Six Weeks Out: SnowCon Terrain Prep Underway!

As you  can see, Tyler found our foam quite tasty after a few hours of terrain-ing!

I've spent quite a few hours over the last week fixing up the shop's existing terrain and building new terrain out of styrofoam and toothpicks with the tutelage and help of Tyler Emery.  Yesterday, Tyler and I went to our friendly local big box hardware store (FLBBHS,) and picked up a sheet of 3/4" pink insulation foam, followed up with a trip to the friendly local dollar store (FLDS,) for a lovely set of four "steak knives" and a box of toothpicks. 

Once our shopping spree was complete, we set to cutting, shaping and gluing our creations.  Our mad, mad minds came up with half a dozen new pieces of terrain.   We had to let them dry overnight because the only glue that does not melt styrofoam is Elmers glue, and, as any who graduated kindergarten can tell you, that stuff takes a long time to dry!  Our next step will be to hand paint the base coats and detail onto our new buildings.  Normal spray paint also melts foam, unfortunately.  Step two is a topic for another post, though....

... You didn't think I was done with this post did you?  The joke's on you!  Last Saturday I spent most of the afternoon and evening (until almost 1 AM, in fact) repairing and painting the existing terrain at the shop.  I only got about half of the current buildings done with the help of a few loyal shop-goers.   You can see the progress that we made above.  I wish I had taken a before photo to show the progress, but at best, these buildings were primer black with some hap-hazard dry-brushing work.  I am quite happy with how these buildings turned out and I can not wait to start on the other half of them!  I based most of the buildings with Adeptus Battlegray foundation from GW, and then highlighted with Fortress Gray, Bleached Bone, Boltgun Metal, and Dwarf Bronze.

On a complete side note, I would like to thank everyone who has shown interest in attending SnowCon thus far and I hope you are all as excited as I am for what is shaping up to be a lot of fun for everyone involved!  Stay tuned for more hobby/event updates soon.

Operation: "Shock and Awesome," or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Terrain!"

The Mission:  To make my tables look as cool as possible for SnowCon.

With just under two months before the big event, I wanted to get the word out now that I will be making my own terrain with the help of a few friends.  Along with the terrain I will be borrowing from 3 Geek, I am hoping to be able to put together 8ish really awesome and fun tables to play on.  There are a few reason why I want to build more/better terrain.  The first reason being that some of the terrain at the shop is starting to look pretty haggard and worn out.  It seems like every Wednesday one piece of terrain (I am looking at you Cities of Battle buildings) needs to be re-glued and what little paint there was on the piece has worn off.  I think 40k, and war gaming in general, is as much about the cinematic "shock and awesome" that happens when you see really neat terrain being fought over by two nice looking armies!

The second reason I want to add to my pool of available terrain is because I happened to review the pictures of the 40k 'Ard Boyz regional event that 3 Geek Gaming held a few years back.  At the time we thought we were "the poo" for being able to host such a large, cool event.  A few years later, a few years older and wiser in the world of hobby, I came to realize after looking at those photos, just how poorly our shop terrain managed to do the job.  Granted, we have had quite a few new foam buildings and hills donated since then, but still, take a look at the above photo as my open and shut case on why we need more terrain for a larger event!

To put it bluntly, we don't have enough cool, diverse terrain to do the eight or so tables that I have in mind. The next few weeks are going to see me doing nothing but terrain TLC and building new foam creations for you all to fight over.  The best part is that most of the terrain that I make will be donated to the collection at the shop as well.  I am always a fan of city fighting, so expect to see more buildings and urban terrain features... it is the 41st millennium after all!

Until next time,