First Pieces of Terrain

     I've really enjoyed playing Warmachine and getting to know a few of the guys that play there a little bit. I would really like to get some games going here at my place this summer. As much as I do enjoy playing at the shop, I'd prefer a relaxed game in a more comfortable setting with a beer in one hand and a tape measure in the other. But in order to do that, I've got to have something to play on. I decided to build a playing surface and get started on some terrain. I wanted to go super cheap on the both the playing surface and the terrain. For the playing surface I just bought a 4'x 8' piece of 1/8" hardboard and cut them into 2'x 4' sections so it would be easier to store. Next, I just purchased a bit of green felt from the fabric store and used spray adhesive to attach the felt to the hardboard. I made three pieces so I could use two to make a
4' x 4' board for Warmachine or three pieces for a 4' x 6' board for Warhammer. It's not the most ideal playing surface, but it works and it only cost me about $20.

     For terrain I picked up a 2' x 8' pieces of blue insulating foam. You can get this at Lowes or Home Depot for pretty cheap. I used my Woodland Scenics hot wire to cut irregular shapes into the foam to create terrain. I also used spray adhesive to glue multiple layers of foam on top of each other to get more height out of my piece of terrain. These are the first two pieces I came up with.

On this first piece I shaped three pieces of the 1" thick foam with the hot wire, glued them together with spray adhesive, and put a little woodland scenics foam putty on it to fill some seams and give it a little more texture. I also sanded the top edge and a few other places with some 220 grit sand paper to taper some edges down a bit.

On this next piece I shaped three small pieces of foam this time though splitting them in half to get the wall thickness to about a half inch. I also cut a piece of foam core for the base and tapered the edges down with sand paper. I made the grooves in the wall with a ball point pen and just pressed into the foam. Lastly I glued the pieces onto the base.

Here are the two finished products. For the stone color I basecoated everything first in black. After that was dry I did a heavy drybrushing of a medium gray. Then I did a lighter drybrush of pure white to hit the highest points and corners on the piece. Lastly I added bits of static grass and sand. All in all it took my about 4 hours to complete both pieces from start to finish.

First Protectorate Models Painted

     Spent a fair amount of time thinking about what color scheme I was going to go with for my Protectorate force. I had decided that I definitely did not want to go with the white stock studio scheme. I wanted my army to have a more repressive, regime, religious zealot feel to it and less holy holy holy, lawful goody, paladin, etc. I ended up settling on a primarily black, red, and gold scheme. I had also decided that I was going to take my time painting these models and try and improve my painting skills along the way. I did spend my time on them and practiced different techniques for applying paint, using washes, applying highlights, determining shadows, etc. I wasn't sure exactly how to paint black, shade/highlight it, and make it look good. I read up a fair bit on this and eventually after some trial and error came up with a pretty good system for painting black. I also labored over getting just the right shade of red. I wanted a deep scarlet red. In the end I'm very happy with the way my first models turned out.

My First Games of Warmachine

After getting some models assembled, I made my way to Clockwork Comics on a Monday night to try and get some games in and get more comfortable with playing Warmachine. Everybody was very friendly and happy to help me learn the game a bit better. I got in a couple games and it was a lot of fun. Here are a few pics from one of my first games