Modelling day

Autumn is making the days grow shorter, colder and wetter outside. This means we have to entertain ourselves inside with a day of modelling. I've been casting me new Hirst arts moulds to create a big pile of building blocks after the inn project. With this in place Hans and Ludo had time to come over for a day of building buildings. They wanted to get a go at these new building blocks and when it results in more buildings for our Mordheim games, that is a good thing!

I set up the table with all bulding blocks sorted in small boxes, put out the glue, paint, sawed some MDF bases and we were good to go. We started before noon playing around with all the blocks before glueing them into a building

Hans started maybe 3 concept buildings and destroyed them all before really deciding on building a church like ruined building. Ludo was very creative with a mosaic flooring and a nice wooden lid outside that could be an entrance to a basement of some sort.

Myself I started a project for 3 storage houses that can be put next to each other as a block of houses but also apart be separate buildings. The idea is that the centre building has 3 walls and that the left and right wall act as a wall for the other storage houses if put together. The left and right storeage house will have then only 2 major walls and act as real ruins once put by themselves on the battlefield. The 3 buildings will have a small pavement at the front and very small allyway like road at the back. Today it was the centre building I'd be working on.

I made some sketches first so building is easier. Building out of the blue is somewhat difficult because you have to build the entire concept or idea without glue first to check if it will work. And building 'dry' is very unstable :) and will get you started anew some times :).
We were using a goblin shaman as a test miniature to check the buildings sizes, windows position, etc. He will be posing in some of the pictures in this post (a real celebrity you might say :) ).

Hans decided on building a church like structure with some open walls for good playability.

No wooden flooring was needed here, but some wooden benches for this curch were made with the latches from one of the moulds. Ludo also used this concept for putting up some benches against the wall in his building. Cool concept looking good in both buildings I'd say.

My building was coming together nicely and with 3 stories high not a small building. Here you can see the concept with twoo wooden floors and both Hans and Ludo concentrated at work.

Ludo decided it would be a good idea to have nails in the flooring and started hammering away on his paint mixing tile.

The sounds were like he was hitting through the tile but nothing broke and the result is a very nice looking building here.

Some details on the curch benches here. Simple concept but coming together nicely in the church building. Keep in mind when creating these kind of small features for your building not to glue them in place before painting.

It will look like the following picature when finished but you can see here that painting this when everyting is glued together will be a nightmare if not impossible.

We did not get to painting yet after a day playing around with the plaster building blocks but the final result looks good! The concept of modular buildings that fit together (base size wise) is proving to work as you can see in this final picture. This will conclude this post of the modelling day that was relaxing, fun, productive, creative and something we will definitely repeat.
Of course the finished products will be shown here on your Mordheim building scenery blog! :)

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 3

The final stage of the first Mordheim building using the Hirts Arts moulds is done! The building is actually finished and it looks great! What are the final steps towards the final product? Let me reveal you the secrets.
In the last post you could see the actual building finished. Highilghting done and the stony look was there. I finished the wooden flooring and added moss and weeds to the building. Also one of the citadel trees had its place on the building board. The tree can be removed and a simple square can be put over the hole to look like a well if needed. Modulare gaming table building in effect here.
The size of the inn is the biggest square for a game board piece I wanted. The finished building can now be used as a centrepiece of some sort. Other buildings will be a third in size and roads can be made in a similar fashion. I will post on the concept in future posts when new buildings and roads will be built. In that way you can see a gaming table be born :)
Anyway a picture of the final result and this one includes already what are the next projects of which a new post will talk about more.

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 2

The inn layout had originally only one floor and the roof floor. For the Mordheim building I added an extra floor to give it some height. Actually now it became 3 stories high.
I bought some water based paint and diluted the black down with water so it coveres the tiles nicely in all ridges cracks. This took some time and in two sessions I painted the entire piece nice and black.

If you look closely you can still see seems of white of the stones where the paint didn't cover but only so little. I hope this will be covered or out of sight when the stones are highlighted.
Which brings me to the next stage. The first highlight was applied with a dark grey. I'm using large brushes now (size 14 and up and also a large flat broad one). This was done realy quickly actually and a great result directly. I also wanted to apply a second highlight with a light grey to give the stones some depth and wear and tear look.
This was even quicker since only the windows and door and edges were concerned here. I added some more light grey to the flooring as well since that looked better.



