New boards

Hello all, if you are the kind of gamer that is all about tactics, the thrill of a Calvary charge and the pride of winning, and could care less about the actual atmosphere of any table top game, this is not the thread for you. If you are, however, one of those boys or girls that likes to play with little armies on a great looking table, this thread is for you. If you don’t like playing table top games, or painting them, or the atmosphere of them… this is not the site for you…

I was browsing the GW site the other day and just for kicks looked up the really cool battle terrain set that they released a while back and was shocked to see that it is a selling for more than its weight in gold, coming in at almost $300.00! So my terrain making cap came out of its box and I decided that I will make my own and see just how much cheaper it can be. I have only just begun this project and due to the rapid money consumption of my wallet will take a few months to complete.

Overall this thread is a step by step guide to how I go about building this kind of board and any impute is welcomed and requested.

1)

First out, you need a vision of what and how the board will look, but before really diving into your artistic side, it is (for me at least) beneficial to come up with how the board will fit together, or if you want it to be one giant piece, like a 4X8 or 4X6 ft table. The GW one is made up by six 2X2 ft squares that are able to be joined together in multiple ways to make quite a few different setups. They really do have a cool board, it’s just not 300 bucks cool.

I had a few ideas as to what I wanted so I pulled out my philosophical ethics notebook and drew up some little squares with hill and the like drawn in them so I could see what kind of combinations I could come up with. For pure combination’s sake the 2X2 tile board is the best, but I then made up some 2X4 tiles and desided this was the way I would build it. While I do not have the overall number of possible combinations that 2X2’s give, I am not too sad about it.

By using 2X4 tiles I need three to make a 4X6 table. So I made a list of supplies and ran the hardware store to see what this thing would cost me. This is my list

Three 2X4 wood boards (when picking a type of board look for the material that is the least likely to warp.) I picked out the 1/4^th inch masonite (spell?) as it is unlikely to warp much when wet and somewhat cheap. Cost= $6.00 each

One foam sheet, one inch thick and 2X4 wide. Cost= $3.00

Dry wall putty, one small container (any kind of filler works). Cost=4.00

Glue. Cost =$3.00 (this is an estimation as the amount of glue usually changes from piece to piece)

Sand. Cost= $3.00 (This is what I use for grass and texture; you can use other stuff though, like flock.)

Spray Paint and other paints. (I am going to undercoat the ground and hills brown.) Cost= $10.00

The Great Devourer!

As I found myself with a rare amount of spare time (ruling the Imperium is no small time consumer) I decided to try some new painting styles and as I have been studying the Tyranids as of late, I decided that the miniature representations deserved to be taken out of their stasis bins and given a new coat of paint. The old style of their painting was similar to that of simply painting them black and then melting red, yellow and green crayons all over them and I must admit (only ever so slightly) that they looked... a bit... under painted and shoddy.

I started out by repriming Tyranid warriors in a color called Almond, although it is more of a simple off or dirty white, and then started to experiment with dipping them in different colors of extremely watered down paint, such as black and different shades of brown. In the end a color of brown was selected to be the dominant color of their cursed and alien hides. The carapace plates were then painted black and then some where highlighted with gray and others where highlighted with green.

The Gene Stealers where not painted with black as I wanted to keep only the larger bugs looking like they were highly armored. I have not decided yet if I want to paint the carapace of the smaller Gaunts or leave them white as I did with the legendary Stealers (if any of you peons dare think of this a mire laziness I will surely find you and teach you the true meaning of the Emperor's wrath! I am only thinking of this as an artistic choice!)

So now I turn to you, my faithful and observant servants. Which color scheme do you think looks better to field on our simulation tables? Remember to calculate this well, for if you fail me you will never be given the ability to fail ever again.

Oh and if you, as a mass of degenerate human bile, ever start to think that it is impossible for one such as I, who am so physically and mentally above you, cannot relate or understand you and your infernal pleas for guidence, just look at some of the data scans I let you behold with your unworthy eyes and remember that even one such as I still eats pizza, a most holy and blessed source of nutrition. Praise be the Emperor for bestowing upon us such a wonderful food.

Your ever just and understanding Up and Coming High Lord Salis.

More Toys

Some of Up and Coming High Lord Salis's toys

These are some of the figures I have amassed over the last fifteen years of wargaming. Feel privileged oh you mass of human degenerates, should you fail to see the majesty of my collection, swift justice and death will find you!

