Terra Commorragh

This thread is the central repository for the discussion of ideas relating to Dark Eldar-related terrain, and the posting of examples made by TDC denizens, or worthies found elsewhere on the Webway. Gob.

I've already asked this countless times on various forums, but it fun to bring this question back to life. Anyone had some Intentions/ideas about creating a Commorragh table? If I had absolutely all my 40k painted that would probably be my full-time 40k project, I could actually work on it, however I still got way too many models to paint, models first, terrain after.
Honestly nobody has done this, not GW, not anybody, some have made partial terrain pieces (like GW did), but nobody went full scale Commorragh.
There are so many possibilities to think of:

1) the high spheres of Commorragh, fancy high towers, a kinda of city like structure, you kind of have palaces and fortresses build on top of the major buildings . You could actually have several of these like islands separated by the height, only skimmers could cross these, with the exception of some possible bridges

2) arena of death, could be a huge arena with possible inside structures where the wyches fight.

3) The lower parts of the city, described in the codex. Base of these huge buildings, with some rivers, some ancient eldar ruins, so many possibilities.

4)The Underground where the heamonculi live, a subterranean realm with loads of corridors, zone mortalis rules (forgeworld) would be best for these dark places.

5)Spaceports: if you’re crazy enough build one of several spaceships docked too, but not obligatory.

6)A dark Gate, all the realms are connected by big gates guarded by incubi, could be a cool idea to start a very awesome board.

7)a training ground, a big dome with outside Commorragh and outside a “normal” battlefield like we are used to.

8)a big dark eldar fortress, like described in the codex, big point walls filled with all kind of dark matter and splinter guns. Perhaps an aircraft bay where all kind of nasty flyers would come out.

9)The inside of a building would be too bad either a concept similar to the heamonculi underground, zone mortalis rules, corridors, big open space, the inside of a palace, a fortress, whatever, basically Zone Mortalis dark eldar style.

10) Slave quarters, even possibly a factory with all kind of xenos and humans hanging around.

When you think about it, the so called streets of Commorragh aren’t always at ground level, some are quite high up, just buildings connected by bridges, or just the side of a building.

We actually have enough information, artwork and detailed descriptions. Best would be to make these GW worthy by filling them with unnecessary details, slaves still working on the building, point edges EVERYWHERE, scourges resting somewhere stalking somebody, mandrakes hiding, etc… so many fun possibilities.
Making such a board would be crazy awesome, but most people don’t have enough time or the resources for this.

Feel free to share any ideas, I love discussing this particular subject, If you've gone further than this and got pictures even better.

The entire battlefield -well a part of it- where The Darkened Light and Poisoned Dart fought, there would be raider wreckage and dead bodies everywhere, destroyed towers and debris.

-this board would be from my fluff-

I have always wanted to make a Commorragh table, but I want to do it right, which means it will take a LOT of time, ...... which means I have never gotten started on it yet  

I've been thinking about a multi-tiered table. It would include a goodly number of towers supporting a dozen or so platforms, sky bridges, and balconies. Onto the larger platforms I'd place a few webway portals that would be randomly paired at the start of each game.

One very important piece of artwork:



You could make it all separately and connect it for apoc, or just us one piece of terrain for normal battles.

I think this would be the best a safest idea for a terrain piece



You would make this top of the tower, I'd make the top platform too, to give the illusion of the tower, it's a nice detail to add, the edge would be close to the edge of the table. Several buildings like a small Commorragh, I'd put enough space in between the buildings, if neccessary i'd split this in 4 or just make 1/4 of this, but I'm sure you could make something like this for a single table to play on.



If you're crazy enough you would make this whole top, using the table platform as support piece on which you would put the top tower board, the sides would be detachable, this could be the coolest table ever XD

I really would love to see something like this on tabletop.

Hmm... I smell a new community project brewing...

I have been thinking about it. Was thinking lots of spires with levels and tightly packed streets below. Would be worse than a cities of death board. It is third in my board project line-only because it would be so specialized.

