Gormaths Gaming Tables Diary

[ash]

The Lack of a Plan

With the help of the local gaming community I have started up yet another gaming club. We are very fledgling with only one real gaming table: Gormaths Gaming Table and the other just a citadel battlemat thrown over a table and some scatter terrain. This would not do as they say:

"With great games club comes great games tables"

Or something like that....

I had the intention of making another cityfight table for quite a while now and rather than doing it from scratch I thought I should take advantage of some of the neat plastic kits out there.

This project is going to be somewhat expensive with the finished table falling around the $1k mark but it shall be worth it.

There is no real plan of attack here; just buy Imperial Sectors and start making cool buildings. I do have one restriction though... each building must fit on a 300mm x 300mm mdf tile or a multiple thereof. I want this to all fit together like a modular jigsaw and to make it work Ill be needing to make some road tiles, these will break the foot by foot rule and only actually be 300mm x 150mm.

Not much really else to say then except post up a few pictures from time to time and maybe discuss any hurdles along the way.

[alex]

if you need a hand just organise a working bee and we'll all come over, get happy on glue fumes as we stick the thing together and slap on some paint.

[ash]

Nice idea!

I think I have this one covered but in the near future I would like to get a group project happening along those lines. Maybe put a special event together.... maybe for the upcoming multiclub campaign thats in the planning?

Here are the first pics of the progress thus far. Some of the guys at Greenacres Gamers will have seen one of these buildings but the second one is completely new.

The pics are quite horrible as they were taken in my new painting and modelling area at home. There is a window right above where the buildings are being built so there is lots of shadow and bright light. Still, you should get the general idea of how they are looking thus far.













More to come soon!

[draconis]

Nice ones.

Dave took stock of the club funds Saturday and it appears we have a few hundred to spare... Might have to get some more of these.

Would you be wanting some of that Mordheim scenery?

[ash]

Nah man, burn them with furious fire!

All that stuff is mostly the stock cardboard terrain that came in the boxed sets that I based up over the course of a week to get ready for a Mordheim league. Three 4x4 tables worth in a week... needless to say the quality is not the best. Still servicable though.

When we make the move to Mordheim I have plans to use some other products that I have seen about the place. Will be a mesh of CNC modular pieces and some of the Citadel fantasy terrain. Shall be fun!

Back to my terrain...

Have done some more work on the larger of the two buildings but have unfortunately run out of parts!

More will be purchased next Friday.

[ash]

This is the larger building as it stands as of last night. Unfortunately I have run out of pieces so it is going to have to go on hold for about a week till I can get another Imperial Sector. I still have a few of the flying buttresses left over so I will probably be adding these to the structure in the meantime but until next friday all I will be able to do with it is play a few games of 40K over it!

The building itself is quite large measuring about 450mm across and about the same deep. It is currently 3 parts; the front main section and the two wings. I will probably keep it like this to aide storage and painting.

There is a fourth and fifth sections to come one being the back end which will be more of a tower like structure and then the central fountain/statue. Not exactly sure what I will be doing centrepiece wise but I do know the main tower will be incorporating some of the new and massive Citadel Statues.

I am looking forward to being able to finish this piece and move onto the next one!

Here, have some pics:

[ash]

Yet another project on standby...

But I have a good reason. The club has recently had a small influx in gamers so I have had to start on another gaming table to accomodate the clubs needs.

The cityfight table has enough terrain that it is very usable it is just not aesthetically pleasing yet. The fact that it can be played over in its current condition means it can be put to the side line for a while as I have made a start on the clubs newest table... the Jungle table!

I went out and purchased 3 sheets of 6x4 MDF with a thickness of 12mm. Unfortunately on the way back to the venue the ties holding the mdf snapped and one was chipped fairly badly as the stack hit the road. No matter as that sheet will be used to perch the Realm of Battle gaming board.

