Hi All, Hope everyone's hobby is coming along nicely?!
I myself have been exceptionally busy with terrain preparation for the Operation Spring Awakening event in September. And so, up to my ears in concurrent hobby tasks I have been concentrating on MDF Terrain construction after work in evenings in order to have all buildings constructed and ready for some sort of batch painting next time I am home.
Indeed, one of my main issues is that I continue to work away for work in Auckland and so the struggle for producing finished terrain in time I have whilst away that I can then transport home without it being destroyed in luggage is REAL!
MDF buildings have been something I have acquired quite a few of over the years, and many have been kept in their flat packed packaging waiting for their time to come...! And so it is that finally the Stalingrad terrain from the Warlord Games battle set finally got busted out. The Tractor Factory in the set is great, but after i bought it back in the day I also added the purchase of the factory entrance from Sarissa Precision to go with it as its such an iconic piece that sets the scene on a gaming table (For those who don't know, the MDF terrain in the set is made by Sarissa also. Incidentally; if you buy the collectors set it comes with the entrance).
Dan's Top tips for young players; If you make the factory and the entrance separately, get them out prior and mark the terrain tiles with the correct side you are using so all the tiles fit together when you may want them to. I DIDNT do that initially but quickly checked while glue was drying, found my error and flipped the entrance tile over and re-glued to solve the problem...simples!
After the pieces were dry they got a black prime and then a simple layer of two greys from rattle cans as I was playing a game against Craig during the week. You can see the results of the quick fire job in the pic below. This is NOT the finished product ...just an interim painting solution to playtest the table configuration, which I was happy with/ I'll be adding rubble, detail and proper layering and finishing later.
Something else you can spot at the back of the table is the first of the TT Combat MDF terrain pieces; in this case the Coal elevator. This one is finished and I'm really happy with it...I'll tease you with that though! proper pics of it with other finished terrain later. ;)
Jager clearly liked it anyway, and deemed the table 'adequate in appearance' enough to lie under for the game...!
I got a whole heap of terrain from TT Combat's WW2 Eastern front range, and I will have plenty more info on these and a review on how i found them to build and paint soon, as well as another lesser-known historical building range that I'll introduce at the end of this post below.
But by far the best tip I can give in this post is to encourage you to take a look at Dark Castle Terrain in Australia if you are in Australasia/Asia/Pacific or even further afield. I purchased their 'Soviet Admin Building' in 28mm, and not only was the price excellent, but the postage was fantastic also to New Zealand..which is definitely not often the case- especially with something like MDF, being both bulky AND not lightweight.
I was suprised when it arrived and it was in a box that I would describe as a small pizza box. But I thought that was quite clever, and It was within a plastic courier bag so any loose parts that might have escaped ( they hadnt!) were safe and sound.
"Pizza Delivery, Comrade!"
I was also surprised that inside the box the pieces were not on their MDF 'Frames' but were completely cut. I guess this saved on excess weight and therefore postage cost.
The pieces were well cut and both the tabs and slots were completely cut out cleanly, allowing great ease of assembly. I have to say when I saw the instructions i thought they were very simple....maybe a little worried they were TOO basic...but i needn't have worried as they show exactly what they need to and had good angles of photography to display the visual examples. Well done, Dark Castle. So the whole thing went together like a dream, and here is the final results;
As you can see it is of significant size and a very original design from other 28mm MDF I have seen on the market, very clever.
The interior is accessible due to a lift off central roof section, and the interior is playable and has interest without preventing interaction through clutter.
I can *really* recommend checking out Dark Castle Terrain in Australia if you are looking for MDF Terrain and I hope they continue to grow their 28mm WW2 range as I will be acquiring more in the future!
Dan