I will post more images later.

With the advent of my body being tested by our most magnificent Emperor in the form of an invisible but none the less potent virus that is commonly referred to as the common cold (To be blunt, I find this common reference to it to be insulting because, as you all should know by now, nothing about me is common!), I have decided to spend a few minutes to let you all bask for a while in the light of my uncommon understandings and musings.

For today's seminar I have chosen to expand and detail some of my fondly held tactics when war-gaming with my trusted subordinates and 'friends'. While the Imperium is built on the belief of human superiority (as it should be!), I have found it to be beneficial to simulate what encounters with other species are like.

In resent games (with points being the cost of human blood and supplies, such as munitions, armor and fuel in most cases, along with equally comparable amounts given to the adversary) the Tyranids (curse them) have been employing an old but recently revived tactic called "screening". This has the effect of shielding the stronger units behind weaker ones in the front, forcing us to choose between two rather ineffective options: shoot the weaker ones who are closest to us or try to shoot the ones behind them and hopefully do an above average job of damaging them while letting to weaker ones make it into our lines almost untouched. Back in the older editions of this simulation, troops where aloud to always shoot the "big ones" and roll a leadership check to ignore the frontal troops, who are often lowly gaunts, letting us destroy the much more dangerous bugs without having the weaker ones give them cover from our holy bolters and lasguns. In the newer simulations, much to my annoyance, we deal with a much a much more true to life experience and as such new tactics are to be employed.

While many of you are now wanting to ask me what these new tactics and strategies are, I have faith in the rest of you that you already know that I will not grace you with such instructions. You might come to the conclusion that I do this because I do not have any, but once again you are unforgivably wrong. I know of thousands of ways to defeat this foe and all of there petty strategies. I simply choose not to give them to you in hopes that you will rise to the occasion and find your own ways to counter this threat. After all, I already do too much for all of you spoiled human rats who leach off my hard work and dedication to the Emperor, ever praised be his name.

. . . All right, I guess I will give in and provide you with a little trick that never fails to end the simulation in favor of the Imperium (or any other race or faction you might be using). Simply shoot or by some other means kill every enemy on the board. Trust me, it NEVER fails.

And yet why not?

One of a most important talents a ruler must have, especially one like what I am to become, is to understand the underlying cause of unrest in populations that are to be subjugated and controlled. So all of you whiners, I admit my rebuke of you was what you probably found to be harsh or mean.

But was that not the point, to show you the failure of your whimpering ways? Did not the Emperor, blessed be his name that no one knows but a whole bunch of monks in power armor will kill to defend, show us in his perfect example that such faithlessness is to be addressed and if need be, punished, burned, slandered, burned again, lied about, and finally.... well lets hope you never find out what happens when you get to finally.

And with an intellect as advanced as one such as mine, I can see what your hearts are going to say. "I have a few beefs in the Imperium of man, and the biggest one is the amount of of Space Marines in comparison to the lowly Imperial Guardsmen. It should be.... what, about a few billion to one in the normal humans favor? Have you been to a gaming night lately? It is usually two to one if you count any non Space Marine, such as Eldar, Nids, Crons, Orks and even Squats as the I.G. (that's short for Imperial Guard, not Immobilized German made vehicle, like those ever so cute Volvo types. I am not saying they are always immobilized, but lets face it, one shot with a Melta and they roll over like a pig in the mud!). They should make it a law that for every marine kit you buy you have to also buy at least twice as many I. G. kits as well."

Now before you all raise your voices in praise and agreement with the afore mentioned heretical idea, know that I have personally sent boys into the front lines of an Ork invasion for less and made sure to shoot any who came back alive!

And for one more clarification, I did like Chronopia, I merely brought it up to gage your character and dependability. You failed.

In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Millenium...

...there are only complainers. You know who you are. The ones who are all pissed off cuz the new Space Marines are better than the old Space Marines. How your Chaos army got its balls cut off.

Being an aspiring High Lord of Terra, I understand your concerns, but the Imperium is a big place. And no matter what happens to you, you will not be missed. So if you really hate Warhammer that much, go play Chronopia. You know, the game that went under because it wasn't any fun?

Always Yours,

Up and Coming High Lord Salis