[Charax]

Hello!

Remember me?

Well, during the 'Clave's recent DNS-related downtime I managed to get my hands on some nostalgia:


Now, these things are awful. I think they're made of expanded foam, they have very few details and some parts are very obviously cast from old GW kits

...which is possibly why they're so rare, nobody wanted them the first time round, so now they're OOP there aren't many in the wild.

Now, I am in something of a dilemma. It's super rare, expensive and looks like ass, so do I:
 - Keep it as-is, for nostalgia?
 - Mod the hell out of it, trying to bring it kicking and screaming up to the standards of wargaming terrain in 2020?

The intention is to have this ready for Salute, either way. I have some ideas on modifications that I could do:
 - LEDs. Lights are awesome and pretty easy to add
 - Extra detailing. I have some molds from GreenStuffWorld to add pipes and control panels that would help break up some of the large, flat surfaces.
 - Rebasing. I'm thinking of cutting the building away from the rubble and rebasing it on MDF, that will give me some ambient space around the building to add some contextual scatter.
 - Posters. I love seeing little posters on terrain, and I'm sure there are loads out there

So, what do people think? keep as-is (I'm repainting it, at least!) or go nuts?

[TheNephew]

I think as long as the iconic recognisable outline stays, a little kicking and screaming is fine.

Presumably the foam isn't really tough enough to go without a base?

I'm a big fan of having stuff at this scale sans base so there's no clash with the table, and models can fit in the awkward 28mm-scale walkways on a lit of terrain.
But, as was revealed in the first couple of Concalve meets I attended, it's also grossly impractical.

Otherwise posters and lights and greeble sounds solid.

[gpemby]

Go nuts! Definitely go to town on making it look unique but much better!

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, obviously a lot of the point of having it is the nostalgia, so I'd say that you should stop short of "mod the hell out of it", but at the same time, better terrain leads to more impressive and immersive games.

As long as it still feels like someone could look at it and recognise it as being original Inquisitor terrain, then that's probably in about the right ball park.

With that in mind, LED lighting may be going too far. I would say that bringing it up to modern standards is something separate to making it look modern. It may depend how it's done, but LED lighting could potentially trick people into discounting it as something more recent - but extra surface detailing and the like are less likely to do so.
(I'm sure most people don't remember exactly how detailed it was, but they probably do know it didn't come with glowy LEDs).

[Charax]

I think as long as the iconic recognisable outline stays, a little kicking and screaming is fine.

Presumably the foam isn't really tough enough to go without a base?

It's relatively durable, I guess. I mean, it's lasted a few decades already

Well, obviously a lot of the point of having it is the nostalgia, so I'd say that you should stop short of "mod the hell out of it", but at the same time, better terrain leads to more impressive and immersive games.

As long as it still feels like someone could look at it and recognise it as being original Inquisitor terrain, then that's probably in about the right ball park.

With that in mind, LED lighting may be going too far. I would say that bringing it up to modern standards is something separate to making it look modern. It may depend how it's done, but LED lighting could potentially trick people into discounting it as something more recent - but extra surface detailing and the like are less likely to do so.
(I'm sure most people don't remember exactly how detailed it was, but they probably do know it didn't come with glowy LEDs).

Hmm. I don't think LEDs would ruin the nostalgic aspect of it, although it does introduce other complications, like batteries. I thought LEDs might bring some attention to it, so people go "ooh blinky lights....oh that looks familiar....oh it's THAT piece of terrain"

Just realised I'd forgotten to mention why I named it Safehouse 13

Well, it's normally marketed as a hab or bunker, but it's not really big enough to inhabit and pretty small for a bunket. The ammo crates and reinforced crates would make it a good bolthole for Inquisition agents that are operating nearby (inspired in no small part by a section of the VOIP campaign where we found ourselves hunkering down in the middle of a full scale gang war/rebellion/military coup)

So the idea is that this is a small bolthole of a type that are scattered throughout major cities in the Imperium, stocked with ammunition and supplies for agents to use in the field. pretty nondescript, barely bigger than a shed but able to turn the tide of an encounter of a team can get there in time.

If the safehouse is intact

Thirteen wasn't so fortunate. While a group of acolytes made it there and holed up inside for a while, eventually the defences were breached and the safehouse was abandoned. Now it's just another ruined building that was the site of a long-forgotten conflict, no use to anyone and its supplies long-since looted.

Or is it? Safehouse 13 is still an Inquisition facility, and has its own secrets. Have all the supplies been looted? does something vital still lie buried in its cogitators? perhaps it can rescue its reputation by serving as a defensible position for a new group of Inquisition assets...

