Category Archives: Wargame Scenery

Warzone Resin Scenery and some other Scenery.

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No, not the new/current incanation of WarZone by Prodos Games, but 1st/2nd Edition Era stuff. These pieces came out in the same kind of retail blisters that almost all of the Scotia Grendel stuff that I’ve been showing off recently, so I think it’s likely that Grendel made them under licence from Target Games/Heartbreaker, back in the day. These all sat in various containers and boxes for a good decade and a half until recently, towards the end of last year when I pulled them out and decided to paint them, and practice some new techniques.

Entranceway

I did a lot of playing around with Verdigris effects on these. Pretty much figuring out how to do it. I missed that little Dark Legion icon up top of this archway until I was looking at these photos. Maybe I’ll go back and paint it with gold/brass/verdigris.

Inside(?) of the archway. Surely not the outside?

Obviously, I used a lot of drybrushing on these sets as well. I almost always use it on stone, but I usually hand paint and shade things like skulls. In this case, however, they got drybrushed as well, and the starkness actually turned out really well, I think.

Long walls

I also had a bit of a play with weathering powders and Tamiya’s weathering compacts on the bottom of these scenery elements. The compacts worked a lot better than the powders, especially as the scenery needed to be varnished and will be handled a lot.

Short walls

I basically bought one of each set. In retrospect, maybe I should have bought some extra walls and corners, but then, I didn’t have unlimited funds back then, and we tended to spread stuff like this out a bit to use as ruins to fight on and around in 40k and WarZone.

Concave walls

I also had a bit of a play with some MIG rust washes on the metal parts of the wall reinforcements. Not bad, but probably better used elsewhere, or more carefully, as using it in these places became tedious and didn’t allow for the best effect of the realistic rust effects. Well, it could have, if I didn’t have to do so many of them. Looking at the pics I can see small areas I could have focused on to enhance the rust effects, but hindsight, eh?

Convex walls.

I quite like the utility of scenery elements like this. Pretty much everything I bought as scenery back in the day was done so with at least one eye towards using it for 40k. Even scenery that is nominally for Fantasy and other games – The farmhouse seen a couple of posts ago has spent more time on 40k tables than fantasy ones!

Dark Legion/Chaos Throne

Since – let’s face it – this scenery is going to spend more time on Warhammer-game-themed tables than Warzone tables, I looked around for awhile for something appropriate for the banners. Originally, I was just going to paint some runes of Khorne on them, but that seemed a bit too boring. These stars appear to be used by the “Blood Pact” Renegade Guard forces from one of the IA books, but also look generic enough to be more general Chaos than just Khornate. Turned out better than I’d expected, too!

Outer-wall side of the throne piece.

Subtle? Dark Legion? Chaos? Naaaaa!

All of the pieces

Here’s all of the pieces assembled together. You can see why I’d have bought some more walls and corners pretty well here, but in practical use, these pieces will be combined with other resin and stuff, ruined walls and so forth. It will work equally well as scenery for 40k and other sci-fi games (WarZone, maybe?) as well as Fantasy games such as Kings of War, Mordheim SoBH, etc. It’s all pretty Pathfinder/RPG friendly as well.

Stone Stairs

This Spiral Staircase can be useful as a connection piece to higher-up scenery (Fortress Walls, etc) but is also useful for Pathfinder and Role-playing. It’s amazing to be just how much of this stuff is still available!

Staircase details

Some nice little hidden details on the underside of the staircase.

Porticullus

This piece is more useful as a Role-playing element than a tabletop wargame one, in my opinion. I had a play with the new Army Painter coloured washes on the runes above the grate. I could have gone nuts with glowy effects and OSL, but that was a bit too much for something that will be used as a mundane piece of dungeon terrain most of the time. Still available from Grendel.

Sewer grate

I really like this Sewer grate. It had a couple of the oversized skulls that I wasn’t fond of, but my clippers took care of that (one skull went flying through the lounge room and has still not been found!) My big plan for this piece is to use it when playing Helms Deep in LotR SBG or WotR – or Helms Deep-inspired scenarios for Kings of War. Butt it against a castle wall and let those Uruk-Hai sappers loose! Once again, Grendel are still selling this – in a three-pack this time, along with two pieces I painted and showcased awhile back. (about halfway down the page).

Damn, Grendel should be sending me some freebies when you consider the amount of their stuff I’ve been showcasing lately! This is pretty much all stuff I bought years and years ago, during my personal golden era of FLGS gaming in Melbourne, around 1995-2002 – and in most cases never got around to painting until now.

