Making Explosion Markers

I love a good spectacle, and nothing catches the eye like an over-the-top Michael Bay style fireball. I needed a few good explosions for the game I'm tinkering with, so took a shot at creating a few explosion markers of my own. The clump foliage method seemed to produce pretty wicked results, which I attempted to replicate for my own wargame tables.

I used an mdf base, drilled some holes and glued kabob skewers into them.

I added foil, sand and wall filler to the base to build up a crater from which the fireball would be erupting.

Using a liberal amount of hot glue and various shades of fall clump foliage, I affixed the foam to the skewers, filling out the central base area with additional polyfill stuffing. I drenched the completed explosions in Woodland Scenics scenic cement to fuse everything together (I tried watered down white glue, but didn't feel they results were as robust as the scenic cement).

I used craft paint to ease the transition between colors, then hit the whole thing with black spray from above. A bit of gray drybrushing and basing, and they were done.

The whole process wasn't too difficult and these markers have already proven useful in our playtesting. Give it a try, they're not too tricky!

Sci-Fi Civilians from Astropolis and Colony 87 Kickstarters

I've had these civilian figures from the Astropolis and Colony 87 kickstarter primed and sitting on my painting shelf for years, another monument to a stalled project. I've been working diligently on some homebrew rules which require civilians as an integral part of the gameplay rather than just window dressing. I'm not sure if I wrote the rules to motivate myself to get these civilians done, or wrote rules that just happened to require civilians, but in any case it did the trick. I can check off another seven figures from the depths of the lead pile.

Both kickstarters created miniatures that would fit in well with the Rogue Trader universe, my first love in sci-fi wargaming and a unique atmosphere that I think later editions of Warhammer 40K lost. While the sculpting style is different between them, they both draw from the weird mix of medieval, Asian, post apocalyptic and sci-fi sources that inspired Rogue Trader and all feel like they belong to a single world.

I love them all, as each figure is full of character, adorned with details that evoke a suggested history and universe and are a treat to paint. Both kickstarters have spawned "sequels" (from which additional members have been added to my lead pile) and I'm optimistic that future kickstarters will be just as good.