Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven – “Stone Bridge” – Review

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

Another model from my pledge from the Dungeons and Lasers Woodhaven Kickstarter. This one I painted last Sunday, though the preparation took a bit longer with the mould lines and assembly and texturing and priming and drying time. and all that.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

The kit is made from two simple sprues, and is designed to integrate in with the Archon modular scenery sets. I didn’t want to spend a billion dollars on their terrain, so I mostly just got accessory-type stuff, like the stairs I’ve been showing recently as well as this bridge. The sets I did pick up from the pledge were ones I felt I could easily turn into wargaming ruins, because trying to make actual buildings with these gets real bloody expensive.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

You can also see here that the gaps between the flagstones is pretty huge. One of the downsides of using 3D models and 3D modellers for everything. They’d either need grit/texture applied to those gaps or if you’re lazy like me, weathering powders to stop them looking terrible. Due to needing to integrate with their other sets, there’s also gap on each end of the bridge. I could have plugged them, but those aren’t too bad once the model is painted.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

I also don’t see that as particularly more immersion breaking than a model with brown dirt and foliage walking on the stone bridge – and this way I retain flexibility in case I change my mind in the future or whatever – also time vs effort vs “good enough – get the thing on the table!”

Once assembled, the bridge is fine. The stones are pretty smooth, so if you’re keen to do something about that – as I was, then…

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

There is indeed a solution.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

As with all of the other bridges I’ve posted recently, this is another tiny thing that really would only cover a stream or creek.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

I actually think it’s work better in some ways on a 15mm table than a 25/28/32mm one. Even that “jump” to the edge of the bridge would be negligible if bumped up against one of the Battlefront Roads.

Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers: Woodhaven - "Stone Bridge" - Review

Oh, I also painted the underside that will probably never be seen. So I may as well post it up here… Interestingly, the Dirty Down moss turned out much, much darker on this model. Perhaps the varnish hadn’t fully cured? I’m really not sure.

My verdict? It’s actually pretty much the same as the one given for the stairs shown so far. I think the Kickstarter price for this bridge was fair, and also truthfully about as much as I’d be willing to pay for it. It’s pretty small and that limits its effective use and versatility, though it can still have a place on the tabletop in a lot of cases.

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

Back in February 2019 I completed the Nightvault Arcane Hazards for Warhammer Underworlds. I picked up this second set of Underworlds terrain shortly after release around September-October 2019 and got started on it pretty quickly. And then, of course, the usual happened and they got put away into a plastic tub, partially painted.

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

With this year’s Season of Scenery challenge over at Dave Stone’s Wargames Terrain Workshop blog, I decided to finally try to complete this set. As it happened, I got four of the six pieces done in time – as seen above!

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

The final two didn’t get completed until a few days into September – the draconic skeleton just a little while before posting. The fire effects were finicky to paint, and I’m not especially a fan of things like sculpted flames or smoke at the best of times. I also had to assemble and paint the giant drake skull in bits and pieces, and then use spue goo to combine the two halves of the skull before re-base coating the most of it and then shading & highlighting.

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

The other annoying part of the large draconic skeleton was the fact that I’ve lost the shoulderblade piece. If I ever find it, I’ll attach and paint it – but bloody annoying! All of the pieces have some form of Contrast used on them, though none used in the “official” way of slapping it onto a basic undercoat.

Warhammer Underworlds: Beastgrave Primal Lair

Since I still haven’t finished an Underworlds Warband, I’ve subbed in some WHFB/AoS models to show scale. Obviously these can also be used in all manner of Fantasy games as well as smaller bits of scatter… just featuring odd hexagonal stone elements.. As it happens, just as I was working on the final elements of these last two pieces, I got a blog notification that The Responsible One had just completed his set of these and has done a great job on them – go check his set out! So it seems that great minds think alike – and so do we!