The same day I bought a metric shit can of aquarium plants and a few premade miniatures jungle palms. Having sat the stuff next to each other in a clump it does look quite good but I will be adding some touches to break up the rather bright green appearance of the plants. I have more than enough to cover a 6x4 with a thick jungle and for good measure I also purchased a CNC Workshop ruin to be overgrown.

This diary will now detail this tables progress aswell as any others I make along the way (we can accomodate a total of six 6x4's in the current venue).

As always more posts soon!

[draconis]

The challenge here is to make a butt load of plastic aquarium plants not look like a butt load of plastic aquarium plants on bases... It ain't easy

Want pics of proceeding

[ash]

I already know how I am going to do that. The big problem with aquarium plants is their uniform appearance especially shape and color. The color is already half dealt with as I bought 5 different types and all differ slightly in color. I am planning to get around the color with a few dustings and dips of paints and washes... mostly greens but some yellows and browns and combinations thereof.

Shape is harde to get around. By varying the plants on the bases I can start to break up the uniformity in shape. From there I attack with some clippers.

The bases will also help as I plan on doing a few generic flat ground pieces and then a majority of pieces with varying heights etc.

Ruins will break up the look completely!

This will be the second table I have done with Jungle like this... The original had some of those crappy christmas tree elements on it and I made them look pretty sweet. This table so far is costing a lot more with each pack of plants costing about $40 (I got the good stuff) Theres about 300 seperate elements sitting in front of me at the moment!

[draconis]

Chrissie tree terrain... Uggh!!!

[ash]

I was about ten at the time man...

[ash]

I have pics of the resources I am using but the cable I have will not allow me to transfer stuff from camera to here so now I have to transfer to megs laptop then put it on a usb then put it on my own computer... sigh.

Oh well. I'll put them up sometime over the weekend when I have a free moment.

[ash]

Some of the range of aquarium plants I bought for the jungle table:

[draconis]

Now thats a jungle...


If only you gould leave it like this and still be able to play on it

It'd be awesome, just not practical

[ash]

It would be good. Some people are telling me I should use the whole detachable method of building this stuff ie make it think but have sections removable to make it playable.

Thats not how I roll....

I'll be throwing this stuff on large bases with paths running through them. I want this to be jungle and not some over grown meadow. So it breaks up LOS.. GOOD, so it forces me to move along paths or around the scenery.. GOOD, so I can not just run in a straight line from one ond of the board to another.. GOOD!

I want this jungle table to change the way people play. For 40k its a death world so no moving through the actual trees themselves or its a dangerous terain check. In Fantasy there will not be so much on the table and skirmishers can move through it otherwise it will be good for games of Lustria where everyone can adopt a loose formation.

Warmachine/Hordes... well thats a skirmish game so no problems there.

And it will be great for some out of the slums/ruins Necromunda/Mordheim.

[bigdave]

Some nice looking structure there. I feel that the biggest problem with any type of plastic plants is the total lack of any pigment or color variegation. No plant in any terrain is a uniform color along it length. Also the every piece is the same exact size and shape as it sibling really attacks the eye.

I have just realized you already covered this in a previous post. Oops

[ash]

Hahaha Dave. I made sure to have as many bases covered as possible.

I have just put together another two sections of the CNC workshop terrain and it is now starting to make quite an impressive structure. I am thinking of gluing the modular structures together in chunks of three parts. This way I can have some nice centrepiece looking terrain whilst still preserving a little of its modularity.

This stuff looks like it will make some nice Lustrian style Mordheim terrain too!

Pics soon.

[Disco Stu]

Great stuff for a 'Nam game those plants. My next forgeworld order is going to consist of a lot of terrain so I'll help you fill those tables when I get home mate.

[ash]

Awesome man!
What type of stuff are you looking at getting?

I also have to start looking at getting some 15mm stuff together for both WWII and Modern.

[Disco Stu]

Well half the stuff I want isn't listed on their site anymore for some reason grrrrrrr, so I sent them an email asking about its whereabouts but no response as yet. Most of their ruined buildings like the tank factory aren't available, yet the 'no-one-owns-and-will-never-buy-one' imperial fortress walls are. I don't get it.