15mm Urban Ruins - Proxie Models Test Building

After the last post, I decided to put together the one Proxie Models building I have right now, and worry about the rest of my Urban Table project later.  This is pretty much the same technique I used long ago with my GW Cities Of Death buildings.

Raw materials: one Proxie Models ruined building set, a 6" x 6" square of 1/8" MDF hardboard, and a length of styrene corner stock I found in a drawer.  The Proxie walls don't really have finished edges, so I thought the styrene would be a good option for building corners.  It also gives me a way to quickly change building styles with the Proxie sprues... I'll just use square corners on some, rounded corners on others.

I used an X-Acto hobby-sized miter box and saw to cut the corners and went to work.  Assembly was pretty simple - Tacky Glue held everything together and set quickly.  Gorilla Glue would have been another option.

Then I decided the building needed a floor of some kind.  I cut 1" x 1" squares from an old blister card.  I try to save small bits of packaging that are on really nice glossy stock - they come in handy.  I meant to go back and score these so there would be fore tiles per piece, but I got lazy.  I did cut a few tiles up by the most damaged portion of the building, just to give a broken effect:

And for the rubble - plain old sand that I liberated from a local park.  I piled it up along the foundation, with a few thicker piles over the damaged sections.  It's not a super realistic effect, especially if you go back and look at pictures of WWII Stalingrad and the like.  But realistic rubble would pretty much fill the building - not useful for maneuvering figures!  I think this is a good compromise between realistic rubble and plain ruins sticking out of the ground.

I think this is good enough for my test piece.  I might mix in some larger bits of rubble next time, but this will be a decent start for my war-torn cityscape.  I'll get it painted as soon as there's another day warm enough to spray primer onto it.

Cheers,
Chris

City Tile Update and the Next Step

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I applied tinted Minwax Acrylic stain to the pained CNC Miniature Scenery's Urban Grounds tiles. The results are exactly what I wanted - something darker than the manufacturer's suggested paint scheme, but still having more color levels than Games Workshop's own city tables.

There are still some finishing touches needed, such as metal paint on the sewer grates and manholes, along with gluing some rubble and bones into the blast craters. But they are now ready to be used for a game.

The next project is to assemble enough buildings for a Gamma-level fight. I don't need Omega-level buildings until the rest of the CNC tiles are painted and stained. This seems to be the best approach - I spent two days assembling the City Grounds and Urban Grounds kits, and was immediately overwhelmed with how many there were. Doing them in small chunks makes the project very manageable. So I'm going to try the same approach with my Imperial City boxed set - build just a few buildings at a time rather than using every sprue and bit in the box.

I also want to pick up one more item - a Shrine of the Aquila. Initially I was very unimpressed with this building - it was tall, thin, and lacked detail compared to the existing Cities of Death sets. And like most internet gamers, I immediately complained in the forums. I still think standalone, the kit is fairly unimpressive.

But I saw something this week on GW's site that has completely changed my opinion. It is the cover image for the Focus on 40K Terrain article:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=cat1310001&aId=15700001

It uses the Shrine along with Basilica and Sanctum components to make a building that I can only describe as "solid awesome." I intend to build something almost identical to this and use it as the centerpiece in my City of Death.

Miniature Scenery CNC Urban/Battle Ground tiles

A few months back, I ordered both the City Ground and Battle Ground series of modular tiles from CNC Miniature Scenery (Australia). I assembled and primed the tiles over the course of a few weeks, but abandoned them in favor of more work on my Executioners and Arbites. Assembly was very straightforward - took me three evenings to finish both packs, using nothing more than my hobby clippers, a sanding sponge, and some Elmer's glue.

My initial review of the tiles is extremely high - I am VERY impressed by their construction, assembly, instructions, and quality. I've assembled the tiles into many demo setups, and haven't had a problem yet with fit or finish. But, as I said, other projects took over, and the assembled-and-primed tiles sat in the basement for months.

The last few weeks, after my 2-year-old daughter's bedtime, I was able to get around to painting. I stay pretty cheap when it comes to terrain - all the paint is the cheap craft-store brand Folk Art, the brushes and mini-roller were from Dollar Tree, and the texture was some old Red Devil paint additive I had in the basement. Even with these cheap supplies, I was impressed at the overall results. My girlfriend Casey pitched in with some touch-up painting the past few nights, and here is a sample of our results.



In total I have 26 tiles painted. The tiles are a little over 9"x9" each, so 25 will make an Alpha- or Gamma-level Cityfight board. Ten are blank tiles for buildings/ruins, one is a decorative "courtyard" tile (I checkered it just for fun), and the rest are a variety of road sections. The final stage before play is going to be the application of Minwax acrylic stain, to properly "dull" their overall appearance (similar to the "dip" technique found on numerous other blogs). I'll post updated pics after the stain is applied.