Main Menu

News:

If you are having problems registering, please e-mail theconclaveforum at gmail.com

Marco does something

Started by MarcoSkoll, November 18, 2009, 12:38:40 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

MarcoSkoll

Having been watching Lord Borak building warehouses, I decided it was too long since I'd actually built any terrain.

With the London GT coming up, some iconic Inquisitor terrain that will work well for the event seems kind of an obvious choice... and on that front, I do have a complete collection of old Inquisitor articles.
And so, I've decided to rebuild the terrain from Paul Rudge's old Inquisitor terrain articles (used in the original Paraelix Configuration battle report) - I normally try to be somewhat original with my modelling work, but I can't imagine many people out there still have a version of this terrain made (and if they do, I'm unlikely to ever play a game with them).

In any case, I've already made a fair start on the central "round" house.



I'll be making a few minor alterations to the terrain for various practical reasons, but it should still be recognisable to gamers of a certain age.

Firstly, it's a little smaller than the original.
This is partly because I want to make it usable for both 28mm and 54mm scale. Here, it's about 70%-80% of the size of the original terrain, measuring 40cm across rather than 50cm, and 89mm per floor rather than 125mm. (The slightly odd 89mm figure is because I'm using A2 foamboard. I can cut a board into five 84mm strips across the width, and then there's 5mm for the thickness of the board).
Taller characters will have to watch their heads on the doors at 54mm scale, and 28mm characters will instead have huge industrial portals to pass through, but it should be entirely usable at both scales.

The other reason for this is that it needs to be easily transportable in a suitcase or the like, as I mainly get to events by train, so vast buildings are a bit of a problem.

And as part of keeping it portable, I'm redesigning it a little to be collapsible:


If I do the marble obelisk from the original, that will also be optional, partly to facilitate storage/transport (by letting things be stowed in the middle of the room), and partly to allow the building to be used as things other than just a chapel to Chaos. Without that, you've got the opportunity to put control panels around the room to turn it into a command centre or industrial master room.
Or chairs could turn it into a (small) forum or council room, with space for the speaker in the middle.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

realitybytes16

That is fantastic dude.

It's impressive that you've managed to make it collapsible for transport. What materials have you used? Foam board?

Lord Borak

Looking very good Marco!!! Glad that I have inspired some more terrain shenanigans :D

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: realitybytes16 on March 18, 2018, 01:24:59 PMWhat materials have you used? Foam board?
The main structure is foam board, as in the original article. I didn't see any reason to do it any differently, as it's lightweight, cheap and sturdy.

The railings are rabbit hutch mesh (again, as in the original article). Finding the right style of mesh (1/2" x 1" welded mesh) in something that wasn't a huge roll of the stuff was a bit more of a pain, but after a bit of searching, I found B&Q sell it in roughly 2'x3' panels.
(They won't however deliver it, so I had to take a trip out, but the article also recommends textured wallpaper for adding some detail to surfaces, and it was always going to be best to take a look at that in person).

There's some parts where I'm going to have to diverge from the article though, as I don't have access to a stupidly large supply of old metal Vindicator sensor arrays or plastic tank traps...

QuoteIt's impressive that you've managed to make it collapsible for transport.
What I've done so far isn't staggeringly difficult. It's mostly just a case of making each layer separate, which mostly means a bit more reinforcement for the bottom layer so it had some structure of its own.

The trickier bit is going to be picking the right shapes for buildings so the board has a full "Russian doll" effect where different buildings can be stacked inside each other.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

Just a quick update on the terrain, as I've shortly got to go out.

You might have noticed before that the roundhouse was missing the "nooks" in the lower level - this was deliberate, as they'd inhibit the building being able to collapse down for transport. However, I now have three cubbyholes:


Which magnetise into place:


And which nest into each other for transport. (The plan is they will eventually fit into the lift shaft for maximum compactness)


Also, have a picture of some of the other resources I've been collecting:


Various tin cans for making silos and oil tanks out of (the advantage of having two sizable dogs - a Labrador and a Labrador cross - is that large food tins collect quite quickly if you stop throwing them out), 22mm solder-ring couplings (good for oil drums, but I might need to get some 15mm ones to better suit 28mm), and a wide assortment of 15mm copper fittings for making piping for the tanks. (15mm copper pipe not shown here, but I have large lengths around from projects from one of my other hobbies)

I haven't yet made a final decision on whether to glue these fittings together permanently, or make them into a modular set that can be used to connect tanks together in varying ways.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

mcjomar

Looking pretty good.
I'm left wondering what the pipe bits would look like next to a 28mm model now.
I've been surprised before at how 28mm and 54mm scenery sometimes scale up/down so well. Of course, sometimes not so much.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

MarcoSkoll

The 22mm couplings are about the same height as a 28mm miniature. Not unthinkably huge if they were barrels intended to be moved by a power loader, but big enough not to be interesting terrain that characters can duck behind and shoot over.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

Again, I have to go out, so only a short update.

