Station 42 Phase 2

We never really have been happy with the layout of Station 42.  It always felt a bit too linear and didn't really feel like it had enough buildings.  Another issue it had was that there were really no places to land space ships except the edges of the board and a few random spaces in the middle which also served as roadways.  The roadways themselves were very open and long creating long and wide lanes of fire which didn't feel very "urban" in nature.

One of the ideas we had when we did the initial set up was that since most of the building were on stilts they could be easily moved with cranes or VTOLs and placed in other configurations.  Another idea we had was that the station could be expanded on with more buildings and other structures.

So this is the rough layout of what we are doing now in phase 2 of the project.  We now have three large landing pads made from cork tile that I am going to spray pain black dusted with grey to make an asphalt look.  Each landing pad will get a warehouse/office which are shown here using some random buildings from our other terrain sets.  We will be building custom buildings for this purpose ASAP.  We will also be adding 2-3 inch high modular walls around each of the landing pads as we have time to produce them.

We also added some tarmac under many of the buildings to give it a more finished look and make the roadways more apparent.  The smaller adobe buildings will be used as small shops and will get removable signs.  I'm considering making all new shops but I already have these and their construction style ties them into many of the surrounding locations.  I also like the variety they give the station.  

There are also three smaller landing pads.  One in front of Rosie's workshop.  One at the Venture Star complex and one that you can see in the upper right on the table.  We may also add one in the lower right of the table but for now that is going to be the Hell Knights occupation base.

The base will start as a camp but be expanded into something more substantial.  The Hell Knights will also be occupying Rosie's workshop as well as making use of the landing pad in the lower left corner of the table.

We may also remove the NOVA security station and replace it with civilian parking spaces or simply convert it into another business.

I think this layout is far superior to the one we have been using for the station.  It is not only more visually appealing it should provide more interesting play.  
 
In story the idea behind these changes is that Smith and Wilson Agriculture have purchased Station 42 and have made several upgrades to the facility.  The Hell Knights have also become the new security contractors for the station.  NOVA Securities has been fired by the new owners and Rosie has fled the station after she aided the rogue Planetary Guard forces that were defeated in the "Battle of Station 42".  Smith and Wilson began making these changes shortly after the battle.



 

Small sailboat WIP.

I've got the Sailboat mostly finished.  I still have to finish painting it but I've got it far enough along to use in the game today.

Small sailboat for Forgotten Islands Campaign

I'm working on a small sailboat for the Savage Worlds Hyboria Forgotten Islands campaign.  It's a simple construction and should be suitable for a small party for island hopping purposes.  I'll probably be making several boats of this size in addition to some larger ships.
I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out.  I've done fancier ships in the past but I have a lot to build for this campaign and don't have the time to make really complicated models.

More miniatures for Hyborian campaign.

 Just posting a few more minis for my Hyborian campaign.  Above are some slaver NPCs.  I painted the humans and my wife painted the Hyena.

We also did some character upgrades for the PCs to bring them more in line with what they are equipped with.  I won't be doing this every game but I do plan to do upgrades from time to time to represent the PCs as they become more advanced.

Slaver's Raft for Forgotten Island campaign

 I built a raft for the slavers for my next Forgotten Islands Hyborian Adventure game.  I made the whole thing from wooden dowels and craft sticks.

The sail is made from brown grocery bag crumpled and soaked with water that I then dried using a hot iron.  I tried to make the raft big enough to have a small combat aboard but no so large as to look unrealistic.  The ropes holding the sail are paper covered floral wire I painted brown.

Not an overly fancy project but I like the way it turned out.

More Hyborian Adventurers and Slavers

 Just thought I would add a shot of my next group of Hyborian Adventurers.  These are all Reaper minis.  The three in the back are from the Bones line.  The photo isn't as nice as I like because I just hand held the shots and used direct flash.  No time to set up my lighting this afternoon.

Here are some slavers.  These are Servants of Set from Westwind games I think.  From the Chaos in Cairo line.

Ancient Ruins Part 2!

 Well we finally started painting those "Ancient" ruins we put together several months ago.  So far we have only used rattle can spray paint and there is a bit more work we need to do on them but they are almost done.  We've decided we want to leave the ruins bare so we can used them in different environments.

I'm sure we will be expanding the set in the future and adding some raised levels and other details.  We expect to get quite a use out of them for many different settings although we started them for our Conan project in particular.

Painting progress on Hover Tanks and Mech!

I've got the new hover tank for my Hell Knights mostly painted and I've also been painting a mech made from a Transformers toy.  All I have is a wash and some weathering and these will be ready for the table.  I have two more of the tanks I've started working on as well.

Flying Lamborghini for Station 42

A while back I picked up a Hot Wheels "Custom Motors" kit that was about 1/43 scale with an option to create a flying car.  I liked it quite a bit and it turned out looking really nice all painted up.  The only problem was that there was only one model and I was only able to pick up one copy before they were off the shelves.

I really wanted more flying cars so I decided to try and make a few myself from other 1/43 scale cars.  My first attempt is this flying Lamborghini.

