BSC2021 Dolmot's little embuggerance

[Dolmot]

OK...

I haven't built or painted a thing in some eight months, for reasons.

I have never participated in the BS contest, despite planning and almost announcing to do so several times.

However, now things may be calming down. Also, one of my eternal to-dos has been to start a build topic along the lines of "Most miniature wargames include rules for difficult terrain...but do you have any?" Looks like the Contest got in there first, but that's fine. At least the match is perfect and after this more people should have such terrain, hopefully me too.

What's the plan? To be honest, nothing too fancy for now. The rough plan is to make a generic mess to spice up my 15mm woods. I managed to base a good bunch of trees of various kinds last year, but the problem is that when used alone, they look like a planted forest. It's even a minor gameplay issue when they're supposed to block LoS but you can totally see past the trunks. Often it would be more accurate to have just bushes, undergrowth, small hillocks, rocks and whatnot, so that moving through them doesn't look like a walk in the park and your troops can really disappear in there. It may not be a winning entry, but a playing entry should suffice in this time slot.

I've been accumulating both raw materials and reference material, hence this should be easy, right? Let's see.

(There are other options too, but those may require more experimentation with a risk of failure, thus I'm trying to keep this simple to get the job done and to reboot this hobby after the break.)

[Hammers]

That's the spirit! Good onya!

[Tactalvanic]

I am in no position other than remaining to watch and comment in awe on which ever of the BSCs I have time to check on.

It is a shame you have not been able to do anything in this hobby for so long,

It will be awesome to see you do some again.

[AKULA]

Great to hear from you Dolmot and see you joining the BSC - “generic mess” gives you plenty of scope 

[Dolmot]

Ahem. So, here's my build...



Or at least how it was around the original deadline.

[Daeothar]

Looking good!

Yeah nah; I'm sure you've already got something good brewing, but you're not showing us, right? 

Good luck all the same though; even with two extra weeks, I'm pressed for time. I'm in awe of anyone who can work wonders in just mere days from the finish line.

Looking forward to seeing the end result... 

[Dolmot]

Looking good!

Thanks!

Yeah nah; I'm sure you've already got something good brewing, but you're not showing us, right? 

Well, true, although not exactly trying to be secretive here. I just blame the recent move for everything. Every post in this thread may eventually turn into a rant about it. Apart from it taking massive amounts of time and energy, it means that all kinds of bits are missing or hidden somewhere. Also, all my tables are covered with tools and screws and home office stuff and whatnot, thus it's hard to find space for terrain building and photography. Therefore the early photos will be quite random regarding their setup and posting delay.

Anyway, apparently BSC 2021 is fought with sticks and stones. The sticks are well dried and brought from a cottage some 300 km away. The stones were collected from the yard of a rustic fire station. I've been carrying both with me so they must be special. What I threw away was all carefully selected pizza boxes and such, which I tend to use for bases. Now I scavenged an ice cream box. Let's see if this works. Still looks a bit warped in this photo...

[Codsticker]

That's coming along nicely.

[Dolmot]

Exciting, isn't it?

Last week was...exhausting. The main annual conference of my field was held online with 7 hour time difference to the hosting city. It meant that I could get up in the morning, do a normal work day, and then move on to conference programme for 10 hours more.

Well, I didn't do exactly that but sometimes close. I stole a few hours for...gardening. There's a lot of that in the queue because our government has declared war on lupins, you see. And my garden looks like Vietnam war terrain in general. Yeah. That might count as the mandatory rant about the move for this post.

Then again, a few of the conference presentations were so dull that I could easily spread glue and watch it dry, which was more interesting than the presentations.

It's one of my core principles that all terrain pieces need sand. Sure, it destroys minis if they come to contact with it and it may flake off, but it adds some nice weight. I also believe that the hard crust prevents warping if the piece is properly pinned down when the sand-glue mix dries.





Hardly any warp here now and hopefully none after I trim the corners and other excess.

Let's see what thrilling plot twists we have ahead with this ambitious project...

[Dolmot]

The stones looked alright to me but they weren't sticky enough so I added some sticks.



Front row 2 & 3 are entirely new pieces. The rest of the front row had some wood added. The back row was left as-is. Apologies for the weird lighting.

Here's another pic, maybe with a better view to the new pieces.



Because this is a one week project, I try to keep it to the point with no time wasted on nonsense. "But why did you make eight pieces then if the BSC limit is six?" Hey, don't ask. Oh well, they're spares. I'll pick my favourites and complete (or trash) the rest later.

I think that's enough stuff for the main shapes that require thorough gluing. The next steps should be basecoating, trimming, and initial vegetation. I may still add some small branches and gravel, but those can wait until the final decoration step.

