Today we have a terrain piece that I picked up back in 2014, though the piece dates back to (at least) 2009. My reasons for getting it were no doubt tied to the triad of having recently (at the time) purchased my own home, the price (a surprisingly cheap AU$30.75 from my local GW source) and the fact that it looked pretty simple, so it should be a doddle to paint up quickly, right?
I lost that skull & crossbones sign long ago!
Well, we all know how well that last point goes, all too often. So long story short, it’s been sitting a corner of the War Room for several years, trees assembled, side hatch glued on, both top hatched glued on and broken off due to flimsy design, and sprayed a lovely shade of gloss brown.
Sprue Shot taken from 2009 review on Johns Toy Soldiers Blog.
So getting this thing done, along with quite a few similar projects was part of the impetus of January being Terrain Month (I’ll probably repeat it next year as well – so bloody many terrain kits to assemble and paint!)
My personal brief, from way back in 2014, was to paint the kit in a generic enough way so that it could be used regardless of which forces were fighting over the tabletop. This immediately meant that the Rhino needed to be painted as a burnt-out husk, so as to avoid being in the livery of any particular force. The same applied to the bits of Space Marine scattered around the piece (a couple of helmets, a backpack, a bolter).
So I did what I do now – look up a ton of reference pictures. I wanted the trees to look like the husks that are left after a bushfire, so an ashy grey. That also meant that I needed to make the dirt on the ground look suitably ashen. One of my reference pictures showed an AFV that had been destroyed in Ukraine, and it was severely rusted out. I thought it looked pretty effective, so I now had a new direction for my Rhino husk. Burnt out, and then rusted over time.
Given that the Rhino now had been there for long enough to rust out, this meant that a decent amount of time had passed since whatever explosive/shelling incident had caused this terrain piece to become. So this meant the additional of a subtly small addition to the entire piece. Spots of new growth. Again, reference photos provided the inspiration.
Unfortunately, the matte varnish has left a bit of a sheen that comes up in photography – especially with the extra lights turned on the table. It’s not quite as bad in person. But before all of those finer details, the first thing I needed to do was to finally complete the build, by filling that gaping hole to the tabletop left inside the rhino, between the hatches.
I’d tossed up various ideas to fill it over the years, and my best option was to mount the whole piece onto an MDF placemat, though it wasn’t quite large enough to have the whole, oddly-shaped piece fit. There was still a bit of overhang. Luckily Krautscientist’s recent WIP post on the Crashed Aquila Lander and a deceptively simple solution to that piece’s gaping hole to the tabletop (apparently a common issue with their kits of that vintage) provided me with inspiration on doing the same to my own long-neglected one of the same kit. After doing that (hopefully to be painted soon!) I immediately decided to do the same, simple trick to this model using some textured “small tile” plasticard for visual interest.
It was a little trickier due to the lack of contact points underneath – there’s a lot of plastic cement, greenstuff and superglue underneath, and the floor isn’t parallel to the roof – but it works.
Now, finally the kit is complete. Now, could I have spruced the thing up by adding additional details and such? Of course! But since that’s always the case, these things become a bit of a triage situation, where you need to weigh up whether it’s worth the time to do so. And I’ve got SO many more terrain kits to take on that I’m happy to finally call this one done and dusted!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
I think I’ll have to check out some of this terrain at some point as some of it is pretty cool stuff and would provide plenty of diorama ideas.
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A few of these are discontinued these days, but I’m sure there are still some of them floating around out there!
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Classic piece of workhorse terrain there mate – good call on fixing up the transport compartment on that Rhino, and on keeping it generic!
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Cheers Alex. It was the main reason it took so long for me to finish this thing, as it always bothered me so much!
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Fantastic work on this piece, the work you’ve done reflects the age of the story really well, and great fix on the hole. Was always tempted by this piece, just never got round to getting it
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I know what you mean, Dave – it took me 5-odd years to pick it up myself! 🙂
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I’m with Dave there but I won’t be checking out that amazing terrain in the near future mate ! I have enough distractions as it is ! .
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No stress Pat – you’ve got a ton of stuff to get through yet from what I’ve seen!
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Great piece. I love the ashen look you have the trees and ground and they work really well as a contrast to the wreck
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Thanks mate. The rusted-out look is much better for this piece than simply a black-grey burnt-out wreck.
