Saturday 5 July 2008

Quick & Easy Minefields

Apocolypse includes the excellent Strategem 'Minefields', ideal when your facing an opponent who has to get to grips with you in assault, or an objective in your area. For a recent game against Tyranids where Imperial Forces would be defending against an endless tide of Tyranids (all the 'Troop' Tyranids would respawn in the turn immeadiately after they were destroyed) I decided it was a must have.

Without much time, but not wanting to resort to simple card markers or the like I needed an easy and quick way to model a minefield, this required something that could be used as a mine, was cheap (or free!) and plentiful. After a quick rumage in the bits box one thing jumped out at me, the small Imperial Guard Tank Wheels that anyone who's bought a few tanks will almost certainly have plenty of spares of. Too get the mine from these I simply cut the wheel down a couple of mm's in from the outside rim's edge.



These were then spread out fairly evenly and glued down to one of three 6"x12" sections of plasticard which would act as the base, though anything sturdy would suffice, this is just what I had to hand. You could use any of the different combinations of sizes given the the minefield area in the rulebook, but I think the three 6"x12" gives the most flexibility.



This surface was then scored using a scapel (so the material had something to grip too) and a mix of sand and ready mix plaster was added for a textured surface. You could use just sand, flock, or really go to town on the bases with added debris, craters from mines which have gone off, warning signs, barbed wire etc for a really effective look, it really depends entirely on your inclanation, time and what materials you have. I will get round to painting them eventually and will update with pictures when I have.


10 comments:

Admiral Drax said...

Cracking idea - and yes: I can see how these would be useful against tyranids!

Good to hear from you again.

- Drax

The Ranger said...

Awesome!

kilian said...

Howdy! Kilian here. Do you have/could you add a tutorial for green stuff pith helmets. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!!!

Col.Gravis said...

Thanks guys :)

I'll knock one out next time I come to doing some kilian, after Acklands I'm fairly confident on my method I think

kilian said...

Wait, you mean ackland's is green stuf too? Wow. Gues it does work, lol!

Col.Gravis said...

Acklands is just about the only one I've done in recent times, dont think there are any others in the army at present truth be told.

Lightspeed Champion said...

Great tip for making the game board much more interesting! Where do you get your Praetorian models from, i've got some coming from Ebay but there never seem to be that many around, any tips?

Col.Gravis said...

Mine are about 50/50 from GW back when they were still in the shops and the rest from ebay and the like, truth be told I hav'nt bought any in quite a while though, sadly the only real tip if you want metal praetorians is patience, you will get what you want but your gonna have too wait around on ebay and/or keep posting in the wanted sections of many of the major forums like Warseer.

kilian said...

I got most off my stuff on ebay, and one squad when they were still around. unfortunately, alot of the stuff on ebay were obviously recasts. >.>
but, hey, I got my praetorian army up, right? ;)

Col.Gravis said...

Aye, I've ended up with a few of them myself, though I did'nt realise it at the time, when I came to cleaning them up the tell-tale double mold lines were fairly obvious.