Now where are my paints? Have they all dried in their bottles? And the brushes? Did I complain about the move yet? So many questions.

[Codsticker]

"But why did you make eight pieces then if the BSC limit is six?" Hey, don't ask. Oh well, they're spares. I'll pick my favourites and complete (or trash) the rest later.

Perfectly reasonable approach IMO.

[Dolmot]

After a few rounds of basecoating, adding sand and cutting into classic Barbapapa shapes...



They don't look like business cards any more. Neat, isn't it?



Folks, is this the end? I mean, I just sprayed a layer of matt varnish to seal the sticks and maybe to add some grip to the stones. The next steps will already count as painting, which we shouldn't show. However, to keep you entertained, I can possibly post a few explanatory photos of what's the goal in here. That depends on how totally painting and gardening will fill my weekend, though. Let's see.

I think I know where the flocks and scatters are, but nothing is certain after the move... *grumble*

[Will Bailie]

Oh, wow, you make it all look so EASY

[Dolmot]

Oh, wow, you make it all look so EASY

Maybe it is easy? Sticks, stones and sand look like natural features. Who knew?

Anyway, I think I'm done. Yesterday I managed to chop my way through the 1:1 jungle that starts from the door. I also completed painting of these pieces. Today I dived into the various boxes where my scatter materials had been stashed. (In the move, remember?) After about four hours of decoration and watching glue dry, the end result feels at least tabletop-ready, which is kind of the goal here.

No photos yet, sorry. That's the rules.

Actually, now I have very Finnish problems. Late daylight isn't very good for photos due to its angle and colour. I'd like to use artificial light after the sunset, which is...at 22:49.

We also have a proper heatwave by our standards. My painting room's temperature is about 30 ℃. Glue and paint dry fast. I'd really like to use the desk fan, but that's not really an option with about 20 flock boxes and bags open on the desk. The whole place is already a disaster area after I hastily made some room for all that painting and flocking junk.

Well, now I need food and drink and maybe a brief round outside to catch some of that rare summer heat. Wish me luck with the late night photos. No idea where I can find space for that setup. Fortunately a full tabletop with scenery isn't required or even allowed in BSC. Finding all that stuff would be too much.

[Dolmot]

Hello

I believe that in BSC it is kind of customary to post some background material and such to provide context for the build. It was my intent to do so at every stage, but eventually the schedules turned simply hopeless. However, now there's a little bit of hope again as I managed to move things around, make room on one table for semi-tolerable photography and so on. I didn't want to start hyping while the voting was still open (and probably couldn't have either), but now my 15 minutes (or seven days) of fame are over, thus there are no issues with that. Better late than never, eh? I hope you can still appreciate general terrain-related ramblings.

Let's start from something, namely a bold claim. I dare to say that these are the very best terrain pieces I've ever made:



Why? For their immense practicality. They may be nearly two decades old and they've probably appeared in most battles I've hosted since. Every table seems to benefit from a bit of cover and decoration. Large rocks provide both, and they can appear almost anywhere. Furthermore, they've turned out to be extremely useful for holding stubborn gaming mats in place, hiding ugly seams or battle damage, adding extra blockage and so on. Real rocks are near-indestructible, thus they've survived all the games, trips and moves. Their universality has also extended to Lead Painters' League, where they've doubled as a quick and generic backdrop for countless entries.

There's just one problem: these rocks are "epic fantasy sized". They were made for WHFB where everything must be big or it doesn't even count. Conversely, in the context of historical games they're quite huge even for 28mm. And when I deploy them in 15mm, people exclaim "Lo, the mighty cliffs of Caerbannog! Verily those are the paragon of impassable terrain!" I may try to mutter "Actually...I've always seen them as decoration or mat holders, maybe a bit of hindrance", but when I really think about it, those other people may be right. Way too difficult to be just difficult or decorative in that scale.

So, to represent something that is difficult but by no means impassable, I clearly needed a scaled down version. Copying the concept of lone rocks or small clusters would have been an option. However, even within this year's extended limit of six bases it would have meant showing a small handful of gravel. Therefore I went for larger bases with more stuff on them. I'll probably make smaller bases later to add flexibility when room must be made for units, but for this entry I wanted something fairly wide yet low.

To skip to the end for a moment, here's a pic of the final product, including the two extra bases that exceeded the official entry limit:



And here's a size comparison with a 15mm base to visualise the matter of impassability in this scale:



Looks more like a little embuggerance now, right? Will annoy your cavalry but you can probably make your way through with a movement penalty, which is kind of the definition of difficult terrain, I think.


Other viewpoints to the general concept will hopefully be posted later. Don't know when, though.