I've started on my February terrain for Trucidos. While that is strictly true, unfortunately, this was done in January, and I have yet to actually work on anything this month. That will change soon.

I've also been working on my Witch Hunter Canonness. She comes with a lot of really nice arm options. I haven't put much thought into how I will play her, so to avoid making any decisions, I decided to rare earth magnetize the arms and make them swappable. The magnets are not very big and the arms are relatively heavy, being metal, so the join isn't super strong, but it seems good enough to play with. If I decide I don't like it down the road, I can always just pick one combination and glue that in, like my Ape-X.

Got the fountain finished, completing my January terrain for the Trucidos campaign and giving me 162 square inches of terrain for the full three campaign points.

Here's my last bit of January terrain getting finished up. This is an old ceramic Christmas village fountain I found in a box as I was cleaning up some old terrain junk. I had used it for some 25mm WW2 skirmish gaming, but never done anything with it. The chipped areas were two red birds I knocked away. Snow patches were covered with spackle mixed with brown paint, which also served as a contour for the rubble I would glue on. The rubble was my usual mix of clay cat litter and bits from my rubble bag...I saw sprues, both metal and lead, a computer case fan, a piece of a blade and some side mounted machine guns from a destroyed 1/72 helicopter model kit, sculpture contour mesh, stripped wire insulation, dried paint scrapped from a bottle...

The spackle was something of an experiment. I added some brown paint to it and a little water to thin it down, and then stirred all that up until smooth. It was easier to add, but I think I need another material. Looking at the first picture, you can see that the spackle shrinks, and when used in such large amounts, left gaping cracks in the surface. I expected something like this and it's not a problem for this piece, but obviously it's not a general purpose solution.

Got the crane finished tonight. It's 10.5x12", or 126 square inches. I have two other small pieces under development that will put me over 144 for January for my campaign points, just need to get one done. With the two 7.5" square pieces I did before the campaign started, I have around 472 square inches, or almost four square feet, of this white industrial terrain. It feels like a lot, yet it's only 1/3 of what I should end up with for the duration of the campaign.

Pictures of more "dirty water wash" across my crane. The dark wash is all dirty paint water, and I've also laid down some rust. I should note that I added some flow-aid to my paint water before using it as a wash. I'll go over the whole thing with a diluted Gryphonne Sepia wash next. The rubble is drybrushed a series of lighter greys. I then put put small areas of various washes on it. Next, I'll cover the whole thing in undiluted Badab Black and, after that dries, a light drybrushing of tan.

I should be able to finish this piece up today. Unfortunately, it's only 126 of the desired 144 square inches of real estate needed for my January points in our Trucidos Campaign, so I'm not done yet.

"Heh heh, oh man, my brush water is getting dirty. That's awful. It's really time to change it. Why, there's so much pigment floating around in there, it's like cleaning my brush with another paint! Well, okay, not so much a paint, but definitely a...wash!!"

Here's a light first pass. Looks good! I did a little more thorough after this, knocking the brush around and causing splatter all over the place. And best of all, when I'm done-- my brush is clean! Ish.

You could do this responsibly by starting a two stage brush cleaning system-- rinse it off first in the "wash," then actually clean it in a cleaner cup.

And when you're knocking your brush around crazily making spatter? Watch out for the back splash.

I got the second game of our Trucidos campaign finished tonight. It was a 750 point rematch between Chris and me, and a much harder fought battle. However, I managed through tactics and forgotten rules to wrangle out, in the end, a draw...

The table was fairly crowded, but everything on the table was painted and complete, and it looked pretty nice. We were playing for objectives out of opposite corners. I set up right outside the center circle, which was probably a mistake. I was trying to keep the objectives in reach, but Chris's 'nids were on me by the second turn.

My Necrons did much better in close combat this time. I made a lot of saves and a lot of We'll Be Back rolls. I tried to keep my two (yes, only two) units of Warriors supporting each other, and had cleared Chris's hormagaunts and rippers by turn 3-4.

Feeling cocky, I ran my Lord's unit over to the hive tyrant, hoping for a quick kill. I couldn't scratch this guy! I needed the Warscythe, but didn't take it this game. The Monolith was also pretty useless. It arrived on turn 2, but only every got off one Particle Whip shot, which scattered off into the boonies. The rest of the time, the carnifex and the tyrant were either too close to use the whip safely, or in close combat with my own units.

