Archaic Abodes 4

Welcome back to another episode of Archaic Abodes. The hopefully long running series of blog articles that I’m using to document my adventures in terrain building. I have grand plans for a town that includes townsfolk, buildings, walls, hedges, trees, and modular table tiles. But more on all that stuff later. 

Today I have, from Townscape building # 10. TALL HOUSE WITH VERANDA. 

I gave this one a blue roof to break up the monotony of terra-cotta that I had done on the first two Townscape houses.

I also experimented with a smaller base to see if I could crowd the houses together in tighter clumps. In hindsight I should have extended the base out the front a little more as this guy can get a bit top heavy with miniatures standing on the veranda.

As with all of my buildings so far it has a lift off roof. This time granting access to the second story.

The house was cut in half during construction to give access to the ground floor. There is a tab of foam board glued to the inside of each wall on the second story to lock it on to the first story. I didn’t get a picture of them this time but this little trick has work well enough that I will be using it again in the future. 

Those of you that know Townscape well will note that I added some extra borderlines around the exterior of the house. The top one is just for show but the bottom border hinds the seem between the first and second stories. Once again, it was something that worked well and will be used again in the future.

Thanks again for stopping by and checking out my blog. If you like what you see please leave a comment or even become a follower of my blog. 

Archaic Abodes 3

Another house from Townscape. This time number 9. House With Veranda.

It’s a pretty straight forward simple box design building. The added details to the doors, chimney, wood grain and weathering make it more than just a boring box.

Once again I did my lift off roof for getting the most out of the structure for game play. I also added an abbreviated second floor for access to the veranda.

In the future I’m going to add a ladder and fireplace to the interior.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my adventures in small scale carpentry!

 

Archaic Abodes 2

I kind of jumped the gun with the first Archaic

Abodes article. I had meant to start out with a brief personal  history and a layout for my plan. Without further ado, here it goes.

I’ve always liked building terrain. Back in the day I was known as the terrain guy. Although me resources and skills weren’t what they are today, I did the best with what I had. My builds didn’t always turn out as planned but I was always building something.

The plan as of now is to make and document the classic fantasy buildings from the Citadel Journals, White Dwarf Modeling Workshop and the venerable Townscape. I’m even working on some village people, erm, I mean townsfolk to populate the town that will eventually pop up. Each townsperson (?) will have their own background and could lead to various mini adventures for murder hobos and dungeon degenerates to participate in. More on that later...Archaic Abodes is more about the buildings themselves. 

This building here is #3. Large House from Townscape 

The last image here is of the interior showing the small loft and that fine wood grain detailing.

Thanks for having a look there’ll be more to come soon!

Archaic Abodes

The first post I guess I’ll do from here is the Fantasy Barn from White Dwarf #140. Here’s my version:

I made it in the traditional way with a foam core type skeleton and craft sticks around the outside. I like to make my roofs out of card stock with the shingles being individually pieces. The roof is made as a separate piece and is not glued down to rest of the structure. That way the roof can be lifted off allows game play inside the barn.

I did notice that I forgot a hat loft. Guess I’ll add that at a later date. 

1 Year Blog-o-versary

 I just realized that I missed my one anniversary of this blog. I started all this really just to document what I get done as far as miniatures and other hobby related stuff. Looking back my output is not all that impressive but I’m definitely having a great time getting back into a hobby that I hadn’t enjoyed for 20 some odd years. I’ve been back in for 3 or 4 years now and I have to say that my painting and terrain building skills have surpassed anything that I did back in the old days. 

The best thing that happened this year is that my 7 year old daughter played her first game with miniatures! We had a great time and hope to have another game soon.

As far as this next year the plan is to finish up my Khorne Beastmen, Mengil Manhide’s Dark Elves, a Marauder Manticore. I also plan on a building a village utilizing my version of Townscape and incorporating townsfolk and other miscellaneous miniatures. Basically the plan is to have a bunch of side missions that an adventuring RPGer would come across in town. 

Influence: Ray Harryhausen

Clash of the Titans, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Star Wars, and Conan the Barbarian were all the business to my pre-teen brain. But I want to dedicate this blog post to one man in particular. I just got done watching the 2012 documentary Ray Herryhausen: Special Effects Titan. It was pretty good and worth the 1 hour 37 minute run time. He had a decades long career creating stop motion special effects models.

Three of his movies made a lasting impression on me as a youth. 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)

Jason and the Agonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981).

 7 Voyages is ok, basically it’s a build up for what is to come. For Jason and the Agonauts, the fight scenes are bigger and better: the fight with the harpies to free the blind man from their torment begs for a WFB scenario to be built around it. 

And battle with the three guys taking on the seven skeletons is legendary!

 Lots of good stuff there, I don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it. What are you waiting for?
Now Clash of the Titans. This was a movie I grew up on. I was 9 years old when it was made but didn’t see it until it came on to cable. When I did see it, my mind was blown. It is in the group of movies that defined for me what fantasy/sci-fi/adventure was all about. 
Gifts from the Gods, taming a Pegasus, fighting a beastman, out smarting three witches, defeating the Gorgon and saving the princess smack of old school rpg to me.

And Ray Harryhausen brought it all to life on the screen. His genius fired my imagination. And it seems to me that I wasn’t the only one. It’s my belief that the models Mr Harryhausen made for these movies had a big influence on the much loved gaming miniatures from the 80’s. Whether the producers of my favorite miniatures sight Ray Harryhausen as an influence or a contemporary doesn’t really matter that much to me. The work that he did is a huge inspiration for me. I also know that I’m not the first Oldhammerer to blog about Ray Harryhausen and I hope that I am not the last. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I stand on the shoulders of giants. 

May Ray Harryhausen’s contributions never be forgotten.

Ruined Temple

 I made this Ruined Temple to go along with the Minotaurs that I’ve been painting lately. Reading the Realms of Chaos books will tell you that Minotaurs guard temples dedicated to Chaos. This temple can be used many different ways: cultists or sorcerers performing rituals, sacrifices, or  a Minotaur guarding an arcane relic or effigy to a specific deity. It has a very Greek influence and I purposefully made it none specific to any God so it could be inhabited by any type of creature. Even a Gorgon.

Many times when I’m painting a miniature or making a piece of terrain, I think of a story that goes with it. A little background or a scenario. So here’s a scenario idea that goes with this Ruined Temple.

The Temple:

There is a small but ancient temple just off of Old Forest Road. Although the temple is in ruins and generally not in use for rituals to the Old Gods anymore. This temple houses a long forgotten yet powerful magic item. Upon the temple’s small alter is a ... 

(insert magic item here). This temple is guarded by a rather large Minotaur (and possibly some beastmen depending on the experience of the adventures/warband). And being attacked by band of goblins (and/or orcs). The greenskins will try to kill Brarag and burn down the temple. They will also attack anyone that gets in their way of accomplishing this task. To make matters worse, Azogorim the Wizard is there to steal the magic item. (He enters from the opposite side of the table from the warband). Will the adventures be able to get to the magic item before Azogorim has the chance to steal it? Will the adventures take the magic item for themselves? Will they befriend the Minotaur Brarag, leaving the magic item on the alter and help him defend his temple from sacrilege? (There is a one in six chance the magic item is cursed!)

If the adventures search the interior of the temple they may find a passage way to a room beneath the temple. This room contains an undead champion of Chaos, three skeleton warriors and two ghouls. After defending these enemies the adventures find: 4D6 gold, a Ring of Invisibility (May be used once per battle, lasted 1D3 turns), Mithral armour (no movement penalty), winged boots (+1 Initiative).