Mordheim

Since I acquired my latest piece of packing foam, I have been trying to figure out the most believable way to create this large section of elevation. I have decided to make all of the edges of the foam look like it was created with a wall of stone, like a retaining wall. Then the rest of the elevated section of ground can be dirt ground like a normal Mordheim board.

I grabbed a spare piece of packing foam as a test piece and through some ideas together. Let me know what you think:

First, I started with my piece of packing Styrofoam about 3.5″ tall:

Second, I spackled the left half of the foam (for testing purposes) and cut out 20 different-sized stones from a sheet of business-card-thickness card stock. I glued them to the wall:

Third, I painted everything black, and highlighted the rocks (goblin fanatic for scale):
(You can see in this picture how much better the side with the spackle (left side) turned out. I definitely recommend spackling/texturing Styrofoam before using.)

Finally, I took a thick-bristle brush with very little paint on it, and added some speckling and texture to the rocks. Since I was so sloppy painting the stones, I had to take paint over the black again with a thin paint brush:

“Voila!” (Or in the words of Ness: “Tadi-UMP!”) Instant Rock Wall.

I’m pretty happy with how it came out. I’ll update this if I come up with any other good ideas.
-Ashton Sanders

How to keep dice from getting stuck in a funnel

While creating my Mordheim Dice Tower, I ran into a small problem. Since I wanted my dice tower to look like a normal Mordheim Building, and not look like a dice tower, I had to make my Dice Tower’s exit hole the size of a normal 28mm door. This presented a problem, because only one dice at a time would be able to exit the dice tower at once.

You can see in the next picture the final ramp/funnel, and how thin it gets before dice “exit the building.”

After hours of testing and fiddling with my ramps, I came up with a very simple solution to keep dice from getting stuck in my dice tower. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any good pictures of what I created, so I will demonstrate below. Read the Rest of the Post >

I got in a new computer the other day from Dell, and it came surrounded by two large sections of packing foam. Each section is 21″x18″x3.5″ and almost completely flat on 5 sides. These will act as a perfect raised part of Mordheim, and when placed on the (48″x48″) battlefield, they will take up less than 1/4th of the playing area.

(A couple Orcs and Goblins and my Collapsed Mordheim Tower for Scale)

These are perfect because they don’t take up too much of the playing field, but can add some great elevation to a Mordheim board. My plan is to cut four sets of stairs into each section of foam so any warband will be able to access the “high road”, and make the edges look like they were built with bricks and large stones. I will be texturing the top section, and then leaving it empty so each new battle can have different Mordheim buildings/terrain on it.

Hopefully more on this project soon,
-Ashton Sanders

The Terragenasis competition ended last night, and I just barely took home 2nd place.

1st place went to DragonFlies7033, who created a huge castle that doubled as a DM screen so he, as a Dungeon Master, can keep all his “tricks” hidden from the players. It came out amazingly.

I got 2nd Place, beating out 3rd place by 1 vote.

3rd place went to GeoLinna’s Clock/Dice Tower, which came out amazing.

On another note, I posted some pictures of my dice tower on Board Game Geek, and as of right now, I have three images on the home page! I don’t even believe it.

Thanks to everyone who voted for my dice tower in the competition and to those who thumbed my Dice Tower images on BGG.
-Ashton Sanders

I’ve done a lot of research on the Internet on basing, paint, modeling, etc. Here are some links to some great resources on these subjects:

• Tom’s Boring Mordheim Blog has lots of great tips and tricks for painting, as he is an amazing painter and artist.
• Games Workshop tutorial on Painting Models.
• Brushthralls’ Old Basing tutorial. (They have a new modeling tutorials here.)
• (I also got lots of ideas from Tom’s Boring Mordheim Forum and Witchhunter.net.)

My new Mordheim Warbands have officially been started.

Currently, Skaven is my favorite warband, so I decided to start the learning curve with some Orc Models I got from a Warhammer Box Set I got off of ebay. I have too many of each of these models, so if I end up destroying them, I’ll survive. This way I can perfect my basing/painting styles before starting into my Skaven warband.

With that said, I based these models with a layer of PVA glue and a layer of sand. I added a rock or a wooden plank to each base before putting the layer of sand (so they look like they are stuck in the sand.

I removed the two models from their frames and used a razor blade to smooth out the seams. I glued on their heads and glued them to their bases with a helping of rubber cement (for plastic models).

Then, after a base coat of black paint:

Now I need to come up with a good color scheme. I think I’m going to use Orange as a warpaint color.

-More to come,
–Ashton Sanders

Welcome to (Mordheim Dice Tower) “Roll Inn”!
The most comfortable beds this side of the City of the Damned;).

Read the Rest of the Post >

Here’s a video of the Dice rolling though my newly completed Mordheim Dice Tower, named “Roll Inn”:

(If you look closely, you can see the dice as they roll past the gaping hole in the roof.)

I’ll be posting my final post soon.
-Ashton Sanders

Since this competition is ending on the end of this month, I have to paint this entire building in two days. Thankfully it’s been a weekend, and I’ve been able to put aside some time for my Mordheim Dice Tower. I have run into only a few small problems, but none were conquerable. Here are the pictures of today’s progress:

I painted all of the cement and debris with the same Dry Brushing Cement system I used on my last building (which I ended up using on the window bars as well). I chose to do a bright, barn red for the walls.

Final pictures are on the way,
–Ashton Sanders

The construction of my Mordheim Dice tower is very close to done. I have created the Window Frames for all of the windows:

To create the thin sections of wood, I cut a ~2cm section of Popsicle stick, and then cut it lengthwise with a razor blade. I tried to cut it as thin as possible. This allowed me to create endless pieces of wood that were all the exact same width when I turned them sideways.

My next project was to create the sign that will hang over the front door:

I’m looking at calling this place “Ed’s Lodging” or “Motel 3” or something having to do with Lodging. Let me know if you have any ideas. (You got like 24 hours to tell me;))

More very very soon,
-Ashton Sanders

I have added some fallen debris to the Mordheim roof. The idea is that when the comet crashed into the city, either the quaking earth or a shard of the comet caused the top section of the tower to collapse. Some of the rubble broke holes in the roof below, while some of the smaller pieces ended up staying on the roof. The rubble also doubles as places for models to sand on.

I put down a layer of water glue in the dice catcher/courtyard area, and poured some of my “Camp Cherry Valley” beach sand on it. I think it came out really well. Now I just need a good thick layer of paint to keep the sand in place. I really want to add some rubble to this area, but I don’t want to give the dice a possibility of not landing flat, so it’s got to be boring and flat.

Here’s a picture of the what’s left of the Dice Tower’s Roof.

Enjoy,
Ashton Sanders