/awg/ - Alternative Wargames General

Mordheim terrain and nothing, respectively

Would you mind posting that terrain when you're done with it, or mid production.

I'm currently looking for terrain for a mordheim like game and its always nice to see examples.

Working on 2 500 pts. Dark Age forces.

I have some old pics I could post, I think I've posted in /wip/ a while back so stop me if you've seen em

I've since used the "wallfiller+wipe with wet paper towel" method to get "mortar" in between the bricks

this was the first one I tried to put wall-filler on the foamcore walls, didn't realize at the time that I could thin it with water, later buildings were less sloppy.

I have three big 2+ story buildings like this: and then three small 2-story no-roof "corner-pair" buildings like pic related. What I've been working on is refurbishing damaged cardboard buildings from the original box and blood on the streets which my brothers and I demolished as kids.

Putting a foam-core tower back into place on the city hall from blood in the streets, putting paving stones down, making the rubble piles look better. I'm also going to attach these to mdf because the corrugated cardboard bases are too flimsy and warp in the humidity here

the construction method is cutting 2" wide strips of foamcore, scoring where I want to bend to create a structure, fixing that to a heavier-duty cardboard "floor", then two or three of these can be stacked to make multiple stories.

tile with cereal box card, decorate with popsicle sticks. Newer buildings, I try to avoid splitting the sticks as much, and whether by running a boxcutter down them so there's more of a visible "grain" when painted. rubble is sprue, small rocks, popsicle splinters, foamcore chunks, sand, and pva.

A lot of people use hot glue guns but I just use plain pva and have some small clamps that I rarely have to use if something refuses to hold together. Essentially based on the original town cryer guide, but without access to the mordheim sprues, which I wish I had, especially some source of gargoyles

Cheers user, those look great so I'm gonna screencap this for future reference

Looking at combining Pikeman's Lament and Dragon Rampart. Seems like I should be able to add fantastical abilities and use warbeasts with minimal problems. Has anyone tried this? Are there anythings that don't work?

Also looking for genericish terrain generators and suggestions on how much terrain to use for those games. It seems like a decent amount will be more interesting.

These look excellent user, got any painted examples we can see?

some additional tips and tricks I learned through trial and error

>split popsicle sticks look better but are such a pain they should be minimized, I started using full width ones (just shaved the edges, clipped off the rounded ends, and weathered them) for floorboards and at two feet away they look fine, even though they are rather larger than life-scale
>I used popsicle sticks for price, balsa is infinitely superior; if you use balsa wood, you can make the floor for each unit out of a sheet of balsa with a plank pattern drawn in ball point pen which will impress the wood because it is so soft, cutting out the steps of gluing sticks to a cardboard floor entirely; it is much softer and easier to work with, but still generally sturdy enough for playing on
>the score and snap method for wall sections leaves an opening in the corners, I initially filled this with matchsticks and later cardboard lollipop sticks, and then covered the joint with popsicle sticks; a thicker square stick of balsa would fit right in that opening
>sticks or strips of balsa should be glued so they cover the seam between two floors, which helps reinforce it, some of my buildings have a stick on either side of the seam because I built them separately and then attached them, before realizing this
>when you make a wall-strip of foamcore, you need to cut a jagged corner piece off each end for that damaged "wall collapsed here" look; those discarded pieces are often just the size to make a small corner opposite a larger ruined section in smaller buildings, like pic related
>smaller "tiles" for ground floors and roofs are more resistant to curling up as the PVA dries than larger ones, although exterior pavement/flagstones need to be pretty large
>ceilings should be 1.5" high for realism, but 2" for playability, and floors need to allow easy hand-access, otherwise players will just avoid placing minis in hard-to-reach areas

some tips I picked up off youtubers:
>mixing plaster/thinned wall filler with sand and pva to make a more realistic-looking dirt than just plain modelling sand or flock over pva
>the paper peels right off dollar store foamcore because it is cheap, so you can use the ballpoint pen scoring method to make brick and stonework texture on it once the paper is removed
>"the terrain tutor" has a good video on balancing realism vs playability when placing rubble in ruined terrain pieces

