Now Accepting Commission Scenery Work

Top quality detailing on a Skyshield Landing Pad I did for Next Dimension Games in Chicago. It now resides with the Brohammer Gaming Club in Chicago.

I am currently accepting commission terrain work. Nothing brings our beloved hobby to life like beautiful scenery to play on. I've been building and painting scenery for a long time dating back to my old gaming store Adventures Unleashed in Buffalo, NY during the mid 90's and working for GW in the early 2000's at GW#108 in Buffalo.

I can quickly take the resin and plastic terrain you've been collecting for ages and turn it into gorgeous table top scenery. 

Over the years my scenery and terrain painting skills have adorned Transit Station and Jester's Cap (now Two Kings) in Buffalo, NY, Next Dimension Games in Chicago, AdeptiCon's 40K Warzone Tournament, and photo quality scenery for box art used by Hyacinth Games/Wreck-Age.

I'll gladly combine kits to give more personality to your terrain. This Cities of Death building was based with GW Moonscape Crater to give the appearance it took a direct missile hit.

More GW scenery painted for Next Dimension Games. 40K Ammo Crates on a Realm of Battle board.

Hyacinth Games has commissioned me to paint most of their resin terrain for photo use.

The resin tents and campfire were quickly and affordably painted for Hyacinth Games.

You'll get more for your dollar by having me paint the terrain you already own, but I can building something custom completely from the ground up.

Custom urban arch built as a centerpiece for my home Cities of Death board. This piece has been used in the 40K Warzone Tournament at AdeptiCon in 2013 and 2014.

4'x4' trench board built specifically for the 40K Warzone Tournament at AdeptiCon. It is currently available for sale.

I can do everything from quick game play ready to photo ready depending on your needs and budget. Contact me here: thirdxparty@hotmail.com

Thanks for reading.
-Nick

Escalation and Stronghold Assault

NDG  here in Chicago got in Escalation and Stronghold Assault yesterday and I've been really intrigued to look at both of them.

Escalation is Apocalypse-Lite. GW wants us all to own and play with Super-Heavies even if we don't play Apoc scale games, so they expanded the force org to include a 3rd optional category called Lords of War (the other two being Allies and Fortifications).

The goal is to make it legal to play these in standard pick up games without all of the fanfare and set up of Apocalypse. To balance it out, if you don't field a Lord of War and your opponent does you get a +1 to your Seize the Initiative roll. Additionally, an additional secondary object/source of victory points (similar to Line Breaker and First Blood) appears to give you a VP just for doing 3 Hull Points in damage to the Super-Heavy.

Its not like a typical Expansion book in that there are no Stratagems or other additional layers of the game to pick and choose from added. Instead, there's a Lord of War Warlord Traits table you can optionally roll on and a bunch of new scenarios to choose from, but it is made very clear that playing these models in standard rule book missions is fine, and these missions are just to expand your options for themed conflict.

Its a savvy move to try and sell big kits to people who cap their games at 2000 points. All of the data sheets appear to be the same as Apocalypse, and D weapons remain unchanged. This just allows you to access all of that information without owning the Apocalypse book.

Stronghold Assault is a much shorter book and is much more in the vein of Cities of Death and Planet Strike.

Once again they are trying to get you to purchase more kits, this time the scenery ones. It provides you with the data sheets for all of the Fortification related scenery kits and gives you new combos. It also introduces 3 new ones with no art/photos and thus, NO KIT TO SELL US. This was a huge surprise to me with GW's recent policy of not introducing army list options without kits.

Unlike Escalation which is clearly trying to get you to play standard 40K with Lords of War, this book is approached knowing full well that you're already using Fortifications in your games (at least Aegis Defense Lines anyway) and then gives you a bunch of new scenarios to play in order to play out Siege battles. So its kind of like Planet Strike without the grandeur and additional set up. You pay your points for your Fortifications, pick a mission, and play. Its not like learning a new system and all sorts of funky rules EXCEPT! The Building rules are expanded to make using the new kits even more clear.

