From AndrewG: A Head in the Sand and other Desert Terrain (35 points)

 

Our group is planning to run a Pulp era skirmish game set somewhere in Egypt, so I’ve been beetling away at getting some scenery done for the board. I have to say this has been one of the more fun building projects for me lately, as it’s a rich setting with plenty of inspiration in both history and film readily at hand.

Before I bought my own 3D printer I used to shop for pieces on Etsy, and as I’m sure many know the quality on there is sometimes a hit or a miss. When I purchased this half sunken Pharaoh’s head and ruined pillars set for an Ancients battle, I was initially a bit annoyed. It was clearly a rushed print, with striations visible throughout from a job that either didn’t bother using a smaller nozzle or didn’t iron any of the surfaces (both of which add time to the print job). I ended up not using them and put them away.

When I pulled these out of storage for this project, I realized the poor layering could actually work in my favour for a 20^th Century era game – a bit of careful weathering and dry brushing made the pieces look like they’ve suffered a few millennia of getting pelted by sandstorms and baked by the sun. Done and done.

The three rocky formations were simple plastic 3D prints that were then slathered with Vallejo Desert Sand (26.217) diorama FX. I found, however, that this basing material has more of an egg yolk yellow colour about it rather than a more traditional beige look, thus I gave these pieces several overbrushes, washes, and dry brushes to dull it out a bit. Also, of all the Vallejo FX materials this one has to be the messiest to work with, so I’m open to any suggestions for alternates.

A trip to the local dollar store provided ample materials for making all the terrain pieces. The palm trees are cake decoration toppers, while the shrubbery comes from a mix of cut up cheap aquarium plants and a piece of fake golf turf. I printed out a variety of puddle bases in different sizes, then went about making the scatter terrain using Vallejo desert sand, tufts, and small rocks from the driveway. I also made one larger piece as I wanted something that figures could move through.

Overall, an inexpensive but effective project that gives me plenty of terrain options. And while I'm happy with how everything turned out, I may go back and dry brush some of the Vallejo desert basing as it still seems too yellow toned for my liking. 

Thus in this batch (no figures – included just for scale comparison)

1x large Pharaoh’s Head

1x ruins

3x rock formations

8x vegetation pieces

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Some very nice pieces here Andrew, and your description of the issues with the 3d printed head fit my issues with even well printed filament prints, I hate those lines!  However the price difference between filament printing terrain and resin printing terrain is still big enough that my cheap nature wins out most times.  You are also 100% correct in that the lines actually help you in this case as it does look like its wear lines from wind and sand in the great desert.

As for points, I think both the head and the ruins would probably take a few hours each of painting so 10 points each, the hills are super easy to paint up and so are the tree bases as its just the groundwork that looks painted (not the actual trees, although the palm tree trunks maybe drybrushed) so as with past tree bases and hills, just a few points per as there is not much painting to be done on them, however the hills and some bases are bigger so I am going to go with 15 points.  This gives you a grand total of 35 points and a whole pile of great looking terrain.  

As for your comment on the colour being to yellow, I dont think so on most of them, other than the last picture of the tree bases and the first one of the head in the sand.  Maybe its just those pictures? or those pieces?  I know how photos sometimes colour phase things a bit.  If they look like those pictures in real life, I agree with you and would lighten them up, if they look like the hills and ruins, I think those are a perfect desert colour.  Completely up to you though, and very hard to comment for certain without seeing them in real life.

 - Byron  

From SylvainR: D&D - 28mm NPCs and Egyptian Gods (74 points)

Another bunch of NPCs and "monsters" for my ongoing D&D campaigns.

First, four NPCs. You will note that all these people have dark skin. I realized, not long ago, that my D&D miniatures so far depict only Caucasians while two members of my daughter's D&D group are non-Caucasian. I thought that some adjustment was in order. This will continue in my next D&D related posts.

The potion lady and the rogue are from Reaper while the innkeeper is another "Empress Maria Teresa" figurine from Westphalia Miniatures. I got one from Curt, and maybe I got the other one from PeterD? (who got it from Curt? I don't know). The tall pirate fellow is a complete mystery. It's a bronze figurine that I got who knows where who knows when from who knows whom. I wanted to paint a yellow scarf on his head, but somehow the front picture suggest something more like a trumpian hairstyle.

Thoth and Bastet are both from Reaper. They are quite tall at about 5cm, so I will claim them as 40mm foot figures. To create the effect of "old gold", I painted the metallic surfaces with "Citadel Auric Gold" then generously washed with some old "Citadel Brown Ink" from a previous decade. It turned out perfect for this project. The skin tones just try to mimic the fur of the lion and the feathers of the Nile ibis, which are both non-Caucasian.

"May I check your weapons in the cloakroom?"

The final two figures are a Desert Giant and the Egyptian god Horus. Both were fun to paint and they both stand up to close to 7cm, so I will claim them as 54mm foot figures. Both these vinyl miniatures are from Reaper and the left one is listed as a "Stone Giant". Since this is for a desert adventure, and since this guy would spend lots of time in the sun, I opted for a very dark skin tone.  For the bases, I added stone blocks made out of balsa wood that I "painted" with PVA glue in order to make the surface more rock-like.

"I you want to follow me, I will show you to your table."

 Points claimed:

4 x 28mm foot figurines at 5 points each = 20 points

2 x 40mm foot figurines at 7 points each = 14 points

4 x 54mm foot figurines at 10 points each = 40 points

Total = 74 points 

Thanks for reading!

Hmmm... I know I put comments in here before but on review they've disappeared! Anyway I had written that I like the diversity you've brought to your D&D campaign Sylvain. Kids can't imagine themselves in a story unless they can "see" people who look like themselves there and D&D has traditionally been pretty non-diverse, so I applaud your effort here!

74 points for you!

Dallas

From SanderS: To Arrakis we go! oh and Ancient Egypt... PICTUREHEAVY (355 points)

 Hoi,

Arrakis is next on my way to Noel's Comet and as it is a Desert planet some desert themed entries are required. 

Remember my friend Martijn? The one who owns a FLGS? Well he asked me whether I would like to paint up the figures from: "Ankh, Gods of Egypt" the boardgame done by the people at CMON games. If that's not deserty-themed I don't know what is. I could tell you quite a lot about how this set of figures got painted with blood, tears, sweat and more blood, in between house renovations and painting the other entries of this Challenge, but the monster project is done and I am mighty proud. Martijn has it at the gamingroom of his store now and people can enjoy using it and that makes me happy.

Let's start with the Gods, the core box comes with 5 factions, each led by one of the great Gods of Ancient Egypt. You have 6 footsoldiers for every god and some camels that represent commodities and supplies. There's also a batch of un-aligned "Guardians" monsters you can unlock and utilise for your own faction.

The Gods from l.t.r.  backrow: Ra, Osiris and Amun. Front: Isis and Anubis

 

The Gods with their footsoldiers:

The Guardians:

An Androsphinx:

An Apep:

A Giant Scorpion:

3 Satet:

Cat Mummies/ Spirit host

Farao's Mummies:

The camels:

Pointswise this bunch proves to be a bit of an headache:

- I am counting the Gods as 54mm figures so that's 50 points

- there's 45 figures of appr. 28mm scale so that's 225 points

- the camels are near 10mm figures times 30 that makes 60 points

- there's the Arrakis bonus (if Tamsin considers this entry Desert-like enough) which makes for a grand total of 355 points. For scale reference I have included the picture below showing a Space Marine in the middle for reference.

Cheers Sander

Well, that was an unexpected points-bomb! That's a great set of desert-themed figures for Arrakis..

Tamsin