On Rocky Ground: Goblin Town, Part 1

So with Goblin month underway, we're going to spend much of our time working on terrain (in rapid preparation for the Hunter's Red October tournament). The focus of this post will be to provide an update on the various terrain projects I have in the works and show the new base job for the army.

1) Base-coating rocky terrain

Rocks, rocks, rocks. If you're looking for a diverse set of terrain for underground, tunnel fights, you really need a LOT of creativity. On the positive side, it can be easy to put together terrain for a game, as you just need to throw a pile of rocks together. In these cases, I've got a few pieces of terrain that are completely new and need a black base-painting.

Wall Spackle (available in many places) provides a great "smooth wall" texture for the Styrofoam used here. You can tell in this shot the difference between a Spackle piece and a non-Spackle piece. Mixing the different terrain pieces provides additional variety and can show different locales within a tunnel network.

2) Application of grey paint

Some of the underground terrain has been base-painted for a while, but now needs additional color and detail. Adding grey to the black gives a lighter tone to the terrain and also increases the "stoniness" of it. I'm also happy that the grey is being added because it will match the bases of both Dwarves and Goblins better.

3) Basing

The other day, I picked up some Gorilla Glue from a hardware store (strongly recommend it) and finished the basing for my Goblins, the Unexpected Company, and Radagast the Brown. I'm really happy that the basing turned out okay and everyone looks much, much better. You can see a close-up on a few of them below.

I'm planning to turn two of my archers into shamans to complete my warbands, as I've been unimpressed the last few games with Goblin Captains (2 Might, 2 Attacks, and Defense 6 with shields is nice, but I really need to keep guys alive and on the field...and Fight 3 is killing me).

4) New Terrain Projects (in the coming month)

We have a real board now! Gone are the days of meat paper on cardboard, welcome the real stuff! I picked up five sheets of 3/4" polystyrene foam board from a hardware store, soon to be touched up with some grey spray paint primer (not spray paint, as it attacks the polystyrene). The board will contain four modular sections which measure 24" x 24", allowing for various terrain configurations. I'm planning on taking my wife's hair dryer to a part of two sections to make what could be a chasm, river, or a ditch, depending what the players in the game want to do.

The additional segment I picked up from the store will be turned into several Dwarf hall town squares, pillars, shops, and statues - all modular. Going underground is going to be so much fun now! Coming up in the next few posts will be continued work on the board as well as finishing the bases for the tunnel terrain pieces, so watch this space!