Mordheim

Since my last post about adding bases to buildings, I’ve done a lot of thinking about it. I’ve compiled more points, and put them below:

Good Things About Using a Base on Your Buildings and Terrain:

1. Stability: With a base, you don’t even have to worry about the stability of your large building. Just glue it down.
2. Debris and Junk: Read the Rest of the Post >

Here is another Popsicle stick project I thought up. I don’t really know where I’m going to do with it, but I wanted to make a Mordheim horse cart. I had a picture of a horse cart in my mind that I wanted to recreate at 28mm scale, and I think I did a pretty good job.

This entire cart is made from Popsicle sticks, except for the axle which is made from a thick, tough weed stem from my yard. I haven’t attached the wheels yet, but I want to find a way to make them able to roll. So, if I wanted to, I could actually roll the cart around. Why not?

(Note: Please ignore the paint job on that Mordheim Skaven, it’s from a much younger, rash me.)

More to Come,
-Ashton Sanders

I’ve expanded my collection of Mordheim Ladders. I only have one GW ladder. (I think that’s all that comes in the box.) And ladders are extremely useful in Mordheim (not so much for Skaven, but for the other, not so agile warbands =). I’ve decided to make a couple ladders in the different construction styles of the Warbands of Mordheim.

You may remember in my first Mordheim Ladder post, I mentioned that it was a ladder that was definitely made by humans. After I said that, I went on a quest to create a ladder made by my Skaven Warband. I actually made two. Both of these were created from Popsicle sticks, and I think they came out pretty well. I still have to base coat that last ladder. Here are my four Mordheim Ladders:

Read the Rest of the Post >

Over the last couple days, I’ve been trying to be as inventive as I can with my Popsicle sticks. I think I’ve done pretty well. I’ve created a number of Mordheim Terrain pieces. I’ll be posting them over the next couple days.

The first thing I made was a 8′ picket fence. Each fence plank was the normal width of a Popsicle stick, and they came to a point like a normal picket fence. After gluing it all together with Elmer’s Glue, I realized that it wouldn’t fit in at all. Even after I removed planks and make it look as destroyed as possible, it looked way to big, and the planks were too wide. (Sorry, no pictures.)

So I took it all apart, and cut all of the wooden planks in a half. I scraped all of the Elmer’s Glue off of the planks, and lied them all down with the points facing in the same direction. I think this fence came out pretty good. Here’s a picture of my final 10′ Mordheim fence:

That is my Assassin Adept, and my old warband symbol.

I’ll be base coating this, and then pretty soon, I’ll start on the painting stage for all of my base-coated Mordheim terrain and buildings.

Enjoy,
Ashton Sanders

Everyone knows that most human and Skaven warbands never sleep within the walls of Mordheim, the City of the Damned. But, where do they eat lunch? It has been an unanswered question until now! The best place to eat in Mordheim is at my tables:

And if you’re ever interrupted by some rival warband, you can throw the table on it’s end and you have instant protection from missile weapons.

These tables are built out of a piece of bark I found in my yard. I’ll probably end up making it a permanent part of a building setup.

-Ashton Sanders

Most Mordheim Boards don’t have any sort of plant life or shrubbery, which is probably from the thick cloud of ash and poison that hangs over the City of the Damned. But I disagree. After the comet crashed into the city of Mordheim, it annihilated a good portion of the inhabitants instantly, and the survivors started mutating and going crazy. I figure this would be about the same process of the plant life.

I have another reason to want plant life on my Mordheim board: I have lots of creepy looking weeds, that could fit in very well to my Mordheim board and add a lot of character.

That said, lets move on to making my second Mordheim plant. This one is going to be a shrub, since my Mordheim Tree was too freaking huge. I started with the same tumble weed that I made my tree with. I clipped off a small group of the branches and stuck them into a piece of cardboard. I soon discovered how horrible this idea was. Below you can see the plant I used, and what it made. I quickly threw away the idea of using that plant for a shrub. Here is my Shrubbery FAILURE:

But I didn’t give up yet. I knew something cool could come from all these creepy weeds I have in my yard. I tried my next weed, which is a noxious weed. This one has creepy pod like flowers that don’t ever wilt away. I cut the pods off and stuck them into a piece of cardboard. I think it may have been too much, but it’s a great start. I added a layer of Elmer’s Glue to the floor to hold the plants in place.

I don’t know if I’ll ever use that shrub, but it was a good start, and I’ll be developing more shrub-like plants soon.

-Ashton Sanders

So my first experiment with a Mordheim Tree didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped, so I decided to do some modifications. I have trimmed down the trees to a much more reasonable height. I will definitely have to add something to the limbs as they are very empty. I have been thinking about hanging a skeleton in a noose, or maybe some sort of creature’s nest.

You can also see in this picture that I created a small bush growing at the base of the trees. I found a plant with small pointy leaves, and dried it. Once the leaves were totally dried, I pulled them off, and stuck them together into a pile of Elmer’s glue. As the leaves got thicker, it started to look more and more like a yucca/fern type plant. Definitely something created by the wyrdstone.

Who knows how the Mordheim tree will actually turn out?

Definitely not me
-Ashton Sanders

On most Mordheim Tables, there are very few trees. Actually, I think I’ve only seen one Mordheim Table that had a tree, and it was approximately 3 inches tall.

I realize these trees are Redwood-size, and following the story line of Mordheim, there really is no way they could have survived the impact of a two-tailed comet. “So What?” This is my first one, so I’m testing it out.

I found a tumble weed that has a cool, thick trunk, and it looks like a great miniature tree. Here are the pictures of my first set of Mordheim Trees:

I cut three perfectly sized holes in this small piece of cardboard, and stuck in the trunks of the three tumble weeds. I placed this normal cardboard onto a thin piece of thick board and glued it with super glue and Elmer’s Glue. I used the Elmer’s to smooth out the edges of the cardboard.

I used bailing twine (orange string) to tie the tops of the trees together to keep them in place while I glued the branches that touched to stabilize it.

Yes, I realize they are FREAKING HUGE.
-Ashton Sanders

My next project was to build a Mordheim Ladder without spending any money.

1. I found a thin tree branch sitting in my driveway. It was still fairly green and made of good, hard wood.
2. I cut two of the branches into pieces the same length as the normal Mordheim ladder and shaved them into long rectangles (as opposed to cylinders). I cut 8 much smaller rectangles to be used for the rungs of the ladder.
3. I glued the pieces together with Elmer’s Glue.
   Here you can see the progression from branch to rectangle to ladder.

   

4. You will also notice in this picture, a long orange string. This I glued into place at the top of the ladder to be used as the lashing rope. (Skaven don’t glue ladders together, they use lashings.) This orange string is actually one thread of bailing twine (what holds bails of hay together).
5. After the glue dried, I lashed the ladder rungs together. (I used tried to make it as unorganized as possible, although looking at this ladder, it’s much nicer than a clan of rats (or Orcs) would ever take the time to make… I’ll have to say it’s just sloppy humans.)

   

Now all i have to do is stain/paint it.

-More to come
–Ashton Sanders