I haven't painted any of them yet, I have grandiose plans of buying huge quantities of rats, crows, frogs, skulls, corpses, gargoyles, barrels, candles, books, chests, etc. to place all over them, and planned to put off painting until I did, but I'm starting to lean toward just painting them now, and painting bits and flair separately before gluing them in.

which reminds me of one final thing, in case anyone didn't know, spraypaint will melt the foam core of foamcore board, so it needs either brush-on primer or pva smeared over the exposed foam or some either kind of sealer, just like pink insulation foam does.

Also figured I'd post the town cryer tutorials in case anyone wanted them

...

oh, one last note, I made two kinds of ladders, "flat" out of split popsicle sticks, and "round" out of kebab skewers for the sides and toothpicks for the steps. I originally wrapped thread around each step for "lashing" but gave up on later ones because it was too time-consuming. the "round" ladders need notches for the steps to stick. These would also probably be a lot easier to do with balsa wood

Saved it all
I must say, this is the most helpful I've ever seen anyone be in all my years on Veeky Forums.

You're welcome, I've spent so much time researching and working on the project that it doesn't take much effort to pass it on for other people that are interested. With urban skirmish games like mordheim/frostgrave/carnevale/malifaux (to an extent) they need so much terrain that it's almost more important than working on the miniatures, but it's a very different kind of hobby aspect, more comfy and meditative to work on tiny buildings all day than focusing on converting and painting individuals.

I also love Mordheim and want to see it, or games like it, kept alive, all the terrain required is kind of a barrier to entry

Yeah, unless you have a very big house or a club, getting that kind of escenary is kinda hard to store.

Dark Age, represent! Been loving the updates they've had lately with the Brood and CORE. But outcasts still appeal most.

I'm not 100% sold on the Brood resculpts they've shown so far, though. They're technically really good, but lose some of the Brom heart.

I need someone to convince me not to spend a few hundred dollars I don't have on Warmaster minis that I will never use. Anyone have any advice?

>his was the first one I tried to put wall-filler on the foamcore walls
I find that wood-filler putty actually works a lot better.

Don't spend money on oop specialist stuff ever. Either buy 10mm from someone else, or go 1/72 so you can easily buy/build 2 armies and play KoW with it.

>I need someone to convince me
If you are not 100% sure you really want it don't do it.
Though I'll say that you'll have a hard time finding actual warmaster models if you want those specifically.

So I noticed last night tbat Erath of Kings is shockingly light on ranged attacks. Naiser has a few specialist and characters with spells, Goritsi has the Ravenscar unit leader has a crossbow and I'm sure there are some others.

Yet no infantry unit of bowmen or something similar that I can think of. Just seems a bit weird.

Also fuck CMON and their retarded distribution. Jesus fuck.

Just finished this golem for use in Frostgrave as a medium construct. Played some Dragon Rampant and Frostgrave yesterday, the FG games in particular were very satisfying.

Are there any Generic Universal WarGaming Systems? (Detailed logistics rules are a must--pic related.)

Or, even better, are there any tabletop grand-strategy games that pay attemption to logistics (unlike Paradox Development Studio video games)?

Generic for what? Fantasy? Medieval? Modern? Napoleonique? Bronze age? Sci-fi?

>he doesn't know about GURPS

So, for anyone that actually plays a game that SU&SD would recommend, does anyone have the special cards for Bushido handy? I'm thinking of putting together a naginata-heavy Ryu Prefecture or Ito Clan force, and was curious what theme forces might be available.

Last thread an user uploaded his camera-taken pictures of Horizon Wars - Thanks for that.

