Category Archives: Terrain

15mm, 15mm.co.uk, Alternative Armies, Dave Graffam, Fantasy, Fantasy Skirmish, Gaming/Battle Mats/Tiles, Heroic Maps, Historical, Ion Age, Khurasan Miniatures, Legends & Myths, Micropanzer Wargame Studio, Mordheim, Painting, Pixartprinting, Post Apocalypse, Pulp Adventures, Rogue Stars, Sci Fi, SF Skirmish, Song of Blades and Heroes, Steampunk, Terrain

More Terrain Mat experiments, Prang and Desert Felt…eh?

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Warning – image heavy post here. Illustrating a few things here (but kinda got snap-happy on this post to be honest).

In the pics below:

Terrain Mat (Flag Material)
Following the success of some Vinyl Terrain Mat printing via PixartPrinting, a subsequent sale came along for printed Flag Fabric. This made me think of what I’d read about Cigar Box cloth mats and some others that manufacturers were starting to produce.

Well, I had various art files floating around and thought I’d take a punt as it was only a few pounds to get these printed and shipped from Italy. The desert terrain mat in the pictures below are one of the ‘mats’.

Terrain mat flag material felt fields 15mm Prang vs Rogue Star Motley Crew of Spacefarers and TroublemakersI’ll maybe do a longer post about this in due course should I take pics of the other two “Flags” (one was Heroic Maps Frost Ruins and the other a larger town layout based of Dave Graffam art) but in brief, here are the conclusions;

  • cheap
  • light-weight, perhaps too light, but light enough that hills etc can be placed with some effect underneath
  • slightly transparent, which also means a loss in vibrancy of colour and saturation
  • as you can see from some of the closer images, there is a pattern to the fabric but to be honest, this is not really visible in situ and not really a deal breaker for me

Over all – a bit mixed. Not as overwhelming successful as the vinyl mats but certainly usable.

The Prang make an appearance
I had promised photos of these guys to Gavin at 15mm.co.uk/Ion Age sometime ago. They’ve been done for a while but not photographed. These are not the ‘mini’ photos – they were handy while messing with the table – but they featured quite effectively I think in this desert environment. Proper pics to follow GBS, and Eli, promise. I think they turned out quite well. Continue reading More Terrain Mat experiments, Prang and Desert Felt…eh? →

15mm, CMON Zombicide, Cool Mini or Not, Horror, Painting, Pulp Adventures, Rebel Minis, Sci Fi, Steampunk, Terrain, Zombicide

Men in Black meet Bond meet Zombicide meet Yakuza

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I’d painted up these fine gentlemen from Rebel Minis a few months ago. What are they? Take your pick from;

  • Men-in-Black
  • Mr Smiths (the Matrix)
  • 70’s Gangsters (or Reservoir Dogs)
  • Yakuza
  • Government agents

Link to Rebel Minis site

15mm gangsters yakuza pulp modern men-in-black miniaturesIn other words, quite useful for any kind of sinister type in a modern period. Having said that, not entirely sure WHERE I was going to use them! (Fistful of Kung Fu in 15mm?) Continue reading Men in Black meet Bond meet Zombicide meet Yakuza →

15mm, 28mm, Armies Army, CMON Zombicide, Conan, Cool Mini or Not, Critical Mass Games, Dead Earth Games, Fantasy, Fantasy Skirmish, Frostgrave, Gamer Confession, Monolith Board Games, Mordheim, Oathsworn Miniatures, Painting, Post Apocalypse, Pulp Adventures, Sci Fi, SF Skirmish, Slap Miniatures, Song of Blades and Heroes, Steamforged Games, Stonehaven Miniatures, Terrain, White Dragon Miniatures, Word Forge Games, Zombicide, Zombicide Black Plague

Gamer Confessions: Those bloody (Kickstarter) buses…

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If you back a Kickstarter you hope its going to be fulfilled. Even better when it’s on time. But I wasn’t prepared for them all arriving at the same blinking time! I’m sure their creators have conspired to have delivery of pledges all to fall in the same space of a few weeks.

Here is the confession – what I’ve received in the course of the last few weeks, why I fell for it in the first place and what I thought of the goodies when they arrived.

Scoring
Summary Verdict: High is good.
Guilt Burden: Low is good.