 

Warhammer Fantasy Siege Accessories & Fantasy Scenery

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So I finally got my light box set up. It’s not quite as good as I’d hoped, but it’s still a lot better than my previous set up. I took a ton of pics this evening, and so here’s the first batch – some generic fantasy scenery. While in many ways it’s not especially exciting, I’ve decided that I want to photograph everything that I finish this year, and on a wider scale, photograph everything that I’ve painted that is still in my collection.

Here’s the Warhammer Fantasy Siege Attackers models. The Siege Attackers and Siege Defenders boxed sets were released years ago alongside the Warhammer Fortress, as well as a few other kits such as Siege Mantlets and Siege Towers. I picked up both of these, as well as a Fortress and a few extra wall and Tower sections back in the day. Never got any of the others, but ended up with some miscast mantlets which I added to a Nurgle Rhino which I never finished.

Warhammer Siege Attackers set.

The two pieces in the lighter shade of wood (the wheeled ram and the metal-capped carried ram) were painted years ago. The other pieces were painted recently as part of sorting through my models and seeing them in a box unpainted, and then deciding to knock them out quickly. I’ve got a bunch of Uruk-Hai siege gear somewhere from the LotR sets which I should do the same with.

(Most of) the Warhammer Siege Defenders Set

My Defenders set is missing a few bits and pieces. The cauldron is missing the cauldron piece (I have the side supports), the rock dumping flat platform thing (I think I saw it recently), and the big rock.

Warhammer Siege Attackers Box

Warhammer Siege Defenders Box

Here’s a couple of box pics for posterity. I’m planning to paint that Warhammer Fortress finally, as well as the extra bits, and I also picked up another Fortress from GW Mail order recently, as to my great surprise they were still stocking it. Well, it turned up as a shipping box filled with the components in individual baggies rather then in the original box. But now I’ll have a decent sized castle when I assemble the new pieces, do some putty work on the old ones and then paint the lot of them. Then I can repaint and detail my original Mighty Fortress. Does this middle-era count as Oldhammer? Probably not, it’s got to be from around 4th-5th Edition WFB. But then again, close enough! I’m hoping to get some specific use out of these siege toys via Kings of War and the Lord of the Rings SBG, but they can certainly make for a cool background and scenario in almost any game we can play on the table…

Scotia Grendel Resin Hero's Grave

I didn’t recall who made this model, so I looked it up and again found it on Scotia Grendel’s website – but I got it 10-15 odd years ago, got it mostly-painted, and then never quite finished it. It may have also come with a casket. I’m not sure. I’ve got one or two resin caskets sitting around unpainted, but not sure if any came from/with this kit. Anyway I finished it up about a month or two ago, and now it’s done and chalked up to 2014’s credit!

Scotia Grendel Resin Hero's Grave

Here’s the rear view. The Warhammer-cross gravestone was a separate piece that had to be glued on. The rear of it had no detail at all, and so I added a thin layer of putty and did the best I could at the time to try and add something that would fit. If I did it today I’d use grey stuff and press-moulding and so forth, but I’m not going to change it. It looks a little rough, but it’s one of those things you’d never really notice unless you were told about it. I suspect now that a lot of the area I added static grass to back then was originally supposed to be simply-sculpted dirt. Ah well.

Another piece of resin scenery from the same era, and again finished a month or so ago. Once again, not sure who created this model initially. Again, Grendel would be the front runner, but I couldn’t find it on their modern website so who knows? I’ve based this one on a drink coaster and added a vampire model from …early Reaper? Ral Partha? Grenadier? Dunno. I’m sure it says under the base, but I’m not about to pry her up. It’s the same figure I also used on one of the pillars I showed a few posts ago. No verdigris this time. Need to keep them a little distinct.

I painted the little fungus things in a deep red mostly because I wanted to avoid whites, greys and bone shades. When I eventually get hold of a couple of the Citadel Graveyard sets, I’ll use some deep red flora to tie it in.

Another piece of scenery I got back in the day. I really bought quite a lot in the several-year period around 1994-2005 or so, and then very little for a long time after – until recently. No idea who made this one, of course, but it’s a nice little piece. Hollow resin. I think it was about $20. It’s a little small for Warhammer models, so I suspect it’s a “proper” historical scenery model.

Just the sort of thing I’d buy more of, if I saw for the same price now. This was actually painted back when I got it, so no 2014 credit here. Obviously this can work well in Fantasy or Historical games. The blue struts are perhaps a little garish for a lot of historical games, and if I were to paint this today, they’d probably be brown, but hey!

Remember those barrels that were in that other post? Well, I found the last one of their set, finished it, and have now photographed it. These will make good scenery for large-scale fantasy battles, smaller-scale fantasy skirmishes, roleplaying/dungeon bashing or even Historical games, such as use in Bolt Action.