Desert Table: Cheap Terrain How-To

It totally matches the patio!

Last time I introduced my new sand terrain table. Today I'll show you how I did it, and discuss how I plan to expand on this.

Desert Table

One of the projects I have been working on of late has been a sand/desert terrain table. A recent lucky find of several sheets of 4ft x 8ft MDF boards being discarded as a part of a local home remodel in my neighborhood tipped me over the edge and into action. As was with the case of the portable game table, this table would need to scale between 15mm and 28 (and now 32 mm!) figures. Thankfully desert is not difficult to do this with. This is a classic style table, with glued sand painted with several layers of paint.
So these pics are of a nearly complete table; there are still a few more things I want to polish off before I consider this table Done. As it stands, I have two 3ft by 4ft sections of table surface, enough terrain to cover 1/4 of it. The matching terrain pieces are some hills, a 15mm scale desert dwelling, and some amorphous blob pieces for area terrain or at least adding some variety to an endless sea of sand.

This terrain will primarily serve as the sands of North Africa for my Flames of War 7th Armoured Division. I have nearly completed a small house at this scale that can serve as cover and objective, and have a second one cut from styrofoam.

While I get my build tutorial in order, please enjoy the pics of the (really close to being done) table.
(So of course with a new terrain set, I had to try out some of my favorite figures on it...)

This house will probably get one more highlight drybrush to bring it a little closer to white.

Perry Brothers Madhists

Rangers and Delta from Skirmish Sangin's Maalinti Rangers set

15mm Shermans in 7th Armoured service.

Looking for droids in all the wrong places.

Raid on Scarif

Star Wars Legion: First Squads

I really love these sculpts!

Since Fantasy Flight Games' announcement last August, I had eagerly awaited the release of their new system set in my favorite fandom: Star Wars Legion.

Technically speaking, my first introduction to the world of miniatures painting and gaming was the old West End Games Star Wars figures from the mid 1990s. I used to eagerly pick up a pack from Disneyland on my yearly trip there (the only place I knew how to find them), and paint them up as best a 10 year old could using Testor's enamels and plastic modelling brushes. (They were made of real lead, too as I recall).

For comparison to the new figures. Painted by Adult Ben, in the style that Kid Ben aspired to.

It was during a period of renewed interest that the announcement for Legion dropped. I had just completed some repaints and new figures from the WEG line for the Lead Painter's League. (Two of these figures had been from my original set back in 1991, and the remainder were acquired through thrift shop finds of the old Monopoly games that used these figures as tokens but I digress).

Though I will always love the original models, I was immediately in love with the new sculpts. Waiting unitl the following April reminded me of the weeks leading up to Christmas as a kid, and I hung on every announcement hoping to hear they were finally releasing the game. (In anticipation fo the game I built the Bandai offering for the AT-ST in a very close scale. Look for a post on this in the near future!) Despite the interminable wait, I found myself a bit undecided when I actually had them in-hand, especially when it came to basing scheme and what the Rebels would wear. (It was never up for debate that I'd do my Imperials in their screen uniforms).

At time of posting it is still before Labor Day, so this paint scheme is OK. Also note that while painting white is difficult, photographing it is much more challenging!

I will probably go into more detail on the basing tests, but I had originally aimed for a Scarif set. However, I was unhappy with my test bases, and found myself adopting a similar base to the one I tried on some Warhammer 40K Tau . (Tutorial here) In Star Wars context, it plays out to be the temple ruins on Yavin IV. (Since head canon does matter to me, it makes sense to set my games here since we know from Ep V's opening scrawl that at some point the rebels were forced out of this base)

For the Rebel troops, I wanted to something based on the Original Trilogy or Rogue One. The first squad takes its inspiration from the Battle of Endor, but from the cutting room floor. There had been some rebel troopers acting as crew aboard the Millennium Falcon, that did not make it to the final cut of the film. They were basically in the same uniforms as the strike team that went down to take out the shield generator, but without the sprayed camouflage. I feel the uniforms here get the general look of the rebels, while remaining a little more flexible as to their theatre of operation. Of course I'll probably do a squad in the Endor greens.

Thanks for reading; I will have more updates to share soon, including some tutorials and terrain building.

Miniature Tourism at Bunker Hill

I could have cropped the display case out, but how often are you photobombed by a Brown Bess? We need to embrace these moments.

For those patient readers who still bear with me, I would like to share a bit of modelling tourism. I recently had the opportunity to travel for work which found me in the wonderfully historic town of Boston. Much of what I visited was not only up my alley, but was in fact my whole alley.

One of the must-see spots for any American History fan is the memorial on top of Breed's Hill. I impulsively climbed the stairs inside the obelisk only to be harried by an encroaching high school class the whole 294 sweaty steps up. On my return to ground level, a park ranger directed me to a converted library across the street where there were some exhibits about the famous battle. They warned me that it was largely in miniature.

The exhibit was something to behold! The main attraction was about a 10ft x 20ft interactive diorama of the entire battle done with 15mm figures on a huge scenic topographical map. An audio program played while dynamic lighting showed the progression of the battle and simulated the flashes of battalion fire.

I really liked the work they did on the redoubt, and was proud that the didn't present a sanitized version of the battle, but had casualties covering the ground between the two sides.

 The lines of redcoats advancing across the terrain was just incredible. While the diorama depicted events while the colonists' ammunition was still holding out, you got the overwhelming sense of an inevitable British victory as the Regulars came wave after wave.

There were also some smaller dioramas done in other scales to show both a more human view inside the redoubt...

...as well as a broader view of Boston Harbor and Charlestown during the engagement.

Well, I'm feeling inspired to get back into my Revolution figures!

Overdue Updates

After a prolonged hiatus, I believe I am ready to reenter the blogging world, if perhaps not as frequently as I once did.

Over the past 21 months, a lot has changed for me. I took part in a great adventure to the Bicentennial of Waterloo where I came within yards of meeting the Perry Brothers, and not know untilI got home and saw their picture of my unit on Facebook. Shortly after, I went through a career change from printer to professor, and then summer 2016 saw the addition of "Dad" to my list of pseudonyms with the arrival of my little daughter.

I continued to paint, though much more sporadically in both time and topic. I was also introduced to the now wildly popular Fantasy Flight Star Wars games X-Wing and Armada, which, being rather resource-light in comparison to my more involved and figure-heavy games, were easier to accommodate into my new schedule. 

Now I look forward to getting back into painting and posting updates of my progress. In between changing diapers and updating my department's curriculum, of course.

Casuatly/Morale Counter Dial Tutorial

I am into miniature wargaming for definitively aesthetic reasons, and prefer to create the illusion of an actual scene on the tabletop. To represent complex battlefield conditions and the less tangible aspects of the battles, such as morale and command coherency, one must either get heavy into the bookkeeping aspects of the games or use visual markers to note these conditions. Instead of my usual default of dice, I have gone about creating my own dial counters.

AWI British Command Group

As you may have glimpsed in the flag tutorial, I have finished work on the command group for the AWI British Marines.