From the 4th Edition 40K Rule Book under "Raid Missions". Raids used Sentries, Hidden Set Up, and Divided Forces. Other 4th Edition Raids included Sabotage and Ambush. There were also Breakthrough and Special Missions, each with their own FOC charts. Most players ignored these parts of the book I think. I LOVED those parts of the book.

This book plays into a certain nostalgia for me as it resurrects a handful of old scenarios like Strongpoint Attack and Break Through from the 3rd and 4th Edition 40K Rule Books. I always loved the scenarios in the back of the book more than the tired Standard missions you play all the time.

Overall, I think both books are really cool. I have a Baneblade and a Stompa kit waiting for my attention but I'm not sure they'll get paint just yet. If a plastic Thunderhawk was released beside this book, that would have been a different story. I'd probably be writing this while foaming at the mouth.

The book I was less excited for, Stronghold Assault, has wormed its way into my conscious however, and I think I'd really enjoy playing some Siege missions and I'm trying to think of events for both NDG and Adepticon that could possibly make use of this book. We'll see.

-Nick

New Scenery at Next Dimension Games

Back in October Next Dimension Games commissioned me to work on their store terrain. This is a smattering of what I've been working on.

One of the first pieces I worked on was a pair of Imperial Bastions. I don't have any pics of those today, but I did photograph the servo-shrine piece that comes with it.I put more time in than maybe I should have. All of the lenses are gemmed, details like skulls are picked out and highlighted, and I even did caution stripes on the base and some bird poop,

Here's the servo-skull that hovers up above it.

Here are some classic crates dating back to the 2nd Edition 40K box era. You can see liberal use of weathering powders on the pallets.

Tank traps done up very similar to the ones I use on my own tables. You can see a bit of the Manufactorum in the background.

This is the inside of said Manufactorum and uses the Manufactorum kit, a Moonscape crater, and an Urban Barricade and Wall, all from GW. You can see a WIP Shrine of the Aquilla in the background.

As a parting photo, here's the top of one of the two Sky Shield Platforms I've done up for them.

There's plenty more where that came from. I didn't picture any of the work started by other staffers that I've gone back and completed/updated. Stop in the store, check it out, play games on them!

Next Dimension Games 2934 N Clark, Chicago, IL.

-Nick

Looking at the 40K Warzone Tournament Surveys Part 2

I've been sitting on the 40K Warzone Tournament surveys for a couple of weeks now and I've done a lot of introspection. Most of my decisions are kind of "no brainer's" based on my instinctive reactions to the surveys, but I'm the type who likes to think things through and make sure my gut instinct and my logical analysis are one and the same.

I'm going to just hit a bunch of bullet points based on the question order and the results/comments made in order to keep things simple:

- I have every intention of running the event again next year, so feel free to start planning your force now.

- As of right now the prime candidate to get dropped is the Desert boards. I love the look and feel of Desert so it pains me, We'll see though.

I need to finish all 4 trench boards and get them ready for next year.

- Wraiths will still be able to pass through walls. Its too cool. I mean, they're Wraiths?!

- The Hidden Deployment Stratagem will be modified or removed.

- Flyers are a part of the game, so they're staying. Bombing runs over cities seems like such an obvious visual. Like usual, they'll be most useful as a Sideboard option and I see no need to remove the Flak Mods Stratagem.

- Preliminary Bombardment is really hit or miss (pun not intended). I know I've played with it since it was introduced in (I think?) 3rd Edition and it always seems like its going to be awesome, and then nothing gets killed. Sure, you can get lucky, but its sort of rare.

- Zone Mortalis Rooms/Objectives that were too Ambiguous is really an easy fix. I'll continue to work on my own Zone Mortalis tables rather than using those 3 old Kill Team tables that Brian Niro made so that they work a bit better with the rules.

- Intact Buildings are here to stay. If you know that you need Flamers and Grenades to flush models out you shouldn't have that hard of a time doing so. People should familiarize themselves with the rules for Buildings so they know how to best deal with them. I may even incorporate them more since they are so under used currently.

- I'll see what I can do to add some rooms with doors for Zone Mortalis. When I played in Sin of Alacrity I enjoyed the tension of having a nasty unit right on the other side of a door and just one well placed shot away from threatening my forces. Very cool.