Here is the shot of the car with my scratch built repulsor drives.  I made them mostly from different sized zip ties.  The fins are from some super cheep toy airplane party favors I picked up at Dollar Tree.  I stripped the tires off the wheels and took the axles out but used the plastic wheels to fill the wheel wells so the drives stuck out far enough.

 Here is a shot with the drives glued in place.  This was a very tedious process because I just glued them in the empty wells.  On the next one I'm going to glue some thin plastic inside the wheels because the holes where I cut the axles from made it harder to glue the drives in.  The Lamborghini is just a cheap die cast toy I picked up at Dollar General for less than $3.00

I've got a bit more work to do on this.  I'm thinking of adding wings and some other bits.  I kind of feel like the Hot Wheels car looked a bit over done but this one doesn't quite look finished so I think I'm going to add more.

Hell Knights large hover AFV and Drone painted!

 I've had the build on this large hover AFV finished since August but I've just now managed to get it painted. I'm really happy with the paint job but I'm a little disappointed with the Krylon matte varnish I used on it.  I use the Krylon because it's decently priced and because there are several places in town I can pick it up.  Normally it comes out decently flat.  Not as flat as Testorss but usually flat enough.  Every now and again thought I get a can that comes out more satin the flat in nature.  I'll definitely be varnishing it again with Testors when I get another can.  

 Here's a back shot showing the doors open.  This was a nice feature on the toy I converted this hover craft from so I wanted to retain that feature since this is suppose to be used as a troop transport.  The GW Stormtroopers are shown for scale.  I used these minis for my Armored Assault Squad troopers for my Hell Knights Mercenary Company and this transport was designed specifically for them.  I will be building at least one more of these transports since I have enough troopers for two squads.  Now I just need to stat it up and start using it in our campaign.  

I showed this Hotwheels Batman "Bat" toy yesterday that I picked up for about $8.00.  I decided to paint it up as a combat drone.  For one thing the cockpit was a bit small for a manned speeder and I would have had to tear the toy apart to paint it because they structure made the side windows very hart to get at.  Since it was rivet constructed instead of screwed together that would be been much more difficult.  The other reason thought is that this version of the Hell Knights are not Imperial guardsmen.  They are not stuck with 1930s era weapons and tactics like the Imperial Guard.  I thought using this model as a drone instead of a speeder seemed even more high tech and it still fit within the armies theme.  I used a missile launcher from an Imperial Guard Sentinel walker to give it a bit more firepower.  

Hotwheels Batman "Bat" toy

I picked up this Hotwheels "Bat" speeder from Batman to use as an air speeder for my Hell Knights army.  The cockpit area is just barely large enough to be considered for a 28mm scale pilot but I may paint over it anyway and just use this thing as a kind of drone.  I think either would work reasonably well for this design.  One weird thing about the toy is that the army mounts are positioned asymmetrically which isn't so bad because they are clearly designed to be able to sweep back and forth to track targets.  It does come with a flying stand which is nice but it is awfully short for an air speeder type craft.  I will probably upgrade it eventually.

 Another thing about that model that is kind of strange are these roto blades on the bottom.  They are however made of soft plastic so they were easy to clip off.

This is a pretty good model as is.  It's a bit on the Iconic side of things but I think painting it up in Hell Knights cammo will make look different enough to make it work.  I may add a missile launcher above the cockpit areas to change it up a bit and add a bit of fire power but that's something I can do anytime or even as an upgrade.

Ancient Ruins WIP

Hey it's been a while since I posted anything but I have been working on a lot of projects.  This is a set of generic "Ancient" ruins I'm working on for my Conan project but really they could be used for a number of settings.  I'm sure they will get used in Call of Cthulhu and other fantasy and pulp games as well.  As you can see we have mostly covered a 4x4' table with ruined building made from cork tile.  Cork is a great material for making ruins.  If you want a comprehensive guild to building with cork check out Matakishi's Tea House.

I'm really looking to add at least one centerpiece building to the set.  Probably a temple of some sort.  We are also going to be adding some more ruins.  We are planning on making some jungle bases to add to the table including some to add to the buildings to look overgrown.  The buildings will probably be painted dark stone and we will use flocking and turf for moss.

Hyborian Adventurers

I've been going through my miniature collection looking for miniatures to use for the Conan game we are putting together.  I've been so focused on Sci-Fi and Pulp over the last few years that my fantasy collection has really suffered and only some of what I have painted is really good for a Hyborian setting.  I did manage to pull quite a few unpainted minis out of my collection that I though would work well.  This is the first batch I have painted up so far.  All four of these are from Reaper's Dark Heaven line.  

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

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.

Titania City perhaps?

I hate to keep posting pics of things I'm going to work on but here are some simple crates I picked up at the Dollar Tree store a couple of days ago.  I think we are going to use them for some of the buildings in Titania City.  They aren't big enough for sky scrapers but they might make good shops and apartment buildings.  Right now we are trying to decide how to make interiors for them to make them playable.  The packing trays on top are ideas for roofs.  These are the same things we used for roofs on Station 42 and a number of other buildings in the setting. I think it will help tie them in with the other projects.