Zombicide: Black Plague
First off a real chunk of gaming-goodness arrived – Zombicide Black Plague in it’s entirety (Base game + expansion and add-ons). In short, nigh on two hundred 28mm miniatures (no, I’m not going to count them).
Summary Verdict: Awesome. I was hopeful for good quality (for plastic) miniatures and was suitably pleased. 9/10
Guilt Burden: Massively intimidating number of miniatures to paint – and that’s just the cool player characters and big monsters. 10/10

Dungeon Forge – In my pocket
At the price point, I couldn’t resist this neat little dungeon crawl set of terrain and miniatures from Spain. Very nice in the flesh. Scales great with 15mm. Already painting it up. Considering returning for more dungeon furnishings. Quite a lot of painting to get it game ready.
Summary Verdict: Awesome. Heroquest in miniature. 9/10
Guilt Burden: Quite a lot of painting to get it game ready, but nothing taxing. 6/10

Heroines in Sensible Shoes
Big fan or Oathsworn so had to jump on this one. Great character sculpts for any number of skirmish game systems. I did resist jumping on to the second Kickstarter more recently due to bouts of leadenitus (guilt derived from amassing too much lead miniatures).
Summary Verdict: Always great miniatures from Oathsworn. 10/10
Guilt Burden: Modest number of 12 miniatures – but they demand a ‘good’ paint job. 6/10 Continue reading Gamer Confessions: Those bloody (Kickstarter) buses… →

15mm, 28mm, Dave Graffam, Fantasy, Fantasy Skirmish, Frostgrave, Gaming/Battle Mats/Tiles, Historical, Mordheim, Pulp Adventures, Song of Blades and Heroes, Terrain

A City for All Scales: Fantasy Town follow-up

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Posting this for the sake of being a completest – I spent some more time ‘evolving’ the fantasy town that I was messing around with on the post I made on the vinyl map printing – so I thought I’d record the finished thing here (if there ever is such a thing in this hobby).

At first glance you won’t notice a huge difference. I’ve replaced some of the smaller ‘true 15mm’  resin buildings with more Graffam houses. These ones are a little less ’15mm’ and more HO/OO or even 25mm in a couple of cases. Here’s the logic – by mixing scales a bit you can;

  • get a certain sense of perspective and irregularity of scale variation across the whole town
  • create (or undermine) a sense of ‘true scale’ thus making the terrain feasible with multiple scales (you’ll see a couple of shots with 25/28mm minis in there)
  • using mostly Graffam and paper models, get a better sense of architectural style. Some of the previous building just ‘jarred’ with the dominating theme.

Anyway, enough blether. Pics.

Graffam paper model fantasy town 15mm
Vampires and Hunters battle it out.
Graffam paper model fantasy town 15mm
I’ve got a post in mind showing the use of some of the old Usborne cut-out-terrain books. These stalls are from a couple of them. HO/OO

Continue reading A City for All Scales: Fantasy Town follow-up →

Fantasy, Fantasy Skirmish, Frostgrave, Gaming/Battle Mats/Tiles, Horror, Necromunda, Pixartprinting, Post Apocalypse, Pulp Adventures, Sci Fi, SF Skirmish, Song of Blades and Heroes, Terrain

Mat procrastination finally pays off. DIY Fantasy and Sci-fi battle mats.

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I’ve resisted buying some a gaming mat/battleboard for a good while. There are very fine specimens available on the market (Pworks and Deepcut spring to mind) but because I am an ‘in-active’ player I couldn’t justify the £30+ price tag on them. Plus, being into both fantasy and sci-fi I know I’d just end up ‘collecting’ a whole bunch. Up until now I’ve trundled along printing out my own boards and tiles and being ‘okay’ with the results. But there is a limit to what you can achieve with an A4 colour inkjet, graphic designer or not.

City Town Terrain for Mordheim or Frostgrave fantasy gamesI’ve been humming and hawing over getting some custom mats printed up for some time. I gathered a few quotes from printers and done a bit of online research. But I faltered. Procrastinated. I simply hadn’t ‘seen’ a finished example so I couldn’t be sure of what I would be getting.

Long story short, I joined Sam and Tim the other week in Falkirk for a rare gaming outing (which was great fun btw chaps). Sam tinkers in similar areas to myself and had had a set of vinyl 2’x2′ mats printed for (Advanced) Song of Blades and Heroes. We played on one and I was suitably impressed by the print quality and material. Sam proffered the printers details (see note 1.) and a printed mat (see below). Back at home  I started digging around for various artwork (see note 2.) that I’d been messing around with previously with a view to getting some mats printed myself previously. Continue reading Mat procrastination finally pays off. DIY Fantasy and Sci-fi battle mats. →

15mm, 28mm, 6mm, Games Workshop, Gaming/Battle Mats/Tiles, Khurasan Miniatures, Painting, Rogue Stars, Sci Fi, SF Skirmish, Terrain

Classic Bug Hunt infested with Khurasan 15mm

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I mentioned in passing in a previous post that I was planning on trying out using the game tiles from the GW Space Hulk game with 15mm alternatives. Similarly a host of Bugs from Khurasan.

The table I normally set such things up on was clear for once so I thought now’s the time. Here are the Khurasan Bugs.Khurasan 15mm Bug Hunt Aliens and Colonial Marines I’d bought a few packs of these a while ago. Then last year I made a rather rash (for me) “blind” purchase at 2015 Claymore of a rather large plastic storage container stuffed with, well,  stuff. When I say “blind” it wasn’t totally blind as a cursory glance showed ample goodies inside to satisfy the £20 asking price. I’d list the contents but you’d just cry at the bargain. Continue reading Classic Bug Hunt infested with Khurasan 15mm →