy, but since your opponent didn’t sign up for a siege game, he’s not having much fun. Sometimes terrain unbalances play and you have to think about that.

Now you can start drawing up a plan!

Let's assume you're working in 28mm scale and you have a 6' by 4' table (well, it's a popular scale and table size so it seems reasonable). You'll probably want about six items of terrain for something this size, one item per two square feet of table. Let's have a look at two terrain set plans, which fit into this scenario. First a fairly generic set, and the second somewhat more... interesting.

Generic Fantasy Terrain set:
Ground cover: Green static grass.
Items:

• Two medium sized hills, about 40cm by 30cm each.
• Two woods, about 30cm by 20cm each with removable trees.
• One small lake, about 20cm by 20cm.
• One small ruin, about 20cm by 20cm.

Okay, this is all fairly simple. You have two hills, which will add some elevation to the field of battle allowing you to get good fields of fire for artillery. You have a pair of woods to slow troops down and provide cover (the trees are removable so that you can place units in the woods easily). You have a small lake, which can either be imposable or difficult to cross depending on your taste, and you have a ruin which can function in a similar way to the lake, but can also provide cover. Many a gamer has started playing on a setup like this, and many a happy gamer has continued to play on just such a battlefield.

Sorcerous Wastes terrain set.
Ground cover: Dark brown dirt.
Items:

• Two floating hills – chunks of rock ripped from the earth and floating in the high magic fields in the area. 30Cm by 40cm.
• River of blood, consisting of six 30cm long straight sections including two crossing points and four 45 degree curves, each 15cm long.
• Arcane monument about 20cm by 20cm.
• Two mutated woods about 20cm by 30cm each with removable trees.

Okay, this is actually very similar to the previous entry, you still have two woods and two hills, but they look a lot different. This is obviously an area of terrific evil and unholy magics, what with the floating hills and rivers of blood. The river is long enough to cross the table lengthwise and is provided with two crossing points so troops can get over it easily. You can play it as impassable except at these points, or merely difficult to cross except at these points, it's up to you. The arcane monument is a small building, which would block lines of site and advance. This terrain set would really look the business and would not be much harder to build than the generic set above.

Now that you have a plan, it might be an idea to draw up some sketches of the various items involved or look for pictures of similar things online. There are plenty of great sites, which have inspirational terrain on them, but don’t forget to check out real world examples as well (where you can!) I find that model railway magazines and site can be very inspirational; some of those guys make awesome terrain for thier railways!

Stuff wot yoo need:

Tools wot yoo need:

A Knife: So you can cut stuff. Remember, the knife is sharp and hurty. Grot sez “Orlways be careful.”

A ruler: So you can draw an’ cut strait lines. Get one of dem steel ones so yoo don’t cut it up by mistook.

Pencils an’ pens an’ stuff: So you an draw stuff.

Gloo: So you can stick stuff. You need PVA an’ super glue.

A hot gloo gun: So you can stick stuff faster.

Paint brushes: So yoo can paint stuff.

Tools wot you might need:

A saw: So you can cut big stuff. Saws are also sharp and hurty. Grot sez “Orlways be careful.”

Sandpaper: So you can smooth out rough stuff.

A Drill: So yoo can make holes in stuff.

A Spatula: So yoo can spred stuff like plaster around.

A vice an’ clamps: So yoo can hold stuff.

A Hammer: So you can hit stuff. Grot sez: “hitting stuff iz fun until you hits yourself.”

Uvver stuff wot yoo need:

A place to work: so yoo have a place to work. Grot sez: “Lot’s of terrain stuff is really messy so yoo need to clean up if yoo iz working on the dinner table.”

A cutting mat: So yoo don’t cut up your place to work.

Bright light: So yoo can see wot you are doing.

A place to put stuff yoo have builted: So you have a place to put it.

A place to put the stuff yoo iz building stuff out of: So you don’t lose it.

Saftey:

Grot Sez: “Remember to orlways be careful wiv your tools cause lots of them is really hurty. Orlways cut away from yourself an’ keep your fingers out ov the way. An’ don’t stick yourself to stuff wiv gloo.”