If there would be a board with spires of High Commorragh, I think it could be neat that there was nothing at the bottom at all. Just bridges and platforms. It would be very high altitudes.
Maybe also some extra rules about falling (or pushing useless people down)?

On a ground level, well, the imagination is the limit. Complex suburb-mazes, the foot of a skyscraper, arenas...

Are you familiar with the Terraclips scenery system, from World Works Games?
High-quality-printed 4mm card floors, walls and rooves, with a clip system for connection.
It is amazing stuff for making dense city scenery, I have one pack each of the sewers, streets and buildings, which is enough to half-fill a 6x4, with multi-level buildings, gantries, bridges etc.

Before you commit to a major 3D build, it would be worth experimenting as you may find some things unplayable. Terraclips was designed for Malifaux, a 5-10 model per side skirmish game, where lifting floors off buildings was viable, but my buddies and I have decided this is not workable with 40K, especially if you have 30 Orks swarming up a four storey building!

Skeletal structures work well in 3D, so think scaffolding or big amphitheatres; alternatively, use 2D+, the system in games like DOOM, where although you can go up and down ramps of stairs, you can't actually go under them, so it is a 3D shaped 2D environment.

If you go to http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/, TerraCLIPS is the clip together ready-to play stuff; what may also interest you is their original product range, Terralinx. These are downloadable PDFs to print your own cards, and folded card pillars for jointing. A huge range of styles (Wild West, Space Hulk, D&D etc), I think they even do blank templates.

Are you considering any movement rule changes? Perhaps allowing models to jump from one structure to another, range 6", as a dangerous move? Without something like this, I fear the game would stay largely on the ground, or just be a shooting match.

Great project, hope you post WiP soon!

I asked the mods to sticky this if possible, I'd like this to be a permanent exchanging of ideas. So far all I can do is mostly talk about this, and it's certainly an interesting subject ,especially in this forum.

If anybody with some drawning skills and some great ideas is willing to work on this project I'll gladly accept the help.

I got access to materials, I got the skills to make something like this and my painting skills are pretty high too. Artwork, sketches would help a lot, interchanging of ideas, etc...

I can't work on this project because I want to get more of my army painted before I work on this. Once most of the army is done I can work on this. I still want to work a couple more years on my huge apoc force. It's only talk so far, but I'll get to this project eventually, I had talked about making superheavy skimmers, I made them.
Such projects are huge, I spend a couple of weeks/months working on the concepts and drawning stuff for my superheavies, then I spend a lot of months scratch building them. I get why FW take so much time to make their models.

I'm in no rush to do all this, but I WILL do it eventually. If I'm lucky I'll be able to find people to help me with this, it would accelerate the project greatly.

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It would be a kind of cityfight, but not the same as the GW one. I'd prefer if the building/towers were greatly separated from eachother. There would be spaces on which to put models in the heights, like cityfights, but still different. In between towers there could be bridges, in between major terrain pieces there could also be big bridges, but not always. Flying is a pretty big deal in Commorragh, it's a major source of transportation. Though of course bridges still exist and why not include elevators too.

Ideally I would want to keep the normal 40k gameplay as much as possible, I'd put plenty of open spaces all over these terrain pieces. Some parts of the terrain would be very similar to the cityfights and like I said in my first post, you could make the interior of a building, or the underground of the Heamonculi. You would use the forgeworld Zone mortalis rules for these or something close.

Read the fluff, watch the artwork, it's possible to have big battles in Commorragh, the main scenery is different, but it's possible.

Khain, there may be a slight problem here. You have to many models to fit on a 4X6 board, so what I would try to do is that one big rectangle city district with those above comment suggestions, and make it 4 separate 4X6 ft tables -who doesn't love 8X12 ft boards? on about 4 different levels of awesome?

You could make it an entire Table, each floor could come off of the one under it to do your movement down in the building and such, it would make an amazing Apocalypse Table. Although I don't have the time to draw plans for a couple hours, but I do have them all in my head if you want them badly.