One of Brian Niro's fantastic tables from the Sin of Alacrity event at Adepticon 2013. This table didn't have any doors, but it was still awesome to play on. Image taken from Brian's blog, A Gentleman's Ones.

- If you thought it was impossible to make a list for both Cities of Death and Desert you might not be relying enough on Infantry.

- Booby Traps, Tunnels, Hiidden Deployment, and Familiar Ground will all get reviewed. If you have any opinions feel free to post them up.

- A Warzone involving water was a the clear #1 choice to replace Desert. Swamps would be cool, as would canals, but I could always do something weird like Drifting Islands. Haha. There's a lot of room for creativity here. I would want to replace Desert with something else fairly open so we'll see.

- People wanted more Dangerous, Mysterious, and Unpredictable elements and I will comply. I still won't go too heavy handed with this but I have a lot of modeling ideas that I think would be cool.

- A Painting rubric will be implemented, as well as a Stratagem one. I think this was a missed opportunity for cool modeling for a lot of people. So many people took Preliminary Bombardment and did nothing with it. What about a Comms guy in one of your squads with communications gear? What about a Explosion, Crater, or even Incoming Missile markers? What about bulls-eye bases?

- Ensure soft scores are weighted more heavily so there is a better chance of a spread between Best General and Best Overall, and to reward those who approach the hobby from different angles.

- Bump the rounds up to 2 hours and make sure there is time for a lunch.

- Expect new scenarios and an easier to read packet!

- Next year I need to take photos during the event so I have documentation of the visual spectacle.

- Get Kevin Brown to help out again, that guy was a god send and I can't thank him enough. Unless he plays in the event of course, then he gets a pass! ;)

I think that covers it. Thanks again to everyone who played in the event. I wouldn't mind running the exact same 40K Warzone Tournament event or pieces of it a few more times this year to keep me working on tables and get in some additional play testing, so hit me up if you'd like to find a way to bring me and my boards to you. ;) If anyone has any additional comments or suggestions don't hesitate to post or drop a line: thirdxparty@hotmail.com

-Nick

Looking at the Adepticon 40K Warzone Surveys Part 1

This year at Adepticon I endeavored to try something a bit different. I ran something I dubbed the 40K Warzone Tournament. The ultimate goal was for all 32 players to fight across 4 very different “Warzones”. Each game was intended to be fought across a different board with its own special rules. This year the featured Warzones were Desert, Zone Mortalis, Cities of Death, and Trench. Each player brought a 1000 point army list with a 250 point side board so that they could make small modifications to their army so that they could drop that tank or flyer they used in the Desert to meet the constraints of the enclosed tunnels of a Zone Mortalis board. In addition, every player was allowed to choose a Stratagem from a master list that I pulled from a variety of sources like the Cities of Death book, Planetstrike, Imperial Armor 9, and even from the Battle Missions book. Similarly, the objectives for the scenarios were gleaned from a multitude of sources, putting all of my various newer and older Expansion books, and even the Dark Millennium sections of old rulebooks to use. The goal was to create a unique and fun experience for Adepticon goers that tapped into all of the things I love about the rather limitless world of 40K that seem to go overshadowed in the more competitive end of the tournament scene. It also created a bunch of interesting challenges for me as both a hobbyist and an arm chair game designer as I mashed game concepts together and simultaneously labored to build 16 fully detailed tables to match the Warzones depicted, that were beautiful and fun to play on. Though I never finished all 16 tables, and there were some small design flaws with select Stratagems and how they interacted with certain missions, overall I thought it was a huge success.

