Frostgrave / Mordheim Terrain

I kept hearing how good a game Frostgrave is so decided to get the book and check it out. The rules are simple and solid, and that, along with the campaign system, is part of the appeal of the game. It also looked like a great opportunity to try painting up small groups of miniatures without the need to monotonously paint the same model 40 times as with large scale fantasy games. Sounds great in theory, but what nobody warned me about was you suddenly feel inspired to go on an epic terrain-making bender. So with that in mind I rolled up my sleeves, broke out the foamcore and coffee stirrers and got started.

I wanted to start with a set of attached ruined buildings that the minis could interact with. I liked the idea of skirmishing warbands pursuing one another in and through the ruins. As I am also aiming for a modular gaming table at different elevations I wanted the terrain to pull double duty allowing for access between the ground level and first floors of the terrain I would later be making.Finally, as the terrain was likely to be used in a variety of gaming systems in a number of settings (fantasy, medieval, pirates, steampunk, possibly WWII) it had to look generic enough to slot in to any of those periods. Not fussy am I?...

Here's what I came up with:

Four connected townhouses. Left to right; First house to have a set of stairs up on the left side. First and second houses to have a connecting walkway above the stairs. The stairs would lead to a door on the second house and provide access to the terraced terrain when required. Third house would have access to the second house due to ruined connecting walls, and fourth house via a doorway. Additionally it would have access to the downstairs area which was the only ground floor area not made of solid foam. Fourth building would have access to the top floor via an external stairway on a balcony on the right hand side of the building. Sorted :)

Carved green foam glued on to light card to connect the components. Stairs between the first and second buildings. And greenstuff door fixtures because I'm yet to work out a better method...

Basement/ground floor of the third building, with internal stairs to the second floor.

The foam was undercoated in black paint and I did a quick drybrush on the stone stairs and the basement of building 3, as it was going to be difficult to reach once the next floor was attached.

Ground floor doorway to the 3rd building.

A couple of shots of the 3rd building ground floor after a quick coat of paint. The great thing about these shots is they show all the overstepping on the paint that I didn't see under normal light <_<

Floor on the next level (one piece of foamcore to try and add some rigidity) and start of the walls on building 1. Progress is proving to be a lot slower than I had anticipated but it's proving to be good fun :)

Perry Miniatures Light Cavalry as Proxy Bretonnian Mounted Yeoman

Needed some practice trying some new techniques for painting horses so picked up a box of Perry Minis 1400-1500 light cavalry. Kit was awesome - 12 mounted warriors with horses and bases and a slew of weapons options. Easy to take off the sprue, not much clean-up and assembles well.

 

Was only really interested in the horses so the paint on the riders was just to fill them in. Had thought of using these as proxies for Bretonnian Mounted Yeoman, as a unit of these guys is the same price as a single GW blister. While they are 28mm they do not appear to be 'heroic' 28mm and thus the height and volume are appreciably different to their GW equivalents. Photographed next to an Elleryan reaver for a scale comparison (as it was the smallest GW cavalry model I had to hand...).

Please note the smaller (20mm) bases on the Perry minis, and note that these are much flatter than the elevated GW ones. I have built up the bases on the Perry Minis a little with greenstuff so this may help offset the height difference, but there is still a noticeable difference in volume between the two pieces. If I was starting a Brett army I'd be tempted to look at proxying the whole thing with Perry Minis, but that's just me. A couple of these guys out on your flanks certainly shouldn't detract from the sight of the massed ranks of shiny GW Grail Knights and Pegasus Riders :)

Scratch Built Stone and Half Timber House

An additional practice run making scratch built buildings for Warhammern, Mordheim  and Frostgrave. I need to work out a more efficient way to do the roofing - it takes more time than the rest of the build...

Works ok as a test piece, my main issue was painting parts as I went - should have done all of the assembly then sat and painted the thing in one go. Lesson learned for next time round...