This thread has been stickied as the central repository for the discussion of ideas relating to Dark Eldar-related terrain, and the posting of examples made by TDC denizens, or worthies found elsewhere on the Webway.  

Have at it.  Gob.

Just to try and tie everything together, there were a couple of other, brief discussions about Dark Eldar terrain, one here, started by Sky:

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t3291-dark-eldar-terrain-ideas

and another here, http://www.thedarkcity.net/t1076-inspirational-de-terrain

which basically just netted these pics of the half-moon webway portal used by GW for some of their official pics, from Rictus on Ammo Bunker.  They clearly show the details of this great piece and give you an idea of the number of bitz used in it's creation.

Thanks for the support, big thank you too all Mods who made this possible, you won't regret it!

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Lord_Alino wrote:

Khain, there may be a slight problem here. You have to many models to fit on a 4X6 board, so what I would try to do is that one big rectangle city district with those above comment suggestions, and make it 4 separate 4X6 ft tables -who doesn't love 8X12 ft boards? on about 4 different levels of awesome?

Actually I need about 3 to put the entire army on, and I'm talking without terrian pieces, just put all he models on the table, 4 would be enough for my entire army :p, at least on 4 you would be able to put some space in between the units, though not sure with terrain pieces XD. And if i buy more, which I will, it will only get worse.

I really want to make several Commorragh terrains all for apoc, I will get there eventually, it's not just a dream it's a certainty, unless I die in the next couple of years : D.

I was actually thinking about making a display terrain to take pictures in when I have more finished units, but it would take too much time.

Lord_Alino wrote:

You could make it an entire Table, each floor could come off of the one under it to do your movement down in the building and such, it would make an amazing Apocalypse Table.

.

I already mentioned this (I guess you don't enjoy reading my huge posts :p)
best way to handle this, is island style, each building/part of Commorragh would be separated like an Island, there would be bridges between some parts of the table connection eachother, but players would be able to pass through the buildings. For display purposes you could put them all together and link them, to form a nice dark eldar city.
Apoc is usually played on sperate tables a bit like i'm describing, but I've also seen this type of play in one apoc game, though the guys were trully playing on islands, water in between only accessible for skimmers and jetbikes and such.
It's either this or you could put them all in a line or even a circle to connect them all.

Lord_Alino wrote:

Although I don't have the time to draw plans for a couple hours, but I do have them all in my head if you want them badly

.
Honestly it's better to get those out of your head, I can't it for you, I would if I could.
Take your time. Like I said, it took me weeks to make the sketches of the superheavies I made, took also months just thinking about the designs themselves, they didn't come out of thin air. Take your time, use photoshop, use whatever, if they're good, they can be used later on.
Details are pretty important in this hobby, it's one of the reasons why GW is superior to many other wargaming brands.

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I wonder if anyone knows were to find more of these dark eldar terrain pieces used during the release in november 2011. Or maybe some pictures of the artwork they used probably showed off at warhammer world during the release.

God found of these, very nice pictures, but it's just one terrain piece, better than nothing, I admit.

The only way to see them is in the old white dwarfs or on the boxes. It would be awesome to find these sperately.

Our codex has some awesome artwork to show what our city is supposed to look like:

Page 9: small picture, but you have an A4 version in the 5th edition rulebook, artwork in color too
It's not mentioned in the codex, but in the rulebook it was marked as the spaceport of Commorragh
Page 8-12: no artwork, but very detailed description of various parts of Commorragh, very important!
page 24: not a huge fan of this artist, it's not bad, but too blurry. I prefer the new style of artwork has been releasing, with color sometimes. What we get from this artwork piece: buildings are very pointy and sharp, spikes and scythes everywhere!
Page 32: very small info, but still something, some kind of scythes, probably the edge of a building.

The old codex is still a realiable source for terrain, the towers are still the same, the old battleforce had a particular good picture or a dark eldar building.