At the end of the the 40K Warzone Tournament I handed out surveys, and the results were really interesting.  From what I can see it seems to me that people really enjoy playing with Special Rules and Terrain Effects as long as they can figure out how to deal with them. For example, the Zone Mortalis rules are very heavy handed and there are a lot of them. What’s interesting is that people were sort of split on how much they liked or disliked ZM. Eight people considered it their favorite Warzone, and 5 people considered it their least favorite, ultimately making it the top choice for both. The Warzone that had the least amount of Special Rules was Desert, and when asked what Warzone people would drop in order to replace it with something different, Desert was the number one answer.  One of the biggest surprises for me was that a handful of people were frustrated with the Building Rules from the 6^th Edition Rule Book and were taken very off guard by having to use them. People are very familiar with the rules for Ruins, but as soon as someone was in a Building things sort of fell apart and people didn’t know what their tactical options were for dealing with units inside of them. I hate to say it, but this makes me want to use Buildings even more because they create new challenges that I think are fun and interesting when you know that they are coming.

Another interesting detail that relates to people enjoying the more Special Rule heavy Warzones was that a quarter of the people surveyed actually requested more Dangerous and Mysterious Terrain, and more detrimental Environmental Effects, like high winds and the like. Considering I spend a lot of time on blogs reading about tournament players railing against these sorts of bits of randomness, I found it really interesting to see that there are people out there like myself who find these elements unique, interesting, and thematic.

Though I thought I got all 26 back, I only count 24 today. Regardless, the information contained within these 24 surveys is very interesting to me, so maybe it might be to you:

1) Did you have fun? Would you play in an event like this again?

All 24 surveys came back: Yes. Yes & Yes. Or some derivation of Definitely/Absolutely. This made me feel like the event was an absolute hit and invigorates me to do it again next year.

2) What was your favorite Warzone? What was you least favorite?

Favorite:
Desert: 1

Zone Mortalis: 8
Trench: 4
Cities of Death: 7
All of the Above: 1
No Favorite: 1

Least Favorite:
Desert: 4
Zone Mortalis: 5
Trench: 3
Cities of Death: 1
No “Least Favorite”: 3
No Reply: 6

3) Did anything seem broken or overly frustrating? Did you have any serious rule issues?

No Issues: 10
Wraiths passing through walls: 1 (Personally I thought this was really cinematic! -Nick)
Hidden Deployment Stratagem was too powerful: 3
Flyers were too powerful: 1
Preliminary Bombardment was too powerful: 1
Zone Mortalis table/rooms/objectives too ambiguous: 1
Intact buildings were too hard to deal with: 3
Zone Mortalis tables needed doors: 1
Impossible to make a list for both Desert and Cities of Death: 1

4) Were you able to complete 4 or more turns every game? Should the rounds be longer? Or should there be less games? (they were supposed to be 1.5 hrs but were pushed closer to 2 hours depending on how people’s games were running.)

Yes I’d like longer turns: 8
No, the turn length was perfect: 16
I would like to play less than 4 games: 0
It was the perfect number of games: 18

5) Were there any Stratagems you felt were automatic choices?

No: 13
Booby Traps: 2
Tunnels: 2
Flakk Mods: 3
Hidden Deployment: 3
Preliminary Bombardment: 2
Familiar Ground: 2
Yes, but I’m not going to tell you what ones: 1

6) Next year I’d like to drop one Warzone and replace it with a different one. Which Warzone would you drop? And what type of Warzone would you replace it with?

Drop Zone Mortalis: 3
Drop Trenches: 6
Drop Desert: 9

No changes: 2

Replace with Alien World: 3
Replace with Jungle: 4
Replace with Swamp/Bridges/Islands: 9
Replace with Daemon World: 3
Replace with Ice World: 1
Replace with Space Hulk: 2

Add more Dangerous Terrain, Mysterious and Random Effects: 6

In my next post I’m going to analyze this data and talk about possible changes for next year. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions? Here’s an opportunity to share them.
-Nick

PS. Every one of these images was recycled because I couldn't find a single image from the event through Google. I saw plenty of you taking pics so if you have an image to share, please do!

40K Warzone Rule Packet

I finished the rule packet a short while ago. Hopefully all of the scenarios prove enjoyable for everyone, and hopefully my poor Photoshop skills don't leave people scratching their heads too often wondering what something says. This whole process has been a learning experience and I feel like I gained a lot from it. Enjoy! -Nick

40K Warzone Tournament PDF

Updated for easier reading.