[MarcoSkoll]

Well, it's normally marketed as a hab or bunker, but it's not really big enough to inhabit and pretty small for a bunker.

Given the back cabin on a traditional narrowboat is about 6 foot by 8 foot , and that was expected to sleep at least two (if not a couple of kids too), plus store their food, clothes, fuel for the stove (and the stove!), etc... I imagine the Imperium probably considers it fairly generous accommodation.

In any case, I wouldn't make the piece too specifically any kind of building - partly because safehouses are obviously a lot less good as safehouses when they're obviously safehouses, and partly because it is good to have some flexibility. (The main reason why I went with a fairly non specific black/red colour scheme for my 54mm Rhino - it works for a lot of organisations, so it didn't restrict what it could be used for too much).

[Dosdamt]

Definitely repaint it! It deserves a decent lick of paint. It’s a very interesting, kinda ugly thing... Adding some odds and ends of details wouldn’t destroy the look too much.

[Charax]

Well, I certainly have added a lick of paint to it! Undercoated the main building black and doing the walls in various shades of grey (I purposefully didn't mix it completely so it wouldn't be a single uniform colour)

At the moment it's drying after a judicious application of grey mixed with Crackle medium on the outer walls - I don't have much use for the stuff on models, but the effect on large flat surfaces is amazing - the thing is starting to look like it's been abandoned to the ravages of time for a couple of decades


(Dry on the right, wet on the left)

This also fulfils my desire to update the techniques used on it - crackle medium wasn't really a thing in Wargaming when this piece was released, but it certainly benefits from it! thinking of digging out some of my weathering powder and giving it a go.

Current plans:
 - Do something with the top edges, they're too "Clean". I could build a roof but A) I'm too lazy and B) it wouldn't really give enough headroom anyway. I do have a lot of structure paste though (think GW Astrogranite but white and with - I think - bigger particles), so I could add debris with that
 - weathering powder. There are lots of vents that can be covered in soot, some areas that can be rusted
 - detailing! I'll cast up some greebles this weekend

One advantage of repainting this piece is you get to know all the bits and pieces of it - like the hatch on the inside. I happen to know Zinge Industries do a round hatch that looks rather nice...

[MarcoSkoll]

Looks good. How difficult do you find the crackle medium to work with? I'm lead to believe that the results very much depend on how thickly it's applied, but I'm not actually sure how that adds to the challenge of getting the right look.

(That said, I also have no idea about weathering powder, which definitely has been around a long time as a concept...)

[Charax]

It's...tricky. I don't claim to have mastered it at all and I certainly wouldn't risk it on a model scale, but it's fine for work like this

Apply it too thinly and it'll barely crack...apply it too thickly and you'll only get huge cracks, or it'll take so long to dry that you'll barely see any
I've found that placing it under a heat lamp results in a nice mix of large and small cracks, and here I've mixed it with the paint, where some guides I've seen say to put it it on top of the paint. Some parts have "Crackled" so much they've taken multiple layers of paint off and will need touching up

[Charax]

Update time!

It's been a little while but I've made a lot of progress, which is good seeing as it's intended to be ready for Salute in a month

Main updates:
Colour!

Rather than sticking to a mostly greyscale palate I've added some red flooring and painted the grates blue (I believe those ammo crates were traditionally painted green)

Crackle!

The crackle effect is a little more severe than I intended, in places stripping the paint back to the bare undercoat, but I think it still works

Posters!


Added a couple of propaganda posters I found online, I think it could probably use a few more. I was going to include some pinups but as I said, this is intended for use at Salute so I kept it family-friendly. they look wet because they're covered in 'ardcoat waiting to dry

Cables!

The original model had a ladder going up the side which was, frankly, stupid. the terrain never had a roof so the ladder never went anywhere. To remedy this I sliced it off and sanded down the area, then replaced it with generic electrical cabling that I cast from some GreenStuffWorld molds. It keeps the area as an accent without being too out of place (needs painting)

Overall I'm happy with the progress I've made. Need to get off my ass and order the bulkhead lights I want to use, and cast up some computer terminals but otherwise the project is definitely nearing completion

[Dosdamt]

That’s looking awesome mate!

[Inquisitor_Snarf]

Beautiful

[TheNephew]

That looks great.
The crackle worked really well, as did the interior weathering.
Can you take a couple of shots of the whole thing?

[Charax]

Can you take a couple of shots of the whole thing?

Not a problem!














It's looking increasingly unlikely Salute is going ahead, but I'll try and get the building finished, regardless. I need to get some devlan mud or something for the ground areas...