Adrian March Wild card month - Building the Orc's Drift

Wild card month

The small settlement of Linden Way is comprised of several small houses around the trading post and several crop fields nearby. It is built in the intersection of the paths that come from the mountain passes. The real town is Meledir at the East, and many of the innhabitants of Linden Way have families there. Unlucky for them, they're the only defence between Meledir and the hordes coming from the North. 

For this month I have built some of the terrain needed for the campaign that will come handy for other battles too. I've painted some miniatures too! but the protagonist here will be the terrain tutorial. I had in mind this before the council reunited and our beloved overlord suggested to do something really wild. It is a shame, because that post give me the idea of formatting this post as a white dwarf article but I do not have time for that in this moment!

As you can see, there are small things in the corners of the houses from the Townscape terrain, the same pieces that came in the campaign box back in the days of the Blood Bath at Orc's Drift. That's because I was experimenting with an idea of a modular Citadel Townscape terrain using the amazing system of Battle System hard cardboard terrain. Those small clips can be purchased separately ad the small lips around the insertion make the connections stable, the cardboard is also not damaged by the use so easily. They are also resistant to bending by the weight if you distribute them properly with the available system of insertions cut in the cardboard. So I got inspired by the system and started to glue two pieces of cardboard, one of the typical grey dense recycled cardboard that comes with magazines, another from cereal boxes. That gives us the appropiate width for the pins. 

I suggest cutting the pieces first, the same way as you want to cut if you were going to glue them together, and then when it is dry and hard, do the cutouts for the pin. I didn't got the pictures but I also ensure that the cardboard doesn't dry bent in the entire process. When I glue the two pieces or glue the Townscape terrain piece to the cardboard, I let it dry between baker paper sheets over a flat surface and with a lot of weight over them, like a book and several packages.

Tadaaa, the walls are mounted with the system and it is strong enough for an afternoon of play. You can also paint the sides of the cardboard with colour markers to hide the cardboard further.

As you may see in the picture, some houses have small sheds or porches that will be a bit overengineering if I made them compatible with the modular pin system.

Instead, we glue them the old way and do not make them modular but a small building addons that will be placed during the play. If you are not confident that the stress of battle and you ravening hordes will not make it fall turn after turn, I've an untested solution. Make the missing wall of thin cardboard and put a strong magnet in the inner part of the house wall and in the interior of the shed or small house extension. The width of the combined house and shed cardboard is good enough for both magnet to stay in place.

Next you have the complex overhanging houses that I made modular and only glued as a single piece the overhang (pictured). Lastly, there is no way to make the roof modulars without CAD design my own pins in the precise angles of each roof and then 3D printing. That's a tempting overengineering there but the project is too complex to add further steps and I want that you can replicate the method. So I make a normal roof over cardboard and cut some foam pieces with the appropiate shape and glue them in the interior.

Now for the rivers and crossroads.

We start with a white foam shape with the appropiate distance. It is a little bigger than the bridge in Townscape but fits perfectly with the width of the river I am planning. The stones are cardboard cuts placed in the sides.

The other, more unstable crossing is made with foam, lots of recycled woodsticks and recycled sprues. Never throw the stick that they give you with a take away coffee, they're perfect for this kind of things. Also, ice creams are good for this type of project. Hope that I didn't mess with your regime with that particular advice.

The pebbles of the path are done in EVA foam, pebble by pebble drawn with a pen. Now that we have a bridge, there must be a path leading to them.

I wanted that the paths were flexible to put over a mat with the hills underneath instead of all of them as separated pieces over the mat. Also, whether the hills are terrain pieces over or under the mat, flexible paths allows us to put them coming from the hills naturally.

I made them using a brown felt fabric tightly stretched over a surface and applying a coat of caulk mixed with brown acrylic paint and fine sand. I've lots of fine volcanic beach sand but anything extra fine will make the trick. You can mix a small batch of bigger grains and pebbles or add them when the caulk mix is applied and rolling a painting roll over them just to press a little bit. Let it settle for 48 hours before cutting and painting a little bit with additional tones.

The fences are made with the same sticks cut in half over larger sticks. You'll need additional batch of larger ice creams for this. The smaller coffe sticks are cut with a fairly secure, you'll definetly won't cut your fingers or have a knife nailed to your arm, cutting method.

Also, I'll leave here a picture of the primed bridges and fences that will be painted with oil paint/xpress/contrast for speed. Just apply a coat of cheap black acrylic paint mixed with diluted pva glue and it will be a hardcoat appropiate for terrain and sealing the foam if, for some reason, you want to apply a spray paint instead.

As everything start coming together, if we have bridges and paths, we will want a river to cross. My first run was a flexible river similar to the pathways. I used a mat instead of a cloth and make a little bump on the sides of the river before applying the caulk. 

The water was made with a transparent caulk mixed with a little bit of blue ink applied over the previous layer after painting a little bit of greenish blue over the brown caulk.

This is looking good.

HOWEVER...

As some of you may have guessed, I've the luck of not having to repair a lot of things in the house so I didn't know that some caulks will not stick together pretty well and the foldable rivers started to come apart. So I'll leave it in the tutorial as a DO NOT ATTEMPT. Or if you have a solution with another product or preparing the first caulk layer, I will want to hear it.

Second attempt, cutting and carving some wood. Here is the woodcraftmanship part of the tutorial.

The good part of this method is that the carving makes a good looking water after painting and sealing with several layers of gloos varnish or transparent UV resin. This makes the river solid, but hey, theyre finished and at least will make the table stable putting some weight over the mat.

Now, finish painting the other pieces.

As I said, they were painted with oil paint diluted in mineral spirit. You can do some more preshading work painting the stonework, some strips of the wood veins ad some details in pure white. Always coat them before applying oil paint. If you're tinting the stone or wood with contrast/xpress you're good to go without coating with varnish. I used oil paint because it is fairly cheap, a little mix will cover all the wood planks, stone, etc. for the entire batch.

I noticed that the second bridge has few wight and may be a little unstable during a battle, so I glued some weight in the part that is not visible under the planks.

I did not forgot to paint some more miniatures. Fortunately, the package that I was waiting with the other villagers and the Overlord offering is finally here.

It is a lovely mix of Midlam and Citadel villagers. I think that my favourites are the Citadel elder and rat catcher and the Midlam potion seller.

For our beloved Overlord, a Citadel thug encounter for any roleplaying session. This guy is the kinda appearing in the middle of the path at night and asking you if you painted all your monthly miniatues or else he will dispatch you to the Field of Bones.

And now, some pictures of Linden Way and Ashak Rise.

A small town patrol looking for any troublemaker.

(I noticed that it is some problem with the tavern cutout from Townscape and the walls do not line properly as you can see in the back. D'oh)

A troop of orcs cross the river while the inhabitants are unsuspectful.

The dwarfs of Ashak Rise are starting they're daily work in the mineral deposits.

This month adds 10 miniatures and a lot of terrain. Almost everything done for Ashak Rise, the Orc's Drift and Linden Way except for the ruins and tower for Linden Way and the stone walls for Orc's Drift.

Next month I think that I may add the troop of elves.

Until then,
Adrian’s out