Tuesday, April 22, 2014

6mm scifi Mars/Dune terrain project


I wanted my Epic Space Marines based on a rust brown desert theme to look like they are fighting on a planet like Mars or Arrakis, and I think I did quite ok. Now of course, I need terrain for them to fight on as well. Here's what I have gotten together so far:

The table itself. I reused an old foldable gaming table I have by painting on a couple of layers of paint mixed with sand. I tried to eyeball the tone of the paint to be as close to the color on my space marine bases as possible.
Lava rocks. I just bought some of these today, as they're sold as rocks for gas barbecues and not available during our BBQ-unfriendly winter. I think they look great, but the color wasn't just right.

I gave a couple of them a wash of watered down paint. Perfect! The color is just right and they pass off as big boulders, blocking line of sight and breaking the monotony of the field. I think I might attempt to do bigger rock formations with them or try to find big ones from aquarium shops.
A set of low hills

And some bigger rocky hills. The paint is still wet so the color is a bit off (like I could get it to reproduce naturally in this light anyway)
Terrain pieces from Xmarx models. The radar tower has a bit missing at the bottom but my friend who made the order neglected to send it with the rest.
These SAM turrets, gun emplacements and supply trucks should make nice objectives
This Geo dome set is missing a couple of smaller housings, the Xmarx man didn't send them and my friend didn't check the contents of the package so I suppose I'll have to do without. I think these will make a nice habitat instead of your regular Epic 40k houses. Maybe I'll find a clear plastic ball to make a "bio dome" for the set.

Getting the end result to look anything like my inspiration will be next to impossible though. But I have to try! What do you think I should add?

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Greek cavalry, archers and a couple of generals done

These featured in last post's battle already, but I hadn't added tufts and bushes to them yet. Here you go:
A Spartan general with a few of his closest friends looking to prove themselves to the gods
Greek archers. Archery was not valued in Greece and archers were not used that much. I based these semi-loose so that they can play the part of both skirmishers and light infantry.
A Syracusan tyrant with his orderlies. Not so keen to look for trouble as the Spartans.

Greek medium cavalry. The models were really static, but I managed to spice things up by adding some command models from the Greek generals pack.


Also, I visited London a couple of weeks back and went to British Museum. I spent a lot of time looking at Greek pottery and took some shots of hoplites and persians. I'll share a couple here:



Corinthian helmet
Persian archer
Greeks fighting Amazons
War propaganda. The Persian is shown riding a mule and is pictured as being a bit simple and buffoonish.
A scene from Illiad, I think.
Some fanservice to those people who came to this blog using the keywords "naked greek guys". I can see what people are looking for when they Google here and aim to serve the public!