The only things to do now is paint the beams dark brown and add flooring. The beams were a bit of a mistake to add directly in this building because painting became very difficult there. On the other hand it gives the building a nice and sound rigidity directly. WIth so high walls this was good to have already. I think for smaller buildings with less beams it wouldn't matter, but it is gooed to keep in mind.
The flooring I will build and fit but not yet glue in place. There painting will also be very difficult. Maybe the flooring will stay loose as an addon, so you can change here with the layout of a building, who knows. Add a couple of ladders and all. It will be good!
New small build projects now have started: small planters, a well, small wall sections, all moveable stuff to putt on the table and to fill our city of Mordheim.

The Great Library

Last night it was carnage and mayhem in the City of Mordheim. The north east quarter of Mordheim housed once the Great Library. Under count Ignatius Steinhardt it grew to considerable size, containing knowledge unrivalled in Marienburg. Since the comet plummeted into the library, all the mystical and religious tomes, Deamonic and Necromantic lore was scattered through the ruins.
Yesterday night was a night to search through the ruins to look out for gold and long forgotten lore. A Slayer warband calling themselves TreasureDoom got word of activity in the area of the ruined Great Library. It was becoming a night to seek doom and gold (not particularly in that order!).
TreasureDoom consists of a Giant Slayer that once started seeking its doom in Mordheim. Two trollslayers already in Mordheim seeking larger creatures still (and the prospect of finding some glitter, gems and old golden artifacts) cought up with him. They hoped to attrackt greater greatures that will help settle their slayer oath. Eventually a large trollslayer with a huge doublehanded axe entered Mordheim seeking a mighty death and looking out for some lost rune weapons that supposably are buried under the ruins of Mordheim. He joined the venturing slayers and TreasureDoom was born. Since some gold to be gathered is always nice and finding your doom in the process can be seen as an added bonus.
TreasureDoom ventured Mordheim for some time and a dwarf clansman and his apprentice were the slayers in Mordheim. The dwarf was an old engineer seeking the old plans of ancient dwarf inventions stored in Mordheim before the comet fell. The two clansmen joined the slayers to complete TreasureDoom for now.

The warband ventured out to the ruins of the great library on this busy night. In the gloom the area sparked with loose magic of old tomes and shrapnel of weirdstone that mutated some old spells on scrolls. Other sounds could be heard in these ruins and the keen hearing of dwarfs quickly made out that also a band of orks, an incoherent bunch of undead, pirates that just boarded Mordheim, an other group of dwarfs (treasurehunters most likely) and some pesky fidly elves were also present.
After the first sounds of battle where some pirates started brawling the sky grew even more dim and a thick fog descended over Mordheim. Only inches of sight were there, with some clear spots when some wind parted the thick alien fog for a brief moment. This didn't bode well and it was going to be a long night.

After the racket of the pirates subsided the slayers made a carefull slow move into the ruins. Ueha Fiendcrusher started for the first floor of a nearby ruined building. With his rope and hook he directly succeeded in pulling himself up to the shoddy flooring. In a corner a could make out some old scrolls that might be worth checking out. His fellow slayers slowly advanced through the rubble deeper into the area of the old library buildings.
To their left sounds of bones and dragging zombies could be heard. According to the sense of the dwarfs also a vampire was present. they should be carefull with a bloodsucker around. The other dwarfs were also carefully venturing into the ruins and it looked to the slayers they were seeking out the undead warband. Might be a good idea for now to close in from the other side.
With the thick fog in place now al of a sudden a swarm of flies joined the already soupy air. This was not good at all, with elves also chittering through the rubble it was a very bad night indeed for the dwarfs. The orcs were causing the usually disturbance since they were even squabling amongs themselves and one of the pirates jumped into an old well apparantly. He found not only an ancient scroll but also a worthy opponent. The echoes of batllesounds resounded from the well adding to the dissorientation in the fog and flies ridden air.
In front of Alri Doomfate some shadows were seen in the mist. He charged directly for his axes were thirsty. The two young pirates got a fright but recovered quickly and with cunning, low pirate tricks and sheer luck they managed to evade the axes and get some thrusts with their cutlasses and daggers in. Maybe this bold charge wasn't that smart of the giant slayer, maybe his axe was too thirsty to pay attentioned to defense. His mighty dwarf axes didn't succeed in parrying the attacks and the slayer went to the ground directly. Threachereous Mordheim claims its victims directly and anonymous in the thick fog.
Ueha is in the building searching the scrolls and since it was not the place to thoroughly go through them he tucked them in his beard for later investigation.
The air was full of sounds of batlle. The vampire had difficulty keeping himself alive and went down after finding a scroll and triggering some stray magic. The undead managed even to make the foggy flie infested air worse by picking up a scroll that started a chaotic storm with acid rain to occurr.

