7 Oct 2015

Building the Evergreen Fields

Hi guys,

I have a very clear idea of what I want to do with my moderns campaign in my head:

For reasons that don't matter, lets say a coup was made, a certain group started rebelling against the government forces and gained control of a large part of the island. I am not quite sure if I'd make a campaign map or something, not in the least because I couldn't do it, but the games I'd play would all be really small.

The idea is to play series of scenarios, that all look great in my head, but when I am about to play (or when I play) I keep finding my games lacking *something*. Apart from an opponent, I blame it on the terrain. So what I did in the past weeks was I've cut up my urban boards I never used (which also reminded me that it's my 3rd+ year in blogging and I still haven't gotten anywhere far!) and recycled them.

I decided to build more of the small houses as I built last time, again leaving the roofs to save my limited mojo, but still get a playable city. I cut up all the roads and got more stripes than I'd ever need.

After 3 and a half years, I also finally built a fence on top of my apartments block. In the upper right corner, you can see some stripes that are supposed to be terrain irregularities and/or ditches and a burnt car I wanted to build for years.

 As mentioned, houses follow the same pattern. I will add windows to them and probably plank them with coffee stirers from the inside. I could do this much!
 What couldn't be used elsewhere was torn apart and used for rubble bases. I'm not too happy with the pile two because they are too low in height, but once put together, they should add some value to the terrain as a whole. You can see a squad of Slovenes working their way through them.

Next step is adding the windows, doors and other details to the houses. After that, I need to wait for the weather to get better (it has been raining for most of the week now) to go out and put sand on them. Then it's all about painting them and I am all ready to go.

Just to keep a list of other ideas I had, I also need to work on:
- a check point
- IGLA anti-air rocket launchers to represent an AA strongpoint that would have to be neutralised to bring the air support in.
- technicals. I made no progress, but I'd really need some battle taxies for the rebels!
- Vegetation, my bane enemy. I have a lot of aquarium plants laying around and I just need to get on with it and use them.
- Find a way to make more trees, possibly with some leaves on them!

If you have any ideas, feel free to share them in the comments!

As usual, thanks for reading!

Mathyoo

18 comments:

  1. Always looking forward to your updates, and more terrain is always welcome.
    I am a fan or maps, and background fluff. I make them all the time when I am bored. Make a country, it's history, background, economic, ethnic make up. All that junk.
    Now just need to spend all that time I wasted day dreaming and get some more painting done.
    Oh did you see the new Russian GRU and civilian clothed operaters? They ops guys might work for a few more insurgents or organized crime guy's.

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    1. Thanks Moody, compliments are always inspirational!

      I gave the fluff a lot of thought, but I found myself bad even at writing the AARs, let alone background! I do agree that fluff helps the campaign a lot, making it different than just a series of battles!

      Which company makes those?

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    2. Nah your writing is just fine.
      And my bad, Specter

      http://www.spectreminiatures.com/collections/gru-spetsnaz

      Oh and I have finally decided to dive in with the whole make your own nation for play battles thing in. But I cheated a little and stole the name from the movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel".

      http://commissarmoody.blogspot.com/2015/10/welcome-to-republic-zubrowka.html

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    3. Cheers, will check the miniatures!

      Looks like I will have to see the film because these flags look strangely like albanian and Yugoslav, the one with the mountains (minus shagging dogs) looks just like socialist republic of Slovenia (part of Yugoslavia) one! :D

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Republic_of_Slovenia

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    4. I think the dogs are supposed to be a buffalo. :D
      And you are right, they do look a lot alike. I think that's because I stole those from a wiki where some people where also using Zubrowka in there imagination setting.
      And I believe they might have biased their flags off of all of those nations.

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  2. Great to see you've got some enthusiasm back and more importantly - you have a plan!
    I'm a big fan of doing a lot of repetetive models at the same time even if it does take a bit of determination to see it through, good luck with sorting your terrain out.

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    1. Thanks Joe!

      I would prefer to stick with one, as doing 3+ at a time means I keep forgetting about all the little details that I was thinking about putting on the individual pieces!

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  3. I think we all have projects that have stalled and had no work done on them for several years :-( . However, I congratulate you in restarting this work; don't give up now!

    Ideas? Sure, here are a few: it's good to have many small terrain features which can be scattered about (an abandoned piece of machinery, a fallen tree, an overgrown bush, a pile of logs, a dead cow...). Also, perhaps you might add a few pieces of wood to the otherwise excellent ruined buildings?

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    1. Ah, the scatter terrain - I always planned for those, but never really got far from planning stage. I will think about your suggestions, a pile of logs and bushes shouldn't be too hard to make!

      I did plan on adding the wood to the ruins, bonus points for reminding me to do so!

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  4. Looking good. I find terrain can make a lot of difference as to how I see a game.

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    1. Thanks Clint, just you wait till it's finished! :P

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  5. That scenery is looking great! I've been dragging my heels on building some modern buildings, I thinks lol have to come back and have a look at yours when I do!

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    1. Haha, thanks, but those that I am making lately are nothing but boxes. I found roofs take time and motivation for little effect (rather than looking absolutely fantastic on photos), so I'm skipping those these times.

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  6. Great start on the new scenery.

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  7. I like where you are going with it mate. Great start on the scenery too.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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  8. Great start Mathyoo! Anything to get us back to hobbying is a good thing.

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    1. Thanks Bob, it does help, little by little! :)

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