Build a 40k dice tower

Trolling through the net for ideas, I came across a dice tower. After being fascinated by how it works, I realized this is probably something I could do as well. I drew a sketch to get my mind in motion.

After scouring my table for materials, I have decided to make one out of 5mm foam board and card board. This piece will work as a dice tower and doubling as scenery for the table top.

 

I started with the basics to determine how tall I wanted this tower to be. I decided to make a 2 storey tower. I then proceed to cut the four walls to make the tower. Out of the 4 walls, 1 of them will need to be shorter to allow for the opening below (marked 4 in sketch). The other 3 will be full height walls.

Next was to cut out 2 foam board boards for the insides where the dice would bounce off and finally the bottom ramp which was cut out of some cardboard I found lying around. 

Glue the “box like” structure to an art cardboard canvas base. I wanted the structure to look like some sort of silo, so I added some doors, made using corrugated cardboard (again you can get this from recycle pizza boxes or any stationary shop) 

I glued them to the sides using PVA glue. After that I added some cut out foam board to make an enclosure for the dice to land. I also decided to add some floor texture from a Japanese take away boxes which I have procured during lunch. The top broken roof of the tower was made out of corrugated board. 

The final touches were adding sand texture then base coating and paint.  

Give it a go! Scratch building is always fun and rewarding.

Capt. Stainguard

Scratch building 40k Barricades

I  have decided to kick-start the year by making some terrain. The first thing that caught my eye was the wooden rulers for sale at the departmental stores (eg k-mart or Office works here in Australia) for school kids at the start of school season. 

One of my basic rules for scratch building terrain; base your terrain/scenery on a solid base. This is a no brainier because your terrain will last longer. So Wooden rulers, make good bases for barricades.

What you need

Utility knife

Metal Ruler

PVA glue

Materials

Wooden ruler

Bits of foam board

Corrugated cardboard

Sand/flock

Citadel paints

Instructions

I cut the rulers in half (I bought the 30mm ones) with a utility knife. You can choose to cut the sides to give it a less squarish look if you wish.

The next step is to cut some foam board and stick it to the wooden base using PVA glue. Fortunately for me I have lots of left overs from previous projects. I prefer to have the foam board glued on in bits (just enough to cover your models) to represent rubble so you get that ruin city look.

Cut some corrugated card board. You can purchase this in any stationary store (or get them from takeaway pizza boxes). Cut them into triangles and stick them behind the foam board walls. This will act as roof sheeting debris or just bit of metal fencing being propped together in a warzone.

Now using a wet brush evenly spread some PVA glue to the surface of the base.

Not my favourite part because it can get messy. Quickly after this process, add sand (or flock) and leave to dry. Make sure the PVA is dried before proceeding to make sure the sand is sealed in!

Now you are almost done. Base coat the terrain with chaos black (I sometimes tend to add a light wash of PVA glue and water just to seal in the sand before base coating).

I used a dry brush technique to paint my terrain. I started painting the base, first with snake bite leather (or scorch brown).

The exposed foam board is dry brush painted with codex grey. I then painted the corrugated board with brazen brass. Finally paint boltgun metal over the top bits of the corrugated board.

There you have it, some 40k barricades!

I would like to encourage you to give this a try but if this is too time consuming and messy for you, I have some on ebay for you to bid, just to save you the trouble.

40k barricades at ebay

As always, good luck in your scratch building

Capt. Stainguard

40k Apocalypse 2012

With Christmas almost upon us and some people saying that the end of the world is near,  I figure it’s only fair I  post a picture of an apocalypse game, which I had the privilege in participating a couple of years ago in a local gaming club called “Armadale Wargames” which runs almost every year now (near Christmas time), an annual apocalypse tournament since 40k Apocalypse was introduced.  

http://www.westgamer.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=24

 

This also brings to mind my very first vehicle conversion when White dwarf promoted the Vehicle Design Rules. I had the inspiration to build this monstrosity after reading one of the Gaunts Ghost novels which featured a traitor guard warmachine. Unfortunately as time passes by, I tore the model apart for parts since most of my friends were afraid to go up against it and there wasn’t much use for this model in a standard 40k game. So parts were recycled and made into other things. But today with the introduction of 40k apocalypse, I wondered how this model would have fared? 

Lucky for me I took a picture of this conversion before disassembling it in the chop-shop :P

Merry Christmas!

Capt. Stainguard