Secret Weapon Tablescapes progress

Been making some good progress on my Tablescapes table this past week. Above is after the first oil wash. 

  

Tiles in different stages of airbrushing/washes

I've gone for a wind blown martial landscape

I did not go down the zenithal highlight route like some tutorials have done. To me they don't look right and limit options of variation with the 1x1' tiles. I like the more weathered look compared to the over highlighting.

Street tiles in the early stages. Pictured above is the airbrushing and oil washes all done before cleanup

Then prepped for road markings

Almost done. Just need to weather up the yellow road marking and then apply the burnt sienna wash to the street tiles to match the others. Yes I have already cleaned up the overspray...

Im very pleased with how the worn rusted look of the car lift and storm grates have turned out. Will be adding some additional grime to the gutters and oil/fuel stains to the roads

After the streets are done its onto the rolling fields... Here they are primed up red oxide for the martian like landscape theme. I'm looking to make these WHFB compatible as well.

Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes - Urban Tile previews

Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes Kickstarter project is in its final stages of production.

They recently previewed some production tiles for the ruined urban landscape and they are definitely living up to the promise 

The detail they have retained on these is amazing. Secret Weapon Miniatures is still predicting a march Delivery date for all 5 unlocked styles. I myself pledged for the clean and ruined urban landscape, which will form the basis of my Heresy Table based on a Mars chemical refinery and/or arms manufacturer. 

The last set we are waiting on now is the ruined temple theme which I wish to use as a fantasy table mixed in with the rolling fields.

Tablescapes - Success!

In the wee hours of this morning (well at least local time) Secret Weapons Miniatures Kickstarter campaign came to a wildly successful close 

As you can see from the above graph the last few hours smashed all estimates in what has apparently become common place in popular Kickstarters.

I pledged for a 4x8' table (32 1x1' tiles) of the Ruined Temple theme. It was the one that grabbed me the most that could be used for both WHFB and 30k

And after seeing some renders for the Rolling Fields theme I am tempted to get a 4x6' table of them as well.

If you missed out of these or just did not have the finds to commit they will all be available to the general public at the end of the year (think November) providing there are no hick ups in the tooling and distribution of the backers tiles.

Its going to be great coming back from Europe to some great new tables. 

Tablescapes - by Secret Weapon Minatures

Secret Weapon Miniatures has just passed the $200,000 mark on its Kickstarter campaign, unlocking the rolling fields tile set!

This is the first 'fantasy' themed tile set in the range that SWM is hoping to produce and its unlocking will hopefully spell an increase in pledges to unlock the next set of 16 unique tiles, 'Ruined Temple', which just so happens to be the main set I am after

With under 1 week to go the goal is $280,000. At $190 USD for a 4x6 table the pricing is rather sharp. You get 24 1' by 1' tiles of which up to 16 are unique (depending on theme).

As an intermediate step SWM has a display board of the 'Ruined Temple' theme unlocked at $240,000 mark.

If you are interested in a modular gaming table or just a 2'x2' display board, go check them here

A New Beginning

So this is my first post for the new year, after a very quiet blogging month in December. I had not found much time at all to do anything hobby related during the silly season, much to my disappointment, and the world didn't end, much to my amusement!

So 2013 starts off with a big self serving xmas present to myself in the form of a new army...

After spending all of 2012 marching the dead legions to war, I am starting on a new journey for 2013. I achieved all the goals I had set myself with my Tomb Kings at the beginning of the year. Often regarded as the weakest of the new books and a bottom tier army in the competitive arena, I managed to get a tournament win (4 wins in the end!), made it to the masters tournament, and get selected to team NZ ETC 2013.

This year I enter the slave trade. The Dawi Zharr will march forth from their Ziggurats in the far east scouring the lands for more victims to toil in the blasted forges of the fallen ones. Not only will my new slavers see the light of the old world, so will my retired army of Daemons come to the fore when/if the rumoured new book arrives this February. 

These will be my major projects for the year. In addition I have some other things I wish to finish off. I started making a modular gaming table mid last year that typically never got finished. I also have my Horus Heresy legion that I started, although I am wavering on the actual legion, I want to get 1500-2000 points done by 2014 (I have quickly begun to hate painting yellow). There is also the apocalypse scale Necron army that needs to be refreshed and finished.

So my New Years Hobby goals are

• Build a Chaos Dwarf army
• Rebuild my Daemon army
• Finish my modular gaming table
• Finish painting my Necron army
• Make a 1500 point Horus Heresy Legion
• Buy and paint a Titan (or something else as epically scaled)
• Find some other project to throw me completely off my other goals 

Some hefty goals to achieve, and probably unrealistic knowing how good I am at procrastinating. Somewhere in all that I hope to finish painting my Tomb Kings which sit 90% done.

And I guess I should throw down my gaming goals as well, since I do enjoy the competitive side of Warhammer. NZ has such a great WHFB community at the moment and a tournament environment that has solidly moved into the little to no comp environment.

• Attend 3 NZ WHFB Tournaments
• Win a NZ Tournament
• Achieve a podium at NZ Masters (providing I actually make it that far!)
• Attend the ETC

I would also like to organise and/or run a tournament this year, but thanks to my location I do not think this is a realistic goal. 

At the end of the year I will dig this post up gain and see how well I have done.

Oh and lol puppies will feature this year. You have been warned.

Modular Gaming Table - Part 1

The other weekend I took delivery of the materials for my modular gaming table I am building

The local DIY had an overstock of Extruded Foam Insulation panels, so I picked up 12 40mm thick Sheets. This stuff is ment to be the replacement of the "blue stuff" and "pink stuff" that is commonly used.

I plan on making 2' by 2' tiles that interlock together to form any number of panels in multiple configurations. The plan is to lamenate a 40mm sheet onto 2' by 2' MDF panels and sculpt in valleys, rivers etc into the them, and form hills and cliffs by layering more sheets ontop.

I have 24 MDF panels cut, which should allow me to create a large variety of terrain

So far I have made 6 panels and a mess cutting the foam! All going to plan I will have them finished before Southcon in June so they can be used at the tournament

Im not sure how I will interlock them yet. I have considered large dowels of magnets, but am not sure how well they will preform with the foam. The final result will be great from creating massive Apocolypse tables!