Warmachine & Hordes steampunk'ish houses

[**GS**]

Hi all together,
as Hamburger Tactica is lurking in the not too far future I thought I could use some old Miniatures again for some presentation. I loved  the minis and background world of Warmachine and Hordes even if the game itself was played too much in a competitive and tournament driven style for my taste.
As the presentation would be made of repolished oldish minis the terrain should have the same history. So I toke and still take old houses made in the 90s with my kids from insolation used on real houses in the neighborhood. They have been in use in a shop window back then for 4 years and have been stored in my basement for more than 20 years since collecting dust and cobwebs.
I will give those buildings a new genre polish by adding piping, steam pressure containers and lots of gears to give them a distict steampunk'ish look. All those addition don't have to make sense though, as the goal is just to give the terrain som pulpish feeling of steampunk.

Here is an first wip picture (more to come)

[Daeothar]

...I loved  the minis and background world of Warmachine and Hordes even if the game itself was played too much in a competitive and tournament driven style for my taste...

This is exactly how I feel about Warmachine/ Hordes; an awesome setting, with great miniatures, but a game I just couldn't warm up to, being more into narrative, campaign and beer & pretzels games myself.

The house looks suitably fantasy, with techy elements; I'm very curious to see where you'll be taking this project

[**GS**]

Thanks! I`m currently working on using the Xenos Rampant rules with the Warmachine and Hordes Minis. First tries have been successful so far. It is quite possible to emulate the warjacks and big monsters as well as the better than human heroes of that world. Xenos Rampant is a very handy toolbox indeed!

[Daeothar]

Nice; I've got a metric ton of Warmahordes miniatures, but never really started on them (bar some small exceptions) because of the rules.

I've always wanted to port the game to a different, more likeable rules set. Good to hear that such a widespread set of rules is working so well with the setting! Colour me interested to hear more

[McMordain]

The first edition of Warmachine was much more skirmish and narrative focused than the later editions. The various expansion books advanced the story and had really good narrative scenarios.
The revamp with the second edition killed all that. I quickly lost interest when people started to use every game to practice for the next tournament and brought chess clocks...

On the other hand the house upgrades look great.

[Daeothar]

Absolutely. At the time, me and some gaming buddies each bought one of the original starter factions (I chose Khador), and we really liked the Feats that each caster had, once a game. The units all worked well together, but there was no real synergy, as in stacking of Feats, Abilities, Weapons etc. This came later when the game grew and I detested the whole munchkin approach which reminded me of games of Magic: The Gathering.

It quickly became a game of finding the most powerful combo, and most games I (a casual player) played against other (competitive) players often ended in a caster kill in turn two. My caster, if that wasn't clear

So I abandoned playing the game, but I've always liked the aesthetics and background of the setting.

Hordes was even worse in the above regards btw; I never even committed to buying a faction after one test game of my Khador against somebody's Circle

[Ogrob]

It quickly became a game of finding the most powerful combo, and most games I (a casual player) played against other (competitive) players often ended in a caster kill in turn two. My caster, if that wasn't clear

Not to hijack this into just a Warmachine discussion thread, but yeah, this. I was a tournament player for a few years and it took so much free time to be up to date. It became impossible to introduce new players as the skill slope to get started was just so steep.

[Grimmnar]

First **GS** the houses look great. Let's seem some more. What types do you have in the works?

On the topic of Warmachine, try out the MKIV rules. They are free to boot.

Grimm

[**GS**]

Hello, thanks and a happy new year to all of you.
As requested I will give you an overview of my works on the table round xmas and new years day holidays:
The table will have a rhombus shaped part in the middle I will call the market place. The quarters surrounding that market place I wanted to have a paved road. So far I had only tried to make ractangle or square shaped stones for paving, so I did a very quick search for other forms and decided that the one you see in the first image would be modern enough and at the same time seemed vintage style enough to be used on a steampunk style table. I added a dose of GS-chaos and inaccuracy an off it went.



I always wanted to do a table with higher levels. After all almost no city is located on such flat terrain as my home city. To do that there had to be some kind of stairs and also the edges of higher ground had to be designed.
Meanwhile my designated co presentator Björn/Ursus and I had planed szenarios and had an quick play through without dice. The result was some change in the table design, but I liked the idea of a city table.



Short time later the first quarter was laid out and all the stones had been shaped. The remaining free parts have been done in a acrylic and sand mix. The boundary between paving and dirt have been set in a line of stones (curbstones?).



In the next picture you can see that two quarters of the table will have other levels. The remaining gap between the two higher parts have been connected by a bridge.
I wanted a sewage ditch in the middle of the road around the market place. so I simply cut one out using a sharp knife. The resulting dig I smoothed with simple painters acrylic. I wanted to cover the ditch with a grating just to be sure that playability wouldn't fall with nice old Warmachnine and Hordes mins toppling. At the same time I fell back into the old habit of using used or waste stuff to build or spice up terrain.



to be continued...

[Basementboy]

Looks fantastic so far! Really nice stuff, got a bit of a mordheim vibe to it.

[Daeothar]

...almost no city is located on such flat terrain as my home city...

You Dutch by any chance 

Good to see you at this again (or still?). The board is looking really nice; love the levels (my home town is located in flat country as well ), the height differences will make for interesting situations in-game

Please keep us updated!

[SgtSlag]

The 19th century Earth was pretty dirty, especially with their open sewers. 

Have you ever experimented with The Dip Technique (brushed on) for terrain?  There are two basic formulas of urethane-stains:  water (ether) based, and oil based.  Minwax Polyshades is not the only brand that will work, but it is the original urethane-stain used for this purpose.

The oil based formula will dissolve insulation foam, so brushing on a coat of Mod Podge as a sealant is recommended first, to protect it from the oil/solvent based urethane-stain.  The water/ether based formula might dissolve the foam, but I'm not sure.

The water/ether based formula will dry fully, within two hours, ready for a matte clear coat.  The oil/solvent based formulas stink, for years, and take 48+ hours to fully dry.

Any dark brown color will work:  Tudor (black, only available at hardware stores, for unknown reasons), Antique Walnut, or any flavor of Walnut, are good.  Brush it on using a throw-away brush (I use school paint brushes from Wal-Mart, 30 for $1.40-ish), and use the edge of a paper towel to absorb excess pools of it, as gravity pulls it down to the lowest points (watch the water/ether based formula carefully, as you will only have around 15 minutes before it becomes too dry to soak up).

I used this approach on my modular cavern pieces.  My cave pieces are pink insulation foam, with brown paper grocery bag (crumpled and flattened to give it a rough texture) was Hot Glued onto the foam faces; the top/bottom was covered in a homemade filler, similar to spackle, allowing the swirls to be added before painting the whole a tan latex house paint, and finally, urethane-stain applied. It is amazingly fast, and effective, at arm's length, on the tabletop.  A matte clear coat is required to dull the shine, even if you use the satin finish urethane-stain. Cheers!

[has.been]

I like what you are doing. 

[Tom Dulski]

 How the hell did you make those cobblestones in that pattern,  was that done by hand?

[**GS**]

The 19th century Earth was pretty dirty, especially with their open sewers. ...

Thanks for the advice! I plan to make it more fantasy style, so that the Sewer will contain some greenish blurp.

You Dutch by any chance 
...

Almost, it's Bremen, northern Germany.

I like what you are doing. 

Thanks!

How the hell did you make those cobblestones in that pattern,  was that done by hand?

Yep, done by hand. I used a pringles cap as a circular ruler, though.