One of the slayers was recovering from wounds of some foul liquid he got over him earlier when searching through some old barrels (maybe containing some beer). This acid rain was not doing him well, if not it was very bad as he went down as well. Already a quarter of the warband down so soon, the slayers gritted their teeth and were now more determined then ever to avange their comrades and seek their own doom.
All around the slayers other warbands were struggling to pick up scrolls that trigger all kinds of random events. Also some warbands ran into each other. This was more cause for mayhem and carnage then the scrolls themselves. You could see warband members with a scroll hastily making their retreat of the battlefield. The slayers however heard the elves in the distance and more nearby smelled the hatefull orcs. Time to charge those greenskinned savages. The orcs were way too organised until this point. Maybe the warpstone was effecting them in a positive way for once?
As the warbands thinned down, some fled the battlefield altogether. In the end it was far beyond midnight and the only remaining in these warpstone-gone-mad ruins were the slayers and the other dwarf warband (of course) and the greenskins. After some chopping with axes even the greenskins sort of routed although with the greatest loot of scrolls.
The slayers started looking for some loot and sold the scrolls directly. In the end they left with some hefty loot in gold, just as they like it. Some casualties that must rest out the next battle but nothing gold can't compensate.

The two towers

Sometime ago I got the Warhammer watchtower as a present for my birthday (thanx to Emely and Arjen!). After the successful (re)construction of my Mordheim ruins, I wanted to use this tower as well. However, the tower in its 'normal' form is not very useful in a game of Mordheim. So I decided to open up the tower to make 'playing inside' possible.

The first option I considered was leaving one wall off or making it detachable. On inspecting the tower I found out that it's a lovely model, with lots of details and extra parts, that makes a great site/sight on the battlefield. Alas, no interior details or floors.

So I went out for some Balsa wood at the local 'Hobby Modelbouw' shop. For one reason or the other I never worked before with this material, but all construction work went perfectly smoothly.

And the best idea popped up during the construction: Instead of one tower, I made two tower, each consisting of two walls of the original one. Not only did I get a 'free' extra tower, but they're more 'playable' as well.

Friday they will hopefulle make their debut in Mordheim. I hope I'll find the time to place them on a base. Painting won't be ready, there's a lot of detail on these..

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 1

It's been a month vacation that caused nothing much for me to have produced in the modelling/gaming part and therefore no need for blog posts :) But I have ordered three moulds at Hirst Arts. I ordered the following ones:
#51 Dragon's Inn Mold
#201 Floor Tiles Various Sizes
#40 Basic Block Mold

My idea was to have enough bricks for builidings as well as arches for windows and doors. Floor tiles for flooring of course but also for building streets.

I started casting the moulds with modeling plaster. I found 2 brands: Knauf and Krone.

Knauf is found at the DIY store and Krone I found in a local arts and crafts shop. The Krone is almost half as cheap but they both are not that expensive: Knauf sells at EURO 6,00 per 2,5 kilo and the Krone at EURO 2,00 per 1 kilo or EURO 6,00 per 5 kilo.
I already casted the moulds about 8 times and it seems that is enough for making a tavern or something. Now some lasts casts are done, so I have enough stock to start building.
Of course the buildings will consist of more than plaster blocks alone. I went to the DIY store and got some lengths of 10x10 mm square and 5x20 mm flat pieces of wood. Almost 3 meters in length this should give enough beams and planks for roofs and doors and floors.
Also I got a piece of 4mm MDF that should act as a base for the building. Everything should be modular so I'm going to design 2 or 3 sizes of bases. These can have either a building or a piece of street, square or other scenery for the city of Mordheim that can be built with it. The first building will be the dragons Inn tavern from the Hirst Arts website. I'm going to alter it a bit so it's open to one side and it can be used in Mordheim for fighting in and around. SInce Mordheim is a thrashed and worn down city the buildings should resemble this. The roof will be crashed in, that kind of stuff.
When going out for buying the raw materials I also came acros my local games workshop store. It had a nice boxed set of trees.

I was looking for something like that, because the Mordheim buildings should have some grown over moss, plants and trees in them as well. This box with three large gnarly trees will be just right for the purpose. Also some chains, skulls and signs are in the kit that will fit perfactly in the Mordheim scenery I'm making.

For now some more casting and the building will start! Time for me to take out the saw and cut me some beams and create the MDF base plates.

More will follow in next posts, so keep reading!