Pegasus Sandbags and my Improvised Military Base

I picked up a couple packs of Pegasus Hobbies Sandbag packs to create an improvised military base for an Episode of Maxed Out my science fiction Savage Worlds game.  I picked up a set of "Straights" and a set of "Corners".  Each set was $20.00 a piece.  I really like these.  They are nicely detailed and finished and they are ready to use out of the box.  I think they worked well in this situation.

Infinity Terrain Challenge: Apartment Building WIP

Last night I glued corrugated cardboard rectangles inside two of the plastic crates then I glued the crates together to make one apartment building.  I used Aleen's Tacky Glue which seems to have bonded fairly well.  I would suggest a tacky craft glue over a regular PVA glue or perhaps some wood glue for this.  The cardboard will provide a base for me to glue details on like doors, windows, and tech bits.  Normally I would try and make a building like this playable and use clear plastic for windows and add floors and doors but this is suppose to be a simple and cheap terrain project aimed at new players so I decided that would be too complicated.    

 I picked up a few more supplies at Dollar Tree.  Six plastic crates, some floral wire, and two packages of plastic hair curlers for bits.  This cost another $5.41 so I am now up to a grand total of $53.49 on the project so far.  I still want to pick up a package or two of ping pong balls but after this I think the rest of my budget will be paint.

 I glued some rectangles of poster board inside the green crates.  This will be a penthouse or equipment storage area on the roof of the apartment.

 I constructed the roof from the foamcore I picked up at Dollar Tree.  I left enough of the lip so I could position miniatures on the roof and give them some cover.

 Here is a shot of the whole building as it is right now.  I only have 3-4 hours of work in it so far and since this is my prototype I expect the others to go much faster.

Here is a closeup shot of the roof with my Ariadna.  I got a little close on the sides but they still fit just fine.  My goal is to get this building done tomorrow and also get the other apartment buildings to this level.

Infinity "How low can you go?" terrain challenge: Layout and stuff

 I'm working on the Layout of my main buildings for my infinity terrain challenge table.  I think I'm going to go with two factories instead of the strip mall The boxes I'm using just as a general guideline.  There will be streets and the factory yards will be fenced in and there will be a lot of things in them.  I'm also going to fence in a "parking area behind the workers dormitories and I'm going to have advertisements and planters running down the middle of the streets to break up those large kill zones.
 

Here is a shot of some of my minis next to the crates to show their scale.  Not all of the openings will be windows.  I'm going to block some of them off and add some tech bits and doors of course.

I picked up a couple packages of cheap razors and plastic cloths pins at the Dollar General for adding details.  They were each a dollar so it was about $4.20 with tax which brings my total up to $48.08.  That's almost half of my target goal and I still have some other expenses to look at.  Hopefully I'll stay on target.  

Infinity "How low can you go" terrain challenge. Supplies!

I've started my Infinity Terrain “How low can you go?” challenge and I'm already at $43.88 US For my supply cost. I do however have most of the things I plan to use for the table that I am not going to make from recycled junk. I'm trying to keep the terrain set under $100.00 and I hope to go lower if I can manage it. I'm going to need to leave some budget for some more paint and a few other bits.

I went to three stores today and this is how it broke down:

Lowe's: I picked up a 4'x8' sheet of 3/16^th inch masonite (MDF) board which they cut into two 4'x4' sections for $13.99. I am planning on using one section for my table top and one section for basing some of my other terrain elements and possibly for streets.

Walmart: I picked up four cans of cheap store brand spray paint. Two cans of primer grey cost $1.38 each and two cans of flat black cost $0.96 each. I also bought a package of cork tiles that cost $5.94 and some plastic canvas “Granny Grating” for $2.97. The total at Walmart with tax was $14.76.

Dollar Tree: Everything at Dollar Tree cost a dollar except the two sheets of poster board that cost $0.50 each so I'm not going to break down the prices. I picked up two sheets of poster board, two packets of alphabet and number stickers, eight plastic crates, and four sheets of foamcore even though I was only charged for three. My total cost was $15.13.

I'm going to use the foamcore to build a small factory or two and a three or four building strip mall as well as using it for other details on the crate buildings. If I can work it in I'm going to go for a small park as well.

As I pointed out I'm going for an Ariadna industrial city look. I'll probably draw from Russian sources for my inspiration.       

Infinity Terrain Challenge "How low can you go?"

I posted this terrain challenge on the Infinity terrain forum just a little bit ago.
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I was thinking about the recent thread “Terrain as a hindrance to new players?” which is about how hard it is to set up an economical table full of terrain and I was thinking that making a simple 4'x4' table full of terrain that is as economical as possible would be a good forum challenge.

If you would like to participate here are the rules:

Contest ends on the last day of November.

You must start with nothing. Not even a table surface. Pretend you are not a miniature gamer. No finished buildings or even a finished table top. No finished hills ect.

Track the cost of everything you spend putting the table together. You can use existing materials and bits if you can show the cost of those materials and bits.

Using free bits like recycled junk from packaging is perfectly acceptable and encouraged.

Use simple techniques. Please no resin casting or techniques requiring complicated tools. Exacto knives, rulers, tape, glues, paints and other easy to find and use tools are encouraged.

At the end of the challenge the table must be finished. Everything must be painted and ready to play on.

Post pics of your progress in this thread or link your progress thread or blog.

Starting Now! Good luck!

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Here is a link to my thread if you wish to participate:

http://www.infinitythegame.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=13786

The City of Tomorrow

I don't hate Warhammer 40,000 but I do hate what it has done to 28mm science fiction gaming.  Everywhere I look on line I see the "Dark Gothic" aesthetic passed off as futuristic or sci-fi.  To me there is nothing less futuristic than a 12th century design style.  I'm planning on starting a new category on this blog where I feature actually futuristic looking 28mm gaming products and gamer projects that I plan to call "The City of Tomorrow".

Primitive Tech Buildings

 We finished up some of our primitive tech buildings this weekend.  We plan to use them for several locations around Station 42.  We have been using them in some of our Station 42 War games but they weren't done yet.  We added doors and finished the "tech" bits.  We have at least four more of the hose size buildings and a larger factory sized building for this set that still have quite a bit left to be done.  We also plan to make more tech bits to go on the outside and on top of the buildings.  The idea is that we can switch the bits up and get some good variety out of the set up.