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This is another that I always liked, but didn’t get around to picking up before it was discontinued. Your reasoning on all the various details seems sound to me, and resulted in a very nice looking chunk of area terrain. Well, for “bombed- and burn-out” values of “nice looking” 😉
Good job with the plasticard to fill the underside, too. I remember that issue from the crashed Aquila Lander.
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Thanks Alexis. There are a few other terrain pieces from that Era I sadly missed out on. I guess we didn’t expect them to suddenly start discontinuing them all, especially when they’d been available for so long. Seems I just happened to start buying them up when they were getting discontinued with no clue that their timer was up! I missed the old Imperial Sector by literally a week!
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Looking good 👍
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Cheers, mate!
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How about setting yourself some time to focus on terains, say, call it terrain tuesday or somthing…?
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A nice idea, but given how long it takes to get stuff painted – and how scattered whatever I finish tends to be at any given time, it probably wouldn’t work for me!
Also, when I’m at work I usually don’t get any painting done on Tuesday and those posts are often pre-written on a weekend!
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Aah, well, i did not know that part…
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No problem – I only wish I could get enough terrain painted to post some new stuff every Tuesday! 🙂
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Oh yeah, I do like this, as you suspected I might! Very nice indeed and rusty and grey enough for my liking! I’d imagine it’ll fit in with the scrapheap-type scenery you’ve been doing quite well. Sadly, I’m nearly almost as excited that there might be a scenery challenge next year as well!
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Glad to see that you approve. I can see doing scenery every January, to be honest. For selfish reasons of course, as I always have annual leave for a few weeks in that month, and it’s nice spraying weather!
Still, by now you’ll know that February this year is ALSO scenery month – so keep on keeping on there!
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Nicely done 🙂
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Cheers, mate!
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That is really cool. A nice centrepiece for a kill team table I’d say.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete. I wish they’d kept up these sorts of pieces. Even if they don’t connect to the Sector Mechanicus, they serve(d) a very useful purpose on the tabletop.
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Very cool terrain piece, excellent work aging it up and the scenic shots are great!
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Thanks mate! I’m looking forward to actually using it in a proper game – hopefully sooner than later!
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Great stuff once again! Not sure what aspect I like best, the trees or the rust, as you’ve nailed both to a T. As others have said I’m a little bit jealous too, back when this was released I had no idea that so many of GW’s terrain kits would be limited runs so I never got around to getting one. Must confess that although I love the new “everything compatible with everything else” scenery range for 40k I miss seeing one off pieces like this.
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Totally agree on the one-offs like this. To be fair to them, this was available for donkeys ears and it just took me forever to get to buying it (shortly before it got discontinued). Nowadays I just grab the terrain pieces I like more or less on (or close to) release, even if I’ll get around to them much later, especially now that it’s more of a focus for me, and after missing out on so much of the good stuff!
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Sweet, man. I was looking to do a burned out section on some terrain recently too. Mine will be darker, and because I want/need to put more time into, probably won’t get the camera light before the end of this month.
That’s just an awesome piece all around and looks ace on your game mat. The rust looks so natural and nice contrast with the ash trees/ground. That shot of the marine popping out of the wreck needs to be on next month’s cover of White Dwarf! 😀
Was this by chance one of the images you referenced?
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I haven’t seen that particular one, but it’s the sort of thing I was looking at. The “Star Player” of the images I was looking at was this one:
Remember, you’ve now got February to get yours done (and a few grace days for photography & posting). You’re very kind with reference to my images, but the thing is it actually looked much better before the varnish. I screwed up in a couple of places – mainly I forgot to gloss varnish before adding the weathering powders, and there was a terrible accident where way too much ash white added, so I was adding fixer and trying to wipe it off the unvarnished surface. Which was recovered to a decent level, but not 100%.
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If it had turned out like you had hoped, then our heads would have x-ploded with all the awesomeness! 😉
That’s a cool tank pic. That one looks like it’s been sitting around a verrrry long time.
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Yep it’s a great pic, I really liked the amount of orange to distinguish it from the ashen base, so then it meant regrowth!
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I echo the comments above. I am inspired such that I will be thinking of what you did when I make my Panzer IVD hulk. Love the ashen forest, all of this ties together so well. Great rust work my friend.
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Thanks Mark! I’m now looking forward to seeing what you come up with for that Panzer IV!
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