Saturday, April 1, 2017

Flocked Hex Tiles--Custom Terrain for Heroscape

Another Heroscape terrain set. A couple years back, Heroscaper Grishnakh--a wellspring of infinite inspiration to me--created a Rise of the Valkyrie master set with flocked terrain instead of the green plastic tiles. Naturally, I couldn't help but take a crack at it myself, so without further ado I present to you our personal expanding set of Flocked Hex Tiles!

An Overview



Here's a closeup of the grass! It varies here and there due to irregularities in the glue. Just classic model train flock on elmers glue. Really gives it a more professional Table Top War-game feel to it and less of a Hasbro box game XD


Some rough terrain. I used some dead moss and crumbled leaves from a place we own up north to add some real-world dimension to the grassy areas. You can also sorta see the moss growing on the base of the ruins.


Here's a shot of the one sandy tile I completed. Definitely subject to change XD


A rocky tile. I was never a fan of Grishnakh's gravel field type of tile, so I created this one. There's gravel interspersed between the hexes, and the hexes themselves are just toilet paper and paper mache


Guilty McCreech takes pot-shots at some Marros


Drake gets mobbed by Marro swarms! I made a statue of Syvarris out of a spare Syvarris, a piece of pink insulation foam, and a spare glyph mounted on a single hex and appropriately painted. Not my favorite piece (made it a looooong time ago) but not terrible.



My two favorite squads line up and take aim at each other! ('murica)

And that's all! What do you think of the idea of flocked terrain? Does it hold up well against Grishnakh's original, or does it fall short?

-BG



Mos Eisley Spaceport--Custom Star Wars Scape Terrain, from Jek the Amigo

"If there's a bright center to the universe, then you're on the planet that it's farthest from."
                                                                                                    -Luke Skywalker, A New Hope

To begin, here is some custom terrain I cooked up for the Heroscape system. Herein I display some neat Mos Eisley Terrain I put together to go with custom Star Wars units for the game.


I wanted to create a nice set of terrain for the Star Wars customs I was intending to make, and decided that there was no better place in the entire Star Wars canon to set up on than the hive of scum and villainy.

Ben Kenobi goes wandering through the Jundland Wastes in an epic quest for Blue Milk, or possibly Jawa Juice. The rocks were from a plastic animal bucket that my Church was so kind as to let me keep when we were finished using it at Sunday School (where I serve.)
I based the rocks in white primer--since the paint just wouldn't hold to the rubbery plastic--and then used a couple drybrushes and a few shading lines to get the desired effect. Using card board for the base and dirt from the side of my road for Tatooine sands, I found myself very happy with the result.
Maybe one day I'll make a set with the white Sandpeople runes on it, like we see in the newest Battlefront game.
 
But gasp! The Stormtroopers ALSO want Blue Milk, and decide to kill Ben to get it.

Ben runs into the spaceport and the troopers run after.
I was very pleased with how the main Mos Eisley building--a used droid shop that presumably has fairer deals than those ripoff Jawas--turned out. Using a variety of low budget supplies--a small cardboard box my miniatures came in, a half of a Styrofoam ball for the roof, paper mached in regular white paper and based the same way I did my rocks, I made an appropriate hideaway for my scum and villainy figures :)

Ben holds his ground!
The door was a plastic Sci-Fi platform kit I picked up many years ago. To get the signature round Mos Eisley door, I took a paper, folded it in half, cut it in a half oval (to make it perfectly symmetrical) and then glued it over the plastic piece and blended it in with the wall. Worked like a charm if you asked me!
The sign above the door is actually a mutagen canister from a TMNT busy books set (back before they made Heroclix as the best alternative for TMNT Heroscape characters) and it says 'droid' in Aurebesh on it.
The attena and generater thingy are pieces from some knock-off lego sets.

Heavy Stormtroopers place their gunners on the roof.
While I didn't want to ruin the asthetic with hexagons, I consider the roof totally playable: just watch where the figures are placed in comparison to the rest of the board!

Ben hops atop a power generator to fight his way to victory!
This was made from more of those plastic Sci-Fi platform kit pieces. I don't remember the gent who dug these up on Heroscapers so many years ago... but they're real nice for Star Wars stuff!!!

Ben is chased to the Munitions Tower.
The tower is made the same way as the shop, only with a salt can rather than a box.
The door is cardstock rather than plastic, as I couldn't get the plastic to curve (and didn't want to waste it. I am, after all, broke!)
It reminded me so heavily of a munitions tower I saw while I was in historic James Town that I wrote the word 'ammo' in Aurebesh on the side. I foresee plenty of Rebel weapons raid scenarios in the future :D

Then Jack Sparrow comes by and kills them all by accident. -_-
But seriously, here is a few Falcon's eye views of the spaceport.

What do you think!? Sound off in the comments below!
It was very fun making terrain that--as far as I know--only one other Heroscaper attempted (Grishnakh) and he did it a very different way. I'm happy with the finished result, but what do you all think? What else does my hive of scum and villainy need? Thanks!

-BG