Adepticon WIP Table Shots

Tonight I am play testing one of the scenarios from the 40K Warzone Tournament and I went to take some photos as I set up the table and discovered my memory card was full. I guess that's reason enough for a blog post right? Here's some quick shots of things I've been up to in the last month or so.

I wanted to vary up my GW Cities of Death buildings and arches are a common theme, so I looked in my pile of junk that should be out in the alley with the other trash and I looked in my actual recycle bin and I stumbled upon the humble "cherry tomato tray". The pattern of the plastic involves a series of arches so I decided to clip them out and give them a try. They were then added to an extension that I built onto the top of a Cities of Death building. The end result looked something like this.

Tomato tray and clippers. The tray didn't stand a chance.

Arches in place.

This piece is done for now. Some washes could really add some pop though.

The gateway below, now named Dominion Gate, was actually part of a team tournament display the Nerd Night Crew (which evolved into 2ndCityWarzone) used at Adepticon some 4 years back. I added a pair of bases to elevate it even further and then gave it a little more dry brushing and washes in the recesses to give it a little more depth than it had.

Dominion Gate

Adjacent to Dominion Gate on either side are sections of park land

Dominion Park

Dominion Park

 I had a day where I was sick of looking at city terrain and felt stagnant so I packed everything up and started work on the trench boards. These shots show where the opposing trench lines will run. Circles represent where craters will be built into the board. The center diagonals represents the killing field between deployment zones. Rectangles along the trench lines will be dug outs.

Overhead of the trench layout.

Overhead of the trench layout close up on one deployment zone.

That's it for now.
-Nick

Building a Better City from the Ground Up Part 2

In the last article I talked about how I've wanted to take the Cities of Death experience and make it feel more like you're battling in an actual city rather than a haphazard maze of buildings and detritus. I started off the project by discussing the movement trays that I built to contain my buildings. Today I'm working on painting some of those movement trays so lets take a look. Now I will note that this is all probably much easier with an airbrush but since my first attempt airbrushing something a few years ago was a complete failure, I haven't touched it since. Instead, I do layers of over brushing and dry brushing combined with washes to create the look of my sidewalks. Here's a quick overview:

To start I painted the entire base with black paint. I did this by hand because spray paint would melt my exposed foamcore sides.

Next I over brushed dark grey. I used Americana brand Graphite colored craft paint. Essentially its Abaddon Black mixed with a lighter grey.

 Next I dry brushed Apple Barrel brand Blue Stoneware over that. Think something along the lines of The Fang - a dark blue/grey.

Then I dry brushed again with Apple Barrel brand Country Grey. This is more of a black based grey akin to Dawnstone or Administratum Grey.

This next layer was a mix of a bunch of colors to approximate Bleached Bone/Ushabti Bone.

To help pick out the sidewalk blocks and add a level of realism I washed Gryphonne Sepia into the cracks though any brown wash would do.

To strengthen that definition and add more detail to the gravel patches I then washed the cracks and gravel with Badab Black/Nuln Oil.It should be noted that the dark grey dome will get hit with some sort of metallic and highlighted but this movement tray is essentially done. 

This is the layout of this particular tournament board. As you can see there are an assortment of different sized trays in various states of completion. Essentially there are two that need the full treatment starting with over brushing/dry brushing, and the rest just need various levels of detailing.

Here's a close-up of a major intersection. The two lane highway has Imperial Eagle decals for added effect, and the narrower street actually has little red arrow decals to show the direction of traffic. The crosswalks and lane dividers are not actually painted on either. They are strips of card stock I glued down because I didn't feel like messing with stenciling them on. To blend it all together various greys were stippled over the lines and decals.

You'll notice in these pictures shading in the gutters. I washed Badab Black along the gutters and added some random staining in the streets. As I work along other splashes of black, brown, and green wash will be added to represent various types of street filth. 

What do you think so far? Does it feel more like a cityscape?