I threw it all together into a .pdf with some quick and basic bookmarks here:
sendspace dot com
/file
/n8qv8k

Advanced Song of Blades and Heroes is a light, generic fantasy system that has also been used as a base for all sorts of other settings by the devs (e.g. Flying Lead uses the rules for a modern setting), though to my knowledge no system gives too much of a shit about the logistical issues, so you're going to need to homebrew that regardless. That being said, ASoBaH has campaign rules for growing your army, advancing veterans' abilities, and managing losses and replacement units, so that's a start.

Bought and converted file related, I know somebody was asking for it last thread.

Formatting is not very good, but that's part of the original file, kinda disappointing for a 5 buck file desusempai.

Enjoy it.

>666 KB
kek

Thanks for sharing, user.

Unfortunately all the generic wargaming systems are extremely rules-light. I'd recommend you look into hex and chit wargames and simply settle on a period that you're interested in. Otherwise you can always homebrew something to appeal to your interests.

You could honestly likely just use GURPS as a mechanical basis and make way more men in a fight, throwing on some rules to make unit cohesion and large-scale morale. Probably exactly what that Mass Battles does, frankly. Is that the joke.
You'd need to ignore all the roleplay-centric things and whatnot, but hey.

I mean, Warhammer Fantasy Battles did it.

Have a game of Full Thrust on Tuesday, all going to plan.

Ordered another fleet in the GZG Summer Sale, shitloads of ships for under 50 pounds.

Slowly continuing to build up my custom space opera setting, now with humans, supremely assholeish space elves led by Elf Hitler, chill as fuck rock men (as long as you don't piss them off), GIANT PSYCHIC SPACE ROCKS that work like Festum/Angels/Scab Coral and a hivemind energy being that just wants to become as gods and built an AI fleet just to tell other people to fuck off repeatedly.

Related to Ground Zero Games have a 20% off sale, use the code SUMMER20 on orders over £25.

Good for Space Boats, 6mm Sci Fi, 15mm Sci Fi and more.

And on that note I've found myself looking at Dirtside, feeling slightly overwhelmed by it, then working out if the armies I massively overbought on for Horizon Wars (before realising it was for perhaps 5-10 units a side not Epic-sized armies) would suffice for it, and whether it's reflavourable for Weird WW2/Valkyria Chronicles style dieselpunk.

Hey user, do you have any tips for Necromunda/shadow war: armageddon? I'm trying to get into those (and even developing soliltaire rules for those of you without groups), but, I'm still lacking on the industrial terrain front.

Thanks user.

>building
If painting counts I'm working on some of my Concord. I think I've figured out a decent system for applying camo to these dudes.

Also bump

Bumping with anti KFC troops

Well, there are a couple of WW2 operational wargames (Megablitz, Lightning War & Campaign for North Africa - just off the top of my head) covering the supplies and Command/Control.

Otherwise - just like said - you're better off making a homebrew.

Although, tbqh, why you'd want a tabletop grand-strategy is totally beyond me.
Basically, the only reason I cook up the homebrews is to generate the scenario & forces for the next battle.

After reading Flashing Steel, I kinda want to experiment with the 3 dice per check mechanic as a sort of health, or adding one more stat to use the double-triple resolution.

Very Nice, Also play Dark age myself. I have about 900pts painted of Forsaken with St Joan, and roughly 750pts of Fire Caste, looking to start my slavers at Gen Con.

My St Joan

Death Knights

GURPS Mass Combat doesn't really do that, it's a lot more streamlined. It still has crunch and variety, but it sidesteps the GURPS combat system entirely. It's in the GURPS trove if you want to take a look.

I picked up Fire Caste and Kukulkani at the last Black Friday(?) sale, when all the DA stuff was 50% off. I was going to grab Shadow Caste, but most of it was sold out by the time I got to it. Can't wait to see the Skarrd stuff at GenCon, though all I know for sure is the book comes out then, haven't heard about anything else.