The game ended on turn 6, with neither of us holding any objectives! Oh well, a tie beats a loss...

My Necromunda gang scrabbles over the ruined crane. Who needs Vents when you've got a crane, baby! I had hoped to prime it today, since it had stopped raining and we had some nice weather, but I never got the rubble on until tonight. I'll let it (hopefully) dry over night, and prime it tomorrow. The forecast looks cold, but dry. With a little bit of luck, I'll have it done in time for our campaign game on Thursday.

I kind of didn't want to post anything until I was finished, but I'm excited about this and thought I'd post some work in progress shots. I was at the store with my wife today, doing some shopping. I needed some more epoxy for what I was planning for my January Trucidos terrain. It was kind of an extension of my industrial style terrain I've done so far. One of the things I had been thinking about was a crane, but it seemed very intimidating and time consuming to scratch build myself. And as I was walking through the discount toys, I saw this...

SCORE!!

For $14, I got a massive crane assembly that has become the center piece of my January terrain. I've propped the crane up so that it can be glued into this position, allowing figures to run along the top of the crane, Casino Royale style. If you look closely, you can make out a Necromunda Goliath up there right now. You start to get a sense of just how big this thing is.

I've glued some barricades around it for firing positions. Gluing onto this thing is neigh-impossible. Looking around the internet, I've decided that it's made out of polyethylene or polypropylene plastic. Superglue runs off this stuff like water-- nothing sticks. Epoxy would probably work, if I create some hole or something in the plastic to give it purchase. Right now, I'm trying contact cement. I'll see how well that adheres before doing any more.

That will still leave be just under 144 sq in for the month, so I'll have to whip something else up. I'm thinking of making one of the other vehicles that came with it an old wreck, sunk into the ground, for cover.

Aaaaaaaaaand DONE! Got my December pieces done just under the wire. I'm in with 267.75 square inches of campaign terrain. I think I will start my January terrain tomorrow, so I don't run into this crunch again! But, I have to say, deadlines work. That's 267.75 square inches of terrain that I would not have had were it not for our campaign.

Here are the new pieces along side the old CD tower terrain I did.

Went ahead and drybrushed the rubble tan, washed it with some GW Badab Black, and then washed all the models and some of the rubble with GW Gryphonne Sepia cut 1:1 with water. It's a little thin, but better that than too thick. I'll probably leave it like that, go ahead and glue on the bridge over the pipes, and flock the base.

Okay. That's an awful lot of white to have left after painting on it for four or so hours, but I have brought it up to a basic rust "drip" wash. I'll let that dry over night (hopefully!). Tomorrow, I'll dust the rubble with a tan drybrush, then start some GW washes-- some Badab Black on the rubble, and 1:1 watered down Gyphonne Sepia over the whole model.

Whoops!! Look at those three scratches! No drips! It's amazing how you notice everything you missed only after you post it permanently for others to see. Fortunately, the wash hadn't dried and the drip has descended to display for future delights...

It's-a primed. IT'S-A PRIMED!!

The family has been instructed to leave me the hay el alone tonight so I can finish...it's still a significant amount of work to get all this panted and based, but I'm feeling more positive than two hours ago!

The glue isn't dry after five hours!! I probably can't do any more work tonight!! OH NOES...

Update: A hair dryer seems to be working to really speed up drying the watered down Elmer's white/PVA glue I used. I wonder if I could accelerate washes with that...

Weeeeell, last time I kind of forgot about the rubble, which is actually a somewhat lengthy process, waiting for all the glues to dry. I usually paint the piece first, and then base it, including the rubble. I wanted to do it before painting this time so I could primer over the rubble and help it adhere to the base. So, actually painting the pieces has been pushed out a bit. It is going down to the wire here, folks! I had wanted to try out some more interesting weathering techniques on these, but that will have to wait. I won't be able to work on these tomorrow night, since it is New Year's Eve and the family has plans, so I've got to bust my butt getting this stuff done. Still, I can't make the glue dry any faster than it does. I took my lunch today and got the debris all glued down. It can dry, and I can start working on it again when I get home tonight. Hopefully, I will be able to finish by tomorrow afternoon! My confidence is currently high, but it waxes and wanes depending on how I think about it...

Update: Fortuitous serendipity!! My employer is letting us off early tomorrow for the holiday...

I've got the main piece ready to paint...I added some greebles and random pipes...some of which are on the far side and perfectly not pictured! Ah well, a few hours well spent. 2 points I can count on, at least! Decent terrain is, indeed, fairly time consuming...time for some Rowan's Creek!