In part 3 I'll talk about detailing the buildings and stretching the value of your Cities of Death buildings. Thanks for reading. -Nick

Reblog: Building a Better City From the Ground Up Part 1

In May of 2009 I composed this blog post and took the below photos. It was supposed to be Part 1 of a series of articles on getting the most out of Cities of Death terrain and attempting to truly capture the "city feel" that I think most city boards lack. Not surprisingly because I work so slowly, I never composed a Part 2 to this article. I've still be working on this concept off and on for 3 years now and as I prepare the 4 Cities of Death boards needed for the 40K Warzone Tournament at Adepticon, I figured I'd resurrect this post rather than rewrite it all over again, starting with the original intro.

The spectacle of the game is one of the most important things to me. As such, city fighting has fantastic opportunities for stunning visuals. One of the principle visual hang ups I have with most city boards is that they don't take into account city blocks and roads. Instead, the board is a haphazard collection of buildings randomly spaced about creating a maze of totally irregular fire lanes. These boards are very suitable for game play but they just don't convey the same feel I get from walking the streets of Chicago.

When I am out and about I think about terrain a lot. I look at the architecture around me and I pick out details that can be translated into the game board. After much analysis I decided that my randomly sized city buildings, however nice, were no longer suitable as they were. I needed to create city blocks. The solution I came up with was movement trays for my buildings. Though I'm actually a lot further along in the process of making these city blocks, I have only really spent the last couple of days detailing out the city block movement trays themselves so I took some step by step photos.

The above picture shows a piece of 1/8" masonite or hardboard cut to 24"x12". My city blocks currently are in 24"x12" and 12"x12" sections to start. To frame in the movement try I have applied strips of 1" wide foam core. You will also notice the 1"x1" gap in this photo. That space was left so that I can later create 1"x1" bases for sign posts, street lamps, statues, and the like.

The next picture is a close up of the sidewalk tiling. I cut 1"x1" squares out of card stock and glued them down. Sidewalks are rarely perfect so every so often I cut the 1" square into 2-3 pieces and glued them down to create cracks in the sidewalk.
This corner is heavily damaged. I actually am running low on foam core so I used some scraps that were not perfect. In beat up older neighborhoods like mine, cement this busted up happens occasionally. In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium where there is only war, I'm sure its the norm. You might notice I threw in some sprue offcuts under the sand.
Another broken section of sidewalk - again with sprue offcuts. Notice how I didn't let the sand extend onto the bare masonite in the center as that would prevent the buildings from sitting flat.

Its the little details that bring a piece of scenery to life. This random piece of plastic I beam that was laying on the table was promptly glued down onto the sidewalk when I saw it sitting there. After it sat for a moment I went back, added a bit more watered down white glue and sprinkled some sand around it.

In one of my terrain boxes I have an old Soy Yogurt cut labeled "dome things". This random plastic "dome" was glued down to represent some sort of waste water access. Again, just a sparse sprinkle of sand was added around it.

Here is a photo of the movement try with it filled with buildings. The fit was a little snug so the two large Chicago style "3 flats" a leaning out. I need to trim the ruined building at the end like 1/16" to take that pressure off. You will notice a couple of rings. Those are man holes. I have another Soy Yogurt cup labeled "ring things" and these metal rings were glued down and then card stock circles were glued into the center of each as covers.Here's the same block shot from the left. The large ruin was a building made before I standardized the bases for the movement trays so I literally glued the hardboard base onto a properly sized pink foam base and added sidewalk tiling to make it seem like the it was actually deliberate.

I don't want to get into the manufacture of the specific buildings in this first part of the article but I wanted to show how each of the building sections is on a semi-standardized base that is then dropped onto the movement tray, allowing for different looking city blocks to be set up each time.In my Chicago neighborhood there are vacant lots interspersed between buildings on most blocks. Some of them are makeshift parks or community gardens and others are just overgrown detritus collectors. Sometimes they are fenced in, sometimes there are walls, and other times they are wide open. This represents what was likely once one of the nicer vacant lots on the block - probably a community garden or tiny park.When placed together you can see how the movement tray creates a more genuine looking city block.

Okay, so that's pretty much it from the original article. Part 2 will continue onward with the "From the Ground Up" and focus more on the movement trays themselves as they are base coated, painted, and laid out on the board along with thoughts on the streets themselves.
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Thanks for reading. xNickBaranx