Micro Armor is fun, I need to paint my Stryker Team.

...

Looks nice. First Concord with camo patterns I've seen I think.

Anyone tried playing Keep mga of War Fantasy armies against historical ones?

If so how was it? And is the 25% mythical unit allowance enough to content with Fantasy armies fairly of the base armies cannot?

Thanks user! Here's the drone finished to a tabletop standard. The camo is essentially my variation on the default Concord scheme which I liked but didn't want to copy directly.

I'm still trying to figure out how to make a convincing jungle base though.

tiny tank game is cute, what is it?

>Here's the drone finished to a tabletop standard.
Looks good.
>I'm still trying to figure out how to make a convincing jungle base though.
I think the main thing about jungle bases is that they are densly packed with vegetation.
The aquarium plants are a good start.
Here's is one of James Wappel's Algoryn.
I think if you got an aquarium plant with bigger leaves you could get a similar effect.

From the looks of it, those tanks are scratch built.

They are. They are basically plasticard rectangles with the turrets being thick plastic tubes and the barrles very thin tubes cut to size.

I'm looking for Demons, Imps specifically.
Anybody know of good models?

The best I've found so far are these by Reaper, but for whatever reason you can only get one of the sculpts in a blister, the other one is part of an armydeal. I don't want to buy an army of Imps just for one variant sculpt though.

on that note I'm searching for alternative Empire models for warhammer. Anyone have any fun ideas for flagellants or gryphon knights?

Mantic's Dungeon Saga has decent imps.

manticgames.com/mantic-shop/dungeon-saga/miniatures/product/denizens-of-the-abyss-miniatures-set.html

Fire Gamin from Malifaux are also good.

I haven't made much but it is generally far easier to make out of household items than medieval stuff. Cans, plastic bottles, bendy straws, oddly-shaped packing materials for appliances, etc. In particular, small-diameter PVC and copper pipes and fittings will come in very handy. Lengths of sprue can also be used a lot for rubble, ruins or "cobbled together" shack-type buildings.

There's also more manufacturers of Necromunda-appropriate terrain accessories because 40k is so popular
here thecommguild.com/roller/thecommguild/tags/terrain are a bunch of articles about making colony-type buildings with pic related.

You can find a lot of inspiration by just google-searching something as generic as "Necromunda terrain" and you'll find blogs and old pictures from white dwarf with a wealth of info.

The main trick will just be adapting guides and materials for 40k scenery to the "bottom floor of a hive city" aesthetic. Also, as in Mordheim, I assume verticality is a major draw (never played Necromunda desu) so it's a great opportunity to make lots of large/tall structures.

Here's a good example of using "garbage" effectively in Necromunda terrain. The mesh used is called "granny grating", is used for some kind of sewing or knitting, and is readily and cheaply available at craft stores. Corrugated tin roofs can be made by scraping the paper off one side of corrugated cardboard.

There's also a wide selection of generic "scifi" crates and barrels out there, as well as being easily improvised from old batteries and other odds and ends you might find in an "old electronics" box.

The main difficulty, I assume, would be getting ladders, gantries, frameworks, and railings that look like they were mass-produced out of steel or aluminum and not hand-whittled.

Check this guy out.
ironhands.com/necro.htm
Lot's of ideas to steal. And he also mostly works with junk, but he's really good at it.

In recent years there have also been a whole lot of companies that made pretty solid Industrial/Necromunda style skirmish scenery.
May be worth a look if you got the coin to spare.

I thought that Maelstrom's Edge sprue was decent value, but then I realised they actually give you two of those sprues for $20. That's a great find user, I think I'll have to pick some up.

Lego ladders?

>The Bidimensional Magazine for the Quadratic Scholar

That's an excellent example but I might be too lazy to paint every leaf like that. Thanks for the inspiration though!