Here are pictures of the current state of my December terrain for our Trucidos campaign. It's down to the wire for me, but I have a few more evenings left to finish. I'm glad December has 31 days!

With my original CD case tower I made, I was very pleased with how the simple cardstock paper Imperial Eagle I cut out looked on the sides. I wanted to duplicate this, so I had the idea of making a resin casts of some 40k symbols. That way, I only had to go through the effort of cutting these fiddly icons out once. I spent probably three to four hours just cutting them out of styrene sheet. Once done, I superglued them acrylic sheet and made an RTV mold of them. So far, it seems to be working out just fine!

The resin appears to be fairly flexible when it's this thin, so I don't think I'll even have any problems contouring the cast pieces to fit the curve of the sides of the towers. Here's what the pieces look like right now.

A few things I could have done better:

1. Contact cement does not adhere insulating foam! It EATS it! I keep forgetting this...
   
2. Spackle for contouring isn't really that great, because wherever it gets a ding, it shows up white. I need to try mixing up some custom filler
   
3. I used styrene tubes for my pipes. I should have just used regular rods, as the tubes tended to buckle where I heated and bent them. On this piece, it will be covered up, as I have something to lay over the pipes to make a better walkway.
   

I faced off against Chris's Tyranid's for the first game of our Trucidos 40k Campaign. Here is the tale of my inglorious defeat...

Here's the table. Playing on a 4x4 table turned out to be much smaller than it appeared, especially with objectives that couldn't be closer than 12" from a table edge or 12" from each other. Fortunately, we only rolled three. Two small objectives have been placed, and the third rests on the lower tree stump, and was placed below it. Chris advanced from the bottom right corner, and I advanced from the top right.

My great plan was to steadily advance against the two nearest objectives and try to at least take one and contest the other. My right squad was simply 10 Necrons, which I thought would take their objective, and my left squad was 10 Necrons with the Lord equipped with a Warscythe for close combat and a Phase Shield (I think, 4+ Invulnerable Save). I expected the Left squad to get stuck into combat and contest the second objective. The last picture here shows the Right squad absolutely pasting Chris's Termagants off their intended objective. At this point I'm thinking I have this game in the bag.

Unfortunately, the Left squad just wasn't doing quite as well. Chris's biovore kept up a steady rain of frag spore mines from the corner of the board (until Chris forgot about him starting in turn 4, I think), causing a wound on my Lord in the first turn of the game. He then charged the squad with his hormagaunts. The squad shot the hormagaunts up pretty well, but about four of them managed to get into close combat. My close combat Lord whiffed badly in close combat every turn. They battled the hormagaunts for two or three turns, clearing them out just in time to be charged by a swarm of rippers which tied them up easily for the rest of the game. They might have been able to do something more near the end of the game, but of course their last combat round left a single ripper sward with a single wound.

"No, damn you! We should be over there! OVER THERE!!"

Then, the squad I had pasted reappeared at Chris's table edge, and at this point I figured there was no way for me to win on objectives with only one squad effective. The Right squad then advanced across the table at his warrior HQ. Again, turn 5, I blasted away, but left one warrior with one wound. Another turn and maybe I could have pulled it out, but with the variable game lengths, the game ended after turn 5.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. The objectives and the random game length rules are very arbitrary and may not seem to match the "fluff" of your army BUT they get you moving and interacting and simply make the game more fun. In a way, they add an amount of tension that I find I greatly enjoy, kind of like my favorite Piquet rules. They do it differently, but the evoke a similar nail-biting suspense and uncertainty that many games lack.

The opening shots of the Trucidos Campaign have been fired. Last night we played 500 point 40k games on 4x4 tables, which I'm pretty sure were everybody's first 5th edition games played to completion. In typical fashion, I came out of the gate firmly in last place! You can check the website for current standings and little fluff bits we're writing for campaign points, plus I'll be posting a more detailed game report tomorrow if I can scrounge up the time. Long story short-- I blame the dice!

Some of the local boys and I are starting a little 40k campaign. There will be my Necrons, Mik's Dark Angels, Tyranids and Imperial Guard. We're all adults with families, so we're trying to keep it fairly low commitment with one game a month, for six months. We are also trying to incentivize terrain building by offer campaign points based on the total square footage of terrain you make each month. Hopefully, it will go well and be fun for everybody!