Another Frostgrave Cork Ruin, Two-Story This Time

   I built another cork tile ruin for Frostgrave this week. (You can see my first attempt here.)  This time I wanted to achieve a few things different than the first one; a second story to test how the cork held up to a taller structure, more debris scattered around, and a stone rather than a dirt base.

      I used a 6"x 6" cork tile for the base and inscribed a 1 inch grid on it to represent paving/foundation stones

    The wood is a mix of balsa and bass. The debris was made from cork scraps, aquarium gravel, and course sand.   I  painted it with my regular acrylic hobby paint.

      The snow is from an old bottle of DecoArt "Snow-Tex",  textured snow paint, that I've had sitting around for at least a decade.  I never had a use for it, and making these ruins inspired me to dig it out and put it to use. It goes on nice and thick and lumpy.  Once that was dry, I brushed it with some white glue and then applied Woodland Scenics snow flocking,

     I'm very pleased with how this building turned out, and I am currently considering what to build next.  I'm considering doing a wizards tower, and attempting bend a sheet of cork into a round shape using an oatmeal canister as a base.  my other thought is some sort of twin square towers that have some sort of precarious bridge between them.  I also have in the back of my mind doing some sort of frozen dock for a Frostgrave waterfront...

Quick and Easy Frostgrave Cork Ruin

  This week I knocked out a quick Frostgrave ruin made from cork sheet, as a way to test how the cork would  look as a stone building.
      I purchased a pack of these rough textured cork panels from the local Craft Store, with a 50%-off coupon, and thought they would make good rock walls from my Fostgrave ruins.

      So, I fashioned a quick rudimentary ruin by snapping off a section of a cork tile, and cutting it into  three walls. with some simple windows which I framed up with balsa. I then made some small fourth walls, with a doorway, using the window cut-outs.   I then cut out a foamcore base, and glued the ruin to it.  Next, I ran white glue around the base of the walls, and scattered onto the glue any cork scraps, some small gravel, and pieces of rough broken up wood scraps.

     I then painted the whole thing.

   When the paint was dry, I added some snow; and some icicles, which I made with hot glue.

     I'm very pleased with how this turned out, and I think the cork looks good as stone,  but I think I shouldn't have put the ruin on the big rounded "dirt" foamcore base, as it doesn't quite fit the city-scape look. I was thinking in terms of how I usually construct buildings for use in a more natural setting.  I think any future ruins I make will be on a more structured squared base, painted like stone.

Quick and Easy Frostgrave Terrain Cloth

   I recently completed a gray winter-themed terrain cloth to use for my Frostgrave games.  I wanted to give it a hint of ancient cobblestones and a frozen feel to it.
   I found a great 36" wide mottled gray felt to use as my base, and bought 4' of it.  I then purchased a round silicon trivet (for use in the kitchen) that has a hex pattern on it, and a large black ink stamp pad.

      I cut the trivet into random shapes, and laid out the cloth on one of my gaming tables.

      I then randomly stamped "cobblestones" here and there on the cloth, trying to keep the general orientation of the hex pattern all pointing in the same direction.

      After I stamped the cloth, I then sprayed it randomly with white spray paint followed by accents here and there with Tamiya Medium Blue (Navy) spray paint.

     Here's a close up of how it looks.

    And here it is with some terrain and figures set up on it.

    I'm very pleased with the results.  It gives me the effect I'm looking for at a fraction of  the cost of a commercially produced gaming mat.

BARRAGE XIX A Huge Success!

  This past Saturday, October 10th, the HAWKS hosted their annual one-day miniatures gaming convention, BARRAGE,  in Havre De Grace Maryland.  With a record attendance, and a record number of games, a good time was had by all. We wish to thank all the game-masters and gamers who made it a success! Below are some highlight photos of the event.
Next, year BARRAGE will be expanding to 2 days, 9.30.16 - 10.1.16, so mark your calendar now!

A view of the main gaming hall around mid-morning.

In the morning, I ran a game of "Bear Yourselves Valiantly" called Island of the Lizardmen, which featured an alliance of Dwarves and Lizardmen fighting off invading Elves.

A father-son team ran the Dwarf faction, and successfully defended their encampment from the Elves which were attacking it.

The Elves were successfully able to destroy one of their objectives, the Dwarves' under-construction super-weapon, at a high cost; but were unable to achieve either of their other objectives which were to destroy the Lizard village, or the Dwarves encampment.

A wide range of dealers and flea-marketers were located around the outer wall of the room. Lots of gaming goodies were to be had.

Rich Heffner's Aerodrome is always a crowd favorite at the con.

The Battle of Paoli using "Black Powder", hosted by Cliff Brunken

Ed Duffy's Search & Rescue: US vs ISIS game using his "Line of Departure" rules.

A beautiful model of the Lonely Mountain was featured in this Battle of Five Armies game using "God of War" rules, hosted by Lou and Dillon Valenti.

Zeb Cook's Dino Rustlers of the High Plains game, using "Bone Wars" rules.

Buck Surdu demo'ed his upcoming "Combat Patrol" WWII rules, in a game featuring US and German troops battling over a small French village

Eric Schlegel ran a Zombie Mall game, using GASLIGHT rules, to wrap up the evening .

Also featured at BARRAGE were a well-attended Flames of War tournament...

...and a packed L'Art De La Guerre tournament.

Frostgrave Ice Toads Conversion

   I recently came across a couple of the old collectible pre-painted Wizards of the Coast D&D "Giant Frog" figures that I had stuck away in a box to use with another project; and the idea hit me how perfect they'd be to represent the Frostgrave Ice Toads.   I could see it would take only a suitable re-paint and re-basing to convert them to use in a winter setting.

   The hardest part was removing the base, which is cast on these fellows. So, I had to remove each one with a hacksaw. After that I glued each one to a fender washer and spray primed them with flat white primer.  After that it was just a matter of painting them in winter colors.

     I'm really pleased with ow these fellows turned out.  They are shown above with a 28mm figure for scale.