Terrain (Pic heavy)...

This first part is non hobby related so you might want to skip down a bit.

I mentioned in my last post I had some real world things to do about the house which has kept me off the blog and away from my paint station. We are having a pergola put up out the back of our house to provide some much needed shaded areas coming into the summer which will be ideal for barbies and entertaining. We are also planning to replace all of our fencing as our old fences are currently falling in where the ground has shifted and some concrete poured by a neighbour has moved over against the uprights. Aside from the obvious aim of fixing the fallen in part of the fence line, we are also having the height of the fence increased which will allow for more privacy out the back, and was also a condition my missus set before we were allowed to get a dog. Part of the process involved removing some of my existing garden which would have impeded the fitting of a new fence, but also allows me to refresh what had become quite a tired backyard.

My mam and dad came round over the last 2 days and gave me a hand to rip out some of the old growth and mulch most of it down which has been returned to the compost bin and garden, and to take the remainder to the green waste dump for conversion into council mulch.


I now have some nice open space out the back. I will be partially paving a section of it in front of my tool shed, and planting another citrus tree in the other bit. My missus is currently tossing up between a mandarin or a tangerine tree. Dad got a bit carried away pruning the lemon tree (previously thought to be a lime tree) and I seem to have lost half a tree, but he assures me it will come good through the spring.


I still have a bit of work to do including pulling out another three bushes, and trimming down my Spitisporum hedge prior to the installation of the pergola. The bushes will need to wait until after September when I get back from some holidays, but I will be getting onto the Spitisporum on Friday. I also need to paint the gutters and eaves before the pergola is put in.

All this outdoor pruning, shaping and excavation got me in the mood for some terrain building for my games table.

I already have some cities of death (CoD) buildings and craters for the board, but there is a lot of open spaces about the board which I needed to fill with scatter terrain. Looking over Dice Rollas 'Sector 7G' and how tight and confined his board is looking, and flicking through the 'How to Make Wargames Terrain' (a really cool book which I encourage any terrain builders to have a flick through) I figured I would have a go at some smaller scatter pieces.

GW have put out some nice Ork and CoD ruined barricades, and many other companies have some nice resin pieces, but they all come in quite expensive. Adz had given me some MDF board, and I went through my bits boxes and looked at some gear I had lying around and figured I would just put stuff together and see what I got. I whipped out my dads jigsaw and had at it.


The first pieces I tried were a bit meh. The sandbags could have been another level higher, and the presence of the tank trap/lamp post doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at them as a piece (ie they don't tell a story), but they gave me a good starting point.


I knocked out a small fuel dump and a 'pumping' station complete with techies tool box (I imagine he was working at the station when the first shells landed and he had no time to collect up his tools before he legged it).


I have 2 stands of razor wire which were dead easy to knock up and I think I will make a few more of these.

I then made some rubble piles.


The first one has a dead Marine buried in it using a shoulder pad and helmet. Simple and effective. He will be painted up in my Chapter colours and might come in useful for objective games.


The second one went a bit bigger, and was built more like one of GW's barricades. I tried to get across the idea of a hurried Guard command post or rally point.


The final piece I made is still WIP. It is going to be a fountain when I find a suitable main feature. I will put in some water effect puddles and maybe a floating canteen or some sort of detritus of war.

I still want to do some pillars which I plan on putting my old second ed Marines (the ones holding their Bolters across their chests) on top which I will set up as a colonnade leading to the fountain, or the front of the church.

It's been fun building these little pieces up using nothing but the stuff I have lying around and which cost me nothing. The missus wasn't too please to find me spreading the build process outside of the allotted hobby space and she got that glazed eye look when I started explaining to her what i was doing.

I have been listening to Iron Maiden while building these pieces and their track 'Clansman' has me itching to paint up this Reaper mini.


I am going to try to find some time this week to get him started but work is starting to ramp up again following EoFY. It's tax time in Australia at the minute and there is a big push for increased productivity and output. The overseers are all cracking their whips demanding more widgets be counted so I have found myself stuck at work later than I usually like to be and am fair knackered when I get in. I will see how I get on. I also want to try to get a game or 2 in.

That's it then - that's where I've been and what I have been doing. Hope all your hobby time has been productive.

Cheers all,

Pom