Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Battle at the Farm

The planet of Rynn's World lies on the edge of human space, within easy striking range of countless Ork Warlords that rule the neighboring systems. Orks are loathsome and disorganized aliens, creatures with little intelligence and no sense of pity. Until now, Rynn's World has been left in peace. The main reason for this is almost certainly that it is home fo the Crimson Fists Chapter of Space marines - who's fortress/monastery has stood on the rocky soil of Rynn's World for over a thousand years. However, last week the planet was invaded by a force from the Ork Empire of Charadon. The insane Ork Warlord, one Snagrod the Arch-arsonist, has already conquered the human world of Badlanding, not to mention several minor Ork Empires. Rynn's World is only sparsely populated, but (prior to the invasion) had a complete and effective missile-defense system designed to deter would be invaders. Confident in the power of their defenses (and forgetting the irrational behavior of Orks) no-one anticipated the invasion. Even so, all would have been well were it not for the freak accident that caused a defense missile to glance off-course and plunge down right on top of the Space Marine Arsenal. The Marine base and its complement of fighting men and machines was completely destroyed. The only survivors were the Chapter leader Commander Pedro Cantor and fifteen Marines. Without the Marines the human settlers were quickly slain and their townships overrun. Now only the Planet's capital, New Rynn City, remains in human hands. 

The Crimson Fists (painted by Bulldog Lopez) man the ruins of an old farmstead and await the Orks...

If you can't tell from my blog, I am a sucker for terrain. It's just great. But, like miniatures, I buy a lot of it, stick it into a box, and never touch it. So when the Battle at the Farm Kickstarter arrived from Fogou Models, I was determined to not let that happen.

When I first saw the pre-release announcement and all the other blog posts about the sets, I knew I was going to buy it. I've been eyeing Fogou's stuff for a little while but I've been too lazy and cheap to order any (shipping to the USA can get expensive!). And I have to say that this was one of the fastest filled Kickstarters I've ever backed, so kudos to Fogou for that!

The set comes with two ruined buildings and a bunch of walls and rubble sets. I've shown them above with some Rogue Trader models, but part of why I wanted these is their versatility. They'll work equally well in fantasy and historical games as it does sci-fi.

A lone Saxon defends the ruins of his village from marauding Vikings
I painted the ruins pretty quickly. I airbrushed several layers at progressively higher angles using Tamiya paints thinned with lacquer thinner. Tamiya markets these as acrylics, but they really aren't. But the big problem with using them in an airbrush is that they are toxic, especially if you use lacquer thinner. I got lucky in that we had a string of low humidity days here in Virginia so I could paint them outside. I started with a mix of black and grey, the went up to grey and then began mixing in an off white color up to the pure off white.


Because the paints were applied really thin, I went back and dry-brushed them with Citadel Tyrant's Skull and then hit the edges of the panels with Wrack White. I followed this up with a super high gloss varnish I get from a craft store. These are terrain pieces after all and will be handled roughly.


I gave the varnish twenty four hours to dry and then I applied an oil wash made from a mix of payne grey, brown, and black. When that was dry, I was able to clean up any excessive pooling with a little white spirits. But I did re-dry-brush them in certain places to add a little more punch.


One of the ideas I wanted to steal from Asslessman was to apply glazes over random stones to give a little bit of variation. But I decided against that as, quite honestly, I was too lazy.


But, instead of applying random tones to the stones, I did add a series of thinned layers of Vallejo Dark and Light Slimy Grime and Moss and Lichen. I applied these heavily thinned over several layers to look like the grime of years building up at their base.


I hope you like them!

17 comments:

  1. Those look the mutt’s nuts!
    I especially like the moss effect at the bottom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. These look awesome mate. I love a bit of scenery and this really fit the battle at the farm
    Perfectly

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These are especially nice terrain, some of the best I've handled.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Yea, I'm going to back over them with my car later tonight. I don't want offend my eyeballs any more with them.

      Delete
  4. Superb set of sceneries and models for this classic RT scenario. I love :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! They are definitely a great set of terrain.

      Delete
  5. Replies
    1. Thanks! But shouldn't you be sleeping in your free time? 😂

      Delete
  6. Really nice feeling of weight to your paintjobs. And I like the blending on the bottom that make them integrate nicely with your table.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I had pictures of yours up when working in them 😂

      Delete
  7. These really are great and versatile terrain pieces. Nice job on them.

    ReplyDelete