Another good source is the eldar codex, older versions too. it may not make complete sence, i'll explain: Same achitecture, but with points and darker colors, honestly it's that simple. A Human in 40k might mistake a dark eldar city for an eldar one. In this edition we clearly see eldar influences more than in the previous edition, where the dark eldar were more like sci fi flying mad max pirates. The old 5th edition rulebook also had a 2 page artwork piece colored of a craftworld city, it had a clear eldar vibe. Put some spikes everywhere paint it in dark colors and it's dark eldar.
Like I had already mentioned, the lower parts of commorragh have eldar ruins. Aristocrats might also still have their main palace in the old eldar style instead of the Commorraghian style of buildings.

The Path of the Renegade and Path of the incubi both have some info on Commorragh. When you've got a story, you always have to describe the location, that's what we're looking for.


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Another nice touch to add to such a board - even if you make just 1 - add a blacket or piece of painted cloth in the background, or eventually a wall with dark colored buildings painted on it, like the background of this forum.


Can you imagine having a fully painted army in a full Commorragh terrain? Probably a dream we all would love to see.

I need a good army first, then I'll work on it on this project. I still got a fair 200 infantry models painted, around 20 vehicles, I'll have more infantry by the end of the year, next year I'll paint mostly vehicles, then I'll have a very but very decent and playble apoc army (I don't play apoc with unpainted models)

Hmmm, it's been a while for this thread.  These pics are from the recently held Astronomi-con Toronto 2015.  Not exactly DE-themed terrain, but two excellent examples of display board-terrain featuring both DE and CWE, and certainly very inspirational examples.

First are some photos by Mike Fiume ( https://imgur.com/a/ztBXU ), sorry, I don't know whose army it is, but it depicts a DE raid on some CWE:










And these are from Jonathon Tung ( https://imgur.com/a/m698G ), showing what appears to be a beautiful webway portal for someone's CWE.

Not exactly terrain but beautiful nonetheless

Gobsmakked wrote:

The base looks suspiciously like the underside of a certain correllian YT-1300 light freighter.
Anyway, awesome dioramas!

What's the webway portal made out of? It looks like one of those crazy lamps that makes little lightning bolts jump around.

I gotta get some ideas here. I'm working on my first dark eldar diorama, I want to have a nightclub (and by nightclub I mean bar/strip club/brothel/fight club/slave market, this is Commorragh after all). Any suggestions on what Commorragh's nightlife would look like? Signs are easy to come by but the building itself I can't quite picture. Any suggestions?

Why not a reaver arena like the Romans coliseum?

A terrain i made for Armies on Parade, it's a training/hunting/playground set on a maiden world that lost it's status.

It made place 4/8 i suppose it was just too creepy

Marrath wrote:

The base looks suspiciously like the underside of a certain correllian YT-1300 light freighter.
Anyway, awesome dioramas!

I saw the millennium falcon in that too!

I finally stopped talking about this (well actually I didn't :p) , but I started doing something!

First 2 X 2 board of 6, only a single board for now, this is way too timeconsuming, I'll do the rest much later.







And the first background building. The board is done, the building is still heavy WIP. it's big, 24" X 30" (minus webway gate on top)
It's half background, half terrain, You can put minis on it but it will be part of a table edge and the big balcony will be a Skyshield landing pad (still much work to do). I'll have a full table eventually 6 X 4 and have 3 such buildings, creating a table feeling a 100% like fighting in Commorragh. I'll also make terrain elements to put on the table later on.
It's a very simple concept, Dark eldar 6 2 X 2 relatively flat but well decorated boards, I'll be able to put stuff on it and position it however I want.

That.
Is.
Insane!

CptMetal wrote:

That.
Is.
Insane!

thx!

Somre more progress being made, though scratch building is very slow, especially at this scale.

This is absolutely amazing. (and a great inspiration) I love the work you've done with this so far, can't wait to see more!

I'm working on making a mini-board myself and I have to ask what did you use, and how did you do that? (If you don't mind me asking, or if you'd prefer not to explain)