My current idea is to put some dots of hot glue onto a sheet of baking paper, press a whole load of different kinds of plants into the dots (I got a massive amount of the stuff from my local aquarium shop on sale, plus I have some cheapo plastic decorative plants), and then use those dots like they were static grass tufts.

I might have to pick up a tub of static grass or flock or something to help blend those dots into the rest of the base, but I'll just play around and see what happens.

>The main difficulty, I assume, would be getting ladders, gantries, frameworks, and railings that look like they were mass-produced out of steel or aluminum and not hand-whittled.

Cheap brass rod and a soldering iron?

Wargames Factory Medieval Japanese. Looking to build a Kingdoms of Man/Historical army for Kings of War.

I'd try to make one set with this and then pressmould it

Depends what you pressmould it out of I guess, a ladder might be a bit thin for resin or greenstuff.

Could go oldschool and use pewter.

Gryphon knights are kindof a tough one, since wingless gryphons are a bit of a fantasy oddity. Would you be willing to do a counts-as option, like lion riders or bear riders? If so, the field opens up quite a bit.

Flagellants are easier. The best options to start with are often zombies (just convert/paint them to remove obvious deadness), although any sort of peasant or militia option can work as a base. Mantic's zombies (and ghouls) could work, and are quite cheap. Regardless of what you start from, get yourself some CA glue and a spool of jewelry chain and go to town.

>The main difficulty, I assume, would be getting ladders, gantries, frameworks, and railings that look like they were mass-produced out of steel or aluminum and not hand-whittled.
Look into model railroad terrain. Companies like evergreen and plastruct make styrene ladders, handrails, beams, trusses, etc in just about any scale you'd care to name.

1:50 architectural model stuff works for 28mm too.
Looking into parts for dollhouses is also a good idea.

Here's how my idea turned out. It's pretty far from perfect but definitely a step up. I think once the glue is disguised and a little extra ground cover is added I should have a decent enough jungle effect. I only made a few tufts tonight as a proof of concept, I'll try to refine the technique tomorrow.

Yeah that looks way better.
If you add the ground cover around it it should look spot on.

I like how the vegetation kind of disguises the flight stand.

Thanks anons!

Disguising the flying stand wasn't deliberate but I like the effect. If I were more ambitious I might try to do away with flying stands entirely and have drones attached to plants to give the illusion of flight. Maybe that's an idea for another day, once I actually have this whole basing business down to a refined technique.

>Would you be willing to do a counts-as option, like lion riders or bear riders?
absolutely, I'm just looking for fun models to use. They don't necessarily need to be humans either as long as they are human like and look 'lawful good'

>flagellants
Zombies could work but I'm afraid it would look off.

>searching for alternative Empire models for warhammer
>I'm just looking for fun models to use. They don't necessarily need to be humans either as long as they are human like and look 'lawful good'
Have you checked out the Game Zone miniatures?
They have a lot of analogues to the warhammer range and the models are usually quite dynamic.

For the flagellants you could look at historicals. Pretty sure you can probably find a handful of militia or monk miniatures that could work.
Lead Adventure also has a bunch of interesting miniatures for that.

anyone have an Ambush Alley PDF?

nevermind, found in the novice trove! Apologies!

Pretty sure those ladies are canon, at least to whfrp 2nd edition. It has a loosely-organised unit of women who've lost friends, family, and other loved ones to the orcs, so they grab a pot and knife and march off to die in battle fucking up some orcs. The ones who survive a battle tend to loot some armour, and the ones who live longest pass tips down to the newbies.

They're a bit like dwarf slayers, actually, except for the beards (no) and armour (yes). They've got a similar sort of attitude overall.

I can't see such people surviving more than like, 2% of the time at best.

It's classic Oldhammer lore man, it doesn't need to make sense.

Not quite alternative wargames, but what independent miniatures companies do you guys recommend?

They usually die, like new slayers, but the ones who survive gear up and get good at killing orcs.

well what do you want?
for 15mm I like Rebel Minis and Khurasan.