I've started on the shape of the lift shaft:


As you can see, it has a cut out down the back in order that it can be laid flat as part of collapsing it for storage/transport:


I'm prioritising portability here, but this is causing a possible issue.
I'd like to make the doors on the terrain openable for immersion and to make it easier to photograph dramatic moments in the game. While a moving lift isn't practical (sorry), building the lift with the car at both the top and bottom of the shaft is feasible.

However, doing this as simply as possible means that this cutout will mean that the car will need to be slightly smaller at the bottom than at the top. I don't think this will be too immersion breaking (I doubt it will be massively visible from any angle you're likely to view it), but I am putting that out to you lot. I can think of ways to modify the design so that both the top and bottom of the shaft were the same size (or closer to it), but it would add time and complexity to the build and I'm not sure if it's worth it.

Anyway, there is of course also a "complete" picture, in which it's starting to look reasonably like the original article.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

Starting to add actual detail beyond the basic shape - the building's various structural reinforcements, as well as textured wallpaper to give a more interesting look to the surface:


S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Lord Borak

Looking much better now that the detail is being put on. Will you be putting on lashings of rivets? They seem awfully prevalent of GW models. I'm actually thinking about building one of these myself now!!!

Van Helser

Really coming together nicely.  The best part is how you're planning the portability of the design.  I have had in the back of my mind that magnets would be a very useful aid for terrain building for a long time.  It would increase modularity for one, and allow the stacking of buildings and ladders safely.  I have felt for a while that having verticality in Inquisitor would make games in small homes feasible, and add a whole other layer of tactics to games. 

Ruaridh

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: Lord Borak on March 22, 2018, 08:41:21 AMWill you be putting on lashings of rivets?
I haven't decided yet. The original article didn't do it on the buildings to save time and effort (it was only used on the silos and tanks), and I'm inclined to think somewhat similarly. There's only so much time left before the LGT, and the work might be better put into something else.

(For example, I have thoughts about getting hold of a mini plasma ball and making a plasma generator).

Quote from: Van Helser on March 22, 2018, 02:18:17 PMI have had in the back of my mind that magnets would be a very useful aid for terrain building for a long time.  It would increase modularity for one, and allow the stacking of buildings and ladders safely.
I wouldn't exactly call these magnets structural. They're enough to keep things in place so they're not a loose nuisance when trying to position terrain, but they won't take any real weight.

In this case, the top and bottom halves of this building use pins to keep them aligned - these are also quicker to install, if less convenient to use in the end. Although they don't automatically lock into place, it's not possible to do stupid things like put pins in back to front so they repel each other.
(Yes, I did have to fix several magnets after I messed up - I got one magnet back to front at some point, which was then the magnet I used to check which way around the others should be...).

QuoteI have felt for a while that having verticality in Inquisitor would make games in small homes feasible, and add a whole other layer of tactics to games.
That's an interesting thought. I've not played an Inquisitor game on a table with a significant vertical element in some time. Sure, sometimes someone has gone up a floor or two, but with no walkways, they've not then usually got much choice other than to come down again, whereas here they may have the option to cross large portions of the board.

The lessons I've learnt from Infinity have encouraged me to plan more cover for the rooftops than in the original version of this board (otherwise two characters on the roofs are going to have pretty straight lines of fire at each other).
That will probably include another level of smaller buildings to fit on top of the main ones, where characters trade off manoeuvrability (not having any walkways to use at that level) for a more imposing position.
(Such things were actually mentioned in the original articles, but I think it wasn't put into practice for the battle report).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

mcjomar

I like verticality in gaming - I've used it plenty for necromunda (using some robogear terrain), and obviously infinity (to one degree or another).
For 28mm Inquisitor it's fairly straightforward to solve for (again, the cheap robogear clip-together terrain works wonders), but for 54mm it can be a little more fiddly (although again, the robogear terrain is workable here too).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfix-Robogear-Hexagon-AirFix/dp/B000S0PCLY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521793399&sr=8-1&keywords=robogear

The Hexagon terrain is fantastic at 28mm - you can possibly get it cheaper elsewhere though.
I've got a cake tin full of this (with bits left over) and it can rapidly fill out the necessary space for a necromunda/Inq28 game including walkways and cover. If I had 2-3 tins of the stuff I'd have so many layers of terrain for a 28mm game. It might work (the pieces are just barely able to handle a 54mm piece, but it's cramped) at the larger scale. I'd just be wary of putting a heavy 54mm piece of metal on a thin plastic walkway. A little less concerning with a single piece model, or a "suspiciously light" variant.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Cortez

Sadly Warhammer World got rid of a lot of it's older terrain pieces so we lost the old multilevel towers and walkways we used to use.

The new Sector Mechanicus stuff though has a lot of potential to provide some interesting height and walkways and works really well at inquisitor scale. Unfortunately it's a bit pricey so I've not got much of it yet.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: Cortez on March 23, 2018, 01:49:45 PMSadly Warhammer World got rid of a lot of it's older terrain pieces so we lost the old multilevel towers and walkways we used to use.
It was a sad loss, although as I think those towers were originally intended for Necromunda, they did have the slightly annoying problem of the balconies not fitting 40mm bases!

That said, I might well construct some towers like that myself, if I find spare time/foamboard.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles