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Minas Tirith!

The Great White City. . .  City of Kings. . .   Capital of Gondor. . .

Matchstick Marvels will take you on another fantastic journey as Patrick Acton completed his matchstick model of J.R.R. Tolkien’s City of Kings from the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Come along for a trip to Middle Earth and its Great White City, Minas Tirith.

Read more at Matchstick Marvels

Visit: Dave’s Games.

It’s 2 feet wide and 14 inches high. I’ll have a look at it but I doubt that I’ll buy it. People more into 40K than I am might jump on it though.

GW Fortress of Redemption

Fortress of Redemption; Legions of The Eye Launched, New Advance Orders | Friday, 23 October | What’s New Today | Games Workshop.

WorldWorksGames is running a very special and rare sale in anticipation of its groundbreaking new terrain system TerrainlinX. From August 27^th to the 31^st you can get your hands on any WorldWorksGames catalog product for 20% off! This is a terrific opportunity to experience the WorldWorksGames difference or increase your existing terrain collection. Please note: your special 20% off discount will not appear until you view your cart and or checkout.

TerrainlinX Launches Sept 1st!

On September 1st WorldWorksGames will be launching the first in a series of products for the fantasy city of Himmelveil. First conceived in 2004 and over 2 years in the making, our first two releases “Streets” & “Sewers” will cover city infrastructure but in a unique way that has never been achieved before in gaming terrain. Utilizing our upcoming TerrainlinX building system; streets, sewers and multi-leveled structures can all happily coexist on the same gaming table! Everything is on-the-fly modular and absolutely everything is accessible! Not only that but we’ve incorporated automated, consumer machine cutter compatibility to speed up your builds as never before!

Where to start?  Well the best place to start is to take your model and measure the areas that you want to add the magnet to.  You will need to check the entire area including depth.   Once you have figured out if you can even insert magnets into your model it is time to do a check list of tools.

• Tweezers
• Super Glue
• Pin Vice
• Drill Bits (the same diameter as the magnets)
• Red Paint (or any brightly coloured paint)
• Magnets

Have everything you need?  Here are some links you may find what you need.  I have not tried any or all of these companies so please do a little research before purchasing on line.

Tools

• http://www.ehobbytools.com/
• http://www.micromark.com/
• Local Hobby Store

Magnets

• first4magnets.com (this is where I purchased my magnets)
• K&J Magnets
• Amazing Magnets
• Power Magnet Store
• Don’t care for any of these links?  Do a search for NdFeB Magnets; Rare Earth Magnets; or Neodymium Magnets

For my Tau Crisis Suits I went with 2mm x2mm magnets.  I used a 2mm drill bit.  I had grown up with the Imperial measurement system, however I am now living where they use metric.  If your having problems figuring out what drill bit or magnet size that use different measurements try this Online Conversion website.

Step Two

STEP ONE: Get a paint brush or cotton swab and some bright coloured paint.  Taking the magnets (the normally form a stright line) paint one side of the magnets, either the positive or the negative but not both sides.  This step is the most important step! If you place a positive side facing outward then do the same for the part you want to attach they will repel each other!  This is the easiest way of keeping track!  Remember opposites attract.

STEP TWO: Carefully drill the holes to the proper depth.  If your unsure then stop drilling and place the magnet into the hole to check the depth.  I placed four holes in each Tau Crisis Suit.  One in each shoulder and one in each arm.  I then placed a hole in each of the weapons and Crisis Suit Upgrade items (Multi-Tracker and Target Lock) .  Once you have all your holes drilled proceed to the next step.

Step Three

STEP THREE: Decide what is the facing side for the model.  I choose the unpainted side (silver) for the Crisis Suits and the Red side for the Weapons.  Taking a metal tweezers I attached one magnet to it.  Making sure that the Red Side is facing up!  I then add super glue to the magnet and using the tweezers I insert the magnet so it is flush with the surface of the model.

Step 3

Step 3

Do the same for the weapons but make sure the painted side (or opposite side) is facing to make sure they attach properly.

Finished arm.

Modular Crisis Suits and Broadside Battle Suit

That is all there is to it!  Just remember to take care when drilling.  Some times the heavier Commander weapons will droop however a quick nudge and they are back up again.  I know some sites suggest placing a second 1mm x 1mm magnet in the arm to keep this from happening.  I may one day try this, but so far I am pleased with the results!  Next step is to add magnets to my Tau Devilfish, Piranha, Hammerhead, Skyray and possibly even the drones.

Now this will work for any of your Warhammer 40k models.  Just make sure the magnet will fit without weakening the model first before you start drilling.  I have a friend who is going to do this to his Chaos Terminators and some of his Tactical Marines as well.  I will try to edit this post with pictures.

The finished product (above) is not to scale, if I was doing this on a model I’d avoid the big wood planks so close together. I used 3x 3″ fieldstone blocks from HirstArts and stacked them. Time to finish this was a about 2 hours because I didn’t know what I was doing and I had to wait for the spackling compound to dry.

List of Materials

• 3x 3″ Fieldstone Hirst Blocks
• 4x 3″ Hirst Wood Planks
• 4x 1″ Hirst Wood Boards
• DAP DryDex Spackling Compound
• Vallejo Paints
  • Charred Brown
  • Cobra Leather
  • Bone White
  • Scorpy Green
  • Beasty Brown
  • Sombre Grey
  • Cold Grey
  • Skull White
• Pointy Stick (Some sort of carving tool)
• Brown Ink
• Weldbond (Glue)

First a note, you can click on any of the small picks to see a larger version

Basically, I started with a concept and thought that I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time doing this if it was going to look really ugly. I glued 3 fieldstone blocks on top of each other. I glued the baseboard and the upright boards in place. As you can see, its not an exact fit. Didn’t care.

I use black Flowstone mainly so when I applied the Spackling Compound (DAP DryDex) the camera exposed to the white and made the stone look a lot blacker than it really is. Anyway, I put a couple of blobs in place and smoothed it with the carving tool I tried to keep a fairly rough texture and left a couple of bare areas. The DryDex goes on Pink but drys white so I knew exactly when it was ready.

The circled area shows a “manufactured” crack. I used my carving tool (Pointy Stick) to connect the two main areas of bare rock. I also cleaned up all the “screwed up” bits where I got Spackle on the wood, etc. I emphasized the edges where the Daub fell off by roughing it up.

I have to apologize, a couple of the pics are fuzzy (Note to self — Make sure there is nothing in the background of the thing being photographed that may mess up the autofocus). I’ve included them to show color, not details. I’m a big fan of INK so I inked the whole thing with full strength Brown Ink. At full strength, the ink pools and goes on blotchy. This is a good thing. Normally, I mix a little Jet Dry and Water in to make the ink flow evenly and soak into everything (The Jet Dry breaks the surface tension of the mix). Not the effect I wanted in this case.

I painted the wood Charred Brown and picked out the stones in Sombre Grey (Bluish Grey). I didn’t touch the Daub yet.

Unfortunately, this is the worst picture in terms of quality but its sort of the most important. This is the color that really sets up the others that will be painted on top of it. I roughly painted the Daub with Cobra Leather. Its sort of half way between a normal wet brush and a dry brush. I didn’t want to get in all the cracks but wanted strong color. I also went really close to the edges.

Here’s a close up of the next step. The stones are dry brushed carefully with Cold Grey. The Daub is given several dry brushes of Bone White. The edges where the daub meets the wood is avoided. The corners are really avoided. This is suppose to look dirty.

The wood is now given a coating of Beasty Brown. Again, not really a dry brush but I avoid filling in the cracks. The stone is given a light dusting of Bone White.

OK, here’s the trickiest part to explain. The wood is given a coating of Cobra leather. I then give the wood a very light wash of very weak Brown Ink to help blend in the colors.

The cracks of the stone and the edges of the fallen Daub (Stucco, Spackling, whatever) is given a dry brush of Scorpy Green. I’ve included a close up because its one of those things that you have to see. The wood is also given a final dry brushing of Bone White. Even though the last two pics look the same, the last has a very subtle touch up of Brown Ink and a little bit of extra green dry brushing.

Hopefully, I been able to translate the process well enough the people can duplicate it. I’m going to attempt this on a larger scale soon in a basement structure.

* Note: This is a reprint of an original Dungeon Crawlers Article

I usually get in over my head when I have these simple ideas.

The obvious first step is to cut the gate off. It’s a tight fit and I didn’t want to pinch any of the plastic. A razor saw is the perfect answer. The bottom was a little fiddly as a few posts are attached directly to the ground.

Read the rest on Terrain Monster

I usually get in over my head when I have these simple ideas.

The obvious first step is to cut the gate off. It’s a tight fit and I didn’t want to pinch any of the plastic. A razor saw is the perfect answer. The bottom was a little fiddly as a few posts are attached directly to the ground.

The gate won’t swing because it’s too big. I cut half of each end post off with the razor saw.

The big decision at this point is how to attach the gate to the wall. Since I had cut the end posts in half, there wasn’t a lot left to mount metal pins. I have a stock pile of styrene and happened to have a rod and tube that fit together (the rod into the tube). Time to check the fit. I put the rod and the removed gate into the opening. It was too snug so I filed a bit more off the gate posts.

Now I cut four (4) donuts from the rod with the razor saw. Again, I don’t want to use side cutters as they deform the plastic a bit as they cut.

It’s almost impossible to see in the pic but I filed the Donuts into semi “D” shapes. The flat side give the glue more surface area to work with.

I carefully glued the flat side to the wall post. I use the rod to make sure that the hole in the tube section is truly parallel to the post. I then alternated gluing the rod to the gate, the post, and finally the gate again. I wanted the gate to ride on the hinges rather than sitting on the ground to I glued the gate rings above the wall rings. You have to be very careful when gluing this since gluing the Rod to the Tube sections would be “A Very Bad Thing”.

Just to prove it works. It binds a bit because of the shape of the hinges. A bit of filing takes care of that.

Finally, sorta. I use Green Stuff to blend the rod pieces to the gate…

I say “sorta” because, obviously it’s not painted but, more than that, I think I want to make the hinge pin (the rod) into more nail like items. I will cut two (2) pieces to size and then gently heat one end to round it and bulk it up so it won’t slip through the rod sections. It doesn’t change the mechanism of the gate so I’ll end it here. When I add this to my Warhammer Manor build, I’ll talk about basing an painting this.

On Christmas eve, 2006 our family ran headlong into dark waters. My sister’s 8 year old son Chase Ripper was rushed to the hospital and shortly thereafter diagnosed with ALL Leukemia. Chase is now undergoing a second round of treatment to fend off lingering cancer cells.

Coming to my families aid, the crew here at WorldWorksGames pulled together in order to create a terrain set dedicated to Chase Ripper and family. The proceeds of which will go directly into Chase’s trust fund, to help offset some of the costs associated with 24/7 care over a period of many months. Every little bit helps in this fight and we won’t stop diverting money from this set until the crisis is over. Once that happens we’ll feed remaining sums into another cancer charity.

My heart swells with pride knowing that I’m working with such genuine people. People willing to throw aside everything for a relative stranger in need. I would like to personally thank the following contributors who made this incredible gift possible:

* Scott Ried for creating the amazing textures within this set and bringing his knowledge of all things “skater” to the table.
* Matt Lyon for applying his geometric wizardry to the various elements.
* Alberto Silva for illustrating some deeply inspired standees and game elements (no one does better standees than Alberto).
* Bob Cooper for designing a fully functional minigame, creating instructions, promotional photos, keeping things on track/ cohesive with production and generally helping me in a time of chaos.
* And to the rest of the WWG crew who were supportive in every way they could be during this process.

Of course, gigantic thanks are in order to all of you who have purchased this modelset or spread the word about it. I am in your debt and my family can never amply thank you for your support.

Denny Unger 

Mayhem: Urban Grind

Mayhem: Urban Grind is a skate park, standees and mini-game all in one! Design the park of your dreams and furnish it with all the ramp and grind combos you can handle! Once constructed build up an army of skater dudes to inhabit the park and cause completely mayhem!

As mentioned, this release includes “Mayhem Skate”; a skate park themed multiplayer game which pits your skater against others in an exhibition style or racing format challenge! Includes a number of game variants to spice up the competition! Fun, fast and sweeeeet!
Mayhem: Urban Grind includes all of the following (All skate park terrain comes in both graffiti and “clean” versions) :
o Large Bank
o Large Quarter Pipe
o Small Ramps
o Spine Ramp
o Seating Style Stairs with Railing
o Funbox
o Grind Boxes
o Grind Rails
o Wood Picnic Table
o 5X Ground Tiles in gridless, 1” and 1.5” formats (Includes “LinX” templates)
o 4x – Rookie Skaters – (Red,Green,Blue, Yellow)
o 1x – Pro Skater – Motor Python
o 1x – Pro Skater – BMX Duelist
o 1x – Pro Skater – Tony Wolf
o 1x – Pro Skater – Rollergun
o 1x – Ace Skater – Joey Kia
o 1x – Ace Skater – The Garou Sound Machine
o 1x – Ace Skater – Cachito A. Romero
o 1x – Ace Skater – Chase
o 2x – Police
o 1x – M.C. – Bud Beatbox
o 1x – Spray Can Token
o 2x – Loudboxes
o 16x – Traffic Cones
o 1x – Crowd Standee
o 9x – Trick Tokens
o And as always, fully photographed instructions to take you through the build process.