Gaslands terrain

So after getting bit by the Gaslands bug and searching the interwebs far and wide, I haven’t found much about making terrain. Everyone’s about making cars. That’s cool cause you need cars to play. But you also need a racetrack/battle arena. As there is a lack of building Gaslands terrain information on the webs, I figured I’d show ya’ll how I’m doing it.
I have to start out with that I love making terrain. I’m not that good at it, but I still enjoy it. Even as much as painting miniatures and playing the games. Building terrain lets my imagination run wild and I can make whatever I want (usually with whatever supplies I have on hand).
For me at least, having decent painted miniatures and decent painted terrain is part on the game. So without further ado-here is Gaslands terrain:
I used all of the skills and techniques that I learned many years ago building 40k terrain.
I used the cheapo foam board from Dollar Tree. It’s the best because it’s crap. The paper backing is very thin and peels off easy, which is what I want. I peel off both sides of that thin, crappy tissue paper revealing a nice thin piece of foam. I cut it into the shape I want with a Exacto blade with ease. Then I trace around that shape onto some thin card stock. The box that your beverages came in is perfect for this (you didn’t throw that away did you?)

I then glue the foam to the matching card stock. I like Gorilla Wood Glue. It has a very strong bond and I always like to protect my terrain against armor piercing dice. I put these base assemblies under a weight for a couple of hours to keep them from warping. 

After they’d cured enough, I went on with business. I took the cheapo dollar store cars (four for $1), that I’d smashed with a hammer, and pushed them into the soft foam of the base.

The impressions told me were I needed to put the glue to get them secured to the base. Where the two cars touched, I used super glue.

I beveled the edges of the base. I then used some foam drop offs, bits of straws (for pipes), and carved toothpick spikes for some details.

Glue on some sand and wait for it to dry 

Next time we’ll look at details and paint. 

Till then be safe and stay healthy!

Entering the Gaslands

So over the last month l’ve been painting seven beastmen to go with the Khornate champion I painted a couple of years ago. I digress, this post isn’t about them. They’ll get their own for reasons...
This is my inaugural Gaslands post! My local dollar store had Hot Wheels on sale for 2 for $1. And I just couldn’t look that cheap miniature gift horse in the mouth. So I bought 30+ cars for less than you could even look at something made by GW. I then ordered the rule book and a couple of sprues of parts from http://www.northstarfigures.com/. Much to my surprise, the rule book was hardback and of very good quality. And even with this covid-19 crap going on the shipping time from the UK to the good’ol USA was not too bad. I’m impressed, those guys have great customer service!
Reading through the rule book it definitely has an old hammerish diy feel to it. And it gives me an opportunity to make a bunch of new stuff in a new scale. I figured I’d do some tutorials on how I’m making things for this new project. I suck at battle reports so we’ll see on that.
Anyway, here’s how to make some car mounted guns on the cheap:

I start out with a Diamond brand extra long toothpick 

And cut it down to length. The none pointy end has some nice details to it. Then I cut off a small bit of sprue and square it up with a file. We’ve all got some of this hanging around, don’t we? (You paid for it when you bought those plastic miniatures. Never throw away your money.) I then drill a 1/16” pilot hole in the middle of the sprue bit.

Be fairly precise with this because you won’t have much room in the next step. I used a 3/32” drill bit to make a counter sink for the toothpick barrel to sit in.

Now glue the toothpick barrel into the sprue bit. Refer to the first picture. For added details a bit of paper clip across the top of the sprue receiver and some plastic bits for the side plates of the receiver and the front sight.

They were made from a 1/16” strip cut from the blister that the hot wheel came in. (You didn’t throw that away, did you?) Triangles for the front sights and rectangles for the side plates.

Maybe when the car is closer to being done I’ll route a zip tie belt feed. I also want to do a tutorial on the auxiliary fuel tank. 

Until next time, stay healthy and stay safe.