The Road to Commorragh - terrain projects

I made these a couple of months ago for a local tournie, I am quite pleased with them and have received a number of compliments on different game nights.

I call the set 'The Road to Commorragh' and the idea is that it represents one of the pathways leading there that is littered with the wreckage of various armies who have attempted to break through and the defenders who have stopped them. It's a bit squished here on a 4'x4' table, but works great spread out a bit more on a 6'x4' one.

And no, I don't have more money than sense. All of the models used here were already wrecked in one way or another. I got most as part of various eBay or Craigslist purchases over the past three years for myself or my son, and invariably one of the multiple vehicles included was broken, covered in glue that should be illegal, covered in paint that's irredeemable, or otherwise beyond salvation and surplus to our needs. Who doesn't have at least one old DE Raider with almost all the detail bitz broken off?

The Leman Russ wasn't busted, but was a freebie in a raffle at the local GW before it closed. Neither of us play 'umies, so I figured it would make a nice centre-piece somewhere. The Monolith parts were from a GW "create a vehicle" session at a local Games Day.

I paid $15.00 for the crater set, $6 for a sheet of Masonite and $40.00 for the trees, which are fake branches from an interior decoration-store's display and of which I have only used half. The 'rocks' are painted driftwood and the generator-type structures are lids from old Lego Bionicle containers.

Awesome stuff. I was hoping more for like Dark Eldar bastions and bunkers when I saw the thread pop up in my email, but nevertheless, this is good stuff. I love the monolith piece of terrain the most.

DE-styled structures are planned and on the way, eventually.

I have to finish installing hardwood flooring on our stairs first :-(

I've only had to do that once, so better you than me.

I like it! While I tend to think of "the road to Commorragh" as more of an incandescent swirling nightmare of blades and warp-stuff, this is pretty cool. It's obvious you've put a lot of effort into the pieces as well, judging from the fusion of actual GW craters and solid terrain, and those trees and rocks are incredibly convincing.

I think there's only one point I would raise for future reference: Out of the various wrecks you've got going there, only the Landspeeder and the... Devilfish? Skyray? look truly wrecked. Especially the Landspeeder. The other vehicles just look like they weren't fully constructed or have been placed at an angle. You need to really get in there and hack those puppies up! Use a saw, a pair of needle-nose pliers for torn metal or heck, even a hammer! You're not gonna use 'em for anythign else, so make them look devastated rather than just unbuilt.

But other than that suggestion, the terrain is awesome. Far better than anything I've built, certainly. And I really do love that Landspeeder. It looks sad. Lonely, even.

Keep up the great work and thanks for your time,

Raucir

Looking good...

Are they to be played as Area Terrain or something else?

Thanks guys.

Raucir - yes, it's difficult to bring to life what a pathway to Commorragh would actually look like, so this was just a way for me to represent it - that many have tried, and failed along the way.

You are partially right about the vehicles, the Monolith isn't damaged at all, just a shell of it's former self from long ago. The two sections of the Leman Russ actually do have some decent battle damage on them, it's just not visible here. I'll get some new photos up in the next couple of days.

Speedfreak - no, just the craters essentially and the rocks, although most of them you can't place any models on. The rest of each piece is just meant to be open terrain like the rest of the tabletop, with lots of LOS issues.

I really like the inclusion of all the different vehicles as wreckage. The color scheme is suitably dark, with enough bright colors to keep it interesting.

and nice job with the rocks - I couldn't tell what they were made of.

Good use of Bionicle tube caps. Painted up they have a nice aesthetic to them. Over all I would love to play on terrain that looked that good, it has nice terrain varying heights that mix it up a bit in a true line of sight game. Excellent job, I wish GW staff could make terrain that looked that good.

As promised in response to Raucir's comments, close-ups of the battle damage on the Leman Russ pieces. I did hack up one side of the one next to the Landspeeder in one more spot, to make it more thoroughly wrecked. But otherwise all I have done is add on the tracks, which I didn't do previously because I was too tired after rushing to finish them for the original tournament.

The damage is still not too evident in these photos, unfortunately, but it is there in sufficient quantity. I am planning to make wrecked Raiders/Ravagers in craters for game use, those will have REALLY heavy damage.







C&C welcome. Thanks.

Nice. I'll be remembering this stuff when I'm finally getting around to building my own terrain.

Ooh, very nice! Thanks for posting those! I really like the ruined treads, that's creative work. Wouldn't it be cool to have a skeletal arm hanging out of the turret and a mangled cannon! All wrenched and bent like a Grotesque was using it as a monkeybar. Hee hee!

Now I've had a closer look that's definitely cemented these among my favourite terrain pieces. Inspirational stuff!

Raucir

This is amazing work! Those trees are very forboding and the paint job on the driftwood is top notch. Did you collect the drift wood, or did you buy it?

I can't wait to see what sort of Dark Eldar structures you come up with!

Oh man, that's an amazing use of those old Bionicle can lids. Fantastic terrain!

Thanks guys. I haven't done much else for a while, but need to get moving for an upcoming tournie (actually the same one that I did these for last year).

As for the driftwood, I live next to a river-mouth on a rainforest coast. So I can go get as much as I want, whenever I want. But some gardening stores carry good sizes nowadays.

Gobsmakked wrote:

As for the driftwood, I live next to a river-mouth on a rainforest coast. So I can go get as much as I want, whenever I want..

That's pretty awesome, and convenient!

the piece in the middle looks awesome, must be fun to charge down.

Yes, it does make for some interesting ploys.

I want to do a whole table like that, sort of a canyon maze with lots of blind spots and limited shooting lanes, so you almost have to get out of the vehicles and get dirty! Only a month and a half until the tournie I am hosting.

No pressure

Yes crack on!

I'm back on my Ork terrain next week for the same reason, I just got some nice board from DeSerres for some more pieces (using plasticard for the bases was getting expensive, plus itends to curl with some glues).

Great Work and Inspiration!

September 16 - So, this is the terrain set that I was referring to above, for a tournament that I hosted at the beginning of April. I hadn't taken any decent photos of it until today.

I made it with lots of high LOS-blocking pieces of Rock (driftwood), together with another crater set and some Christmas tree decorations and model winter trees that were suddenly on sale for mere pennies during the week after Christmas.

Before I glued down the various trees, I sprayed all the pieces with black primer. Over that I lightly sprayed some P3 darkish Blue paint, and then an even lighter spray of white paint which I sprayed 2-3 feet above the pieces and let it drift down to settle on them.

I then re-painted the rocks and craters in black and progressively dry-brushed them from dark grey through lighter greys to white. The light blue highlights are watered down GW Hawk Turquoise/Valleo Electric Blue, and the snow is Woodland Scenics' Soft Flake Snow mixed in with PVA glue and baking soda, with more of the snow sprinkled on top of the surface of the paste after it is applied.

They are good pieces for gaming with, I think, with all of the cover that they provide, and as you can see in a couple of pics, I designed two of the biggest pieces to form a corridor that runs diagonally across the tabletop.

I am very pleased with how they all look together on the tabletop. They are all squashed together here on our patio table, but there's a couple of the tournie pics below that show how spread out they actually are on a regular 6'x4' gaming table.















C&C welcome.

Cheers.

I've said it before, but to repeat here - I love the look of the winter scenery, and in fact you can see my DE enjoying being beaten by some yellow people in the second game photo!

SirTainly wrote:

..... and in fact you can see my DE enjoying being beaten by some yellow people in the second game photo!

Yes, apparently I need to incorporate even moar LOS-blocking cover in future designs for the flying-cardboard-box crowd!

Your smoke clouds did blend in quite well, however