Terrain Update and Tournament Update

So it's March now, which means that the tournament is rapidly approaching. This time next week, six excited gamers will be celebrating the first organized game play tournament of our hobby experience and we'll be looking for bigger and better things. For my part, I'm excited to try my Dwarves out against these guys, but I'm honestly not sure how this is going to work out. One foe will be Goblins (with wargs, a Cave Troll, and Burdhur), while the other two will be Uruk-Hai heavy armies...unless the Dwarves are on fire, this could be a very up-hill fight.

I digress, though. After nearly a full work-week of no pics, I finally have them. I worked this past weekend on the terrain that I'm bringing to the tournament...and I decided that making the smithy's roof stay where I want it will take more work than I have time to give, so the smithy won't be coming. Sorry. Instead, I have a few pieces to briefly discuss here.

First, I made a trip out to Home Depot to get wall spackling paste and left quite happy, spending only $3.65. Tax included. Pretty good deal to add some detail to Middle-Earth. In testament of the excellent suggestions in comments last time, the pieces look much, MUCH better - some white still to cover, but that should be taken care of when the gray detail paint comes on. Whether this detail paint is able to go on before the tournament has yet to be decided.

Some pieces of terrain haven't been spackled yet, mostly because I haven't had the time. This is what they used to look like before spackling, and you can compare it to the next picture to see the difference.

Smoother surface, no? Like I said, they're still WIP, but they're definitely on their way.

Besides the mound of terrain that got spackling today, I worked on my woods. I've decided to glue down the trees instead of keeping them modular in order to avoid any discrepancies during the games about "trees moving." Since this has happened in a few friendly games (without the time-limit), in the interest of cutting down time, I'll make everyone's life a bit easier. The woods at the back still needs their base colored, but that will probably happen before the tournament...hopefully.

 I also did some extra detail to the marsh (close-up from last picture). For the purposes of our tournament, the entire base is difficult terrain (even if it looks green). I like this piece of terrain because it is a great equalizer - no one moves over it easily and it mixes water and grass features. It's not done yet, still need to make the water glisten.

The mountain outcrops (two large pieces) were also spackled, but I haven't gotten around to painting over them yet. Hopefully, this will happen before game-day. I also used a dry-brush technique to bring out some of the features for my rocky difficult terrain pieces (emphasis on rocky since I'm bringing Dwarf Rangers to the tournament). These pieces were put together from different parts for tech shipment cushioning...makes for great little rocks. The exception, of course, are the real rocks shown at the bottom (also rocky difficult terrain, though most of the base is taken up with rocks).

As far as the army goes, the Khazad Guards are now fully painted and I think look awesome. With a few minor adjustments, they look forward to hacking Orcs, Goblins, and Uruk-Hai this weekend (and whatever else is thrown at us for that matter). I've also added names to the bases of all my Rangers, which will go along with a companion sheet I bring to the tournament to establish what gear they have.

That's all for now - looking forward to the tournament in a few days!