In the last post
I reported on the 7TV2 game we ran at Vanquish 2018. This post is all about how
the set for that game was created.
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| Drax's secret base |
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| And from a different camera angle |
With the intent of
hosting a 7TV2 participation game at Vanquish and about six weeks of
preparation time available I decided the most generally accessible plot line
and casts would be something James Bond-ish (everyone knows James Bond) and so
the obvious idea was to set the scene for a raid on a Supervillain's lair.
I needed to consider
the following:
- The setup must look good. I
wanted to attract spectators and participants and inspire and enthuse
those who passed by as well as those interested enough to play;
- Including space for cards,
dice etc it would need to fit on a 4x4 playing area - in the event, the
table was larger, but this was the original brief I was given;
- The game would use profile
cards taken straight out of the basic set. I wanted to make minimal
changes to the basic game other than those to make it work on the day;
- The game would
need to be short in duration and high on action. The intent would be to
give people a taste for the game and its rules without needing to take up
too much of their time, and generally promote the rules. I was aiming at
keeping people playing for no more than an hour and a half. On the day no
game lasted longer than this and most were done in around one hour;
- I didn't want to spend a
fortune on materials, and it would need to be put together in my limited
spare time. It would also need to be ready sufficiently is advance to
allow for play testing.
- I needed to get all the
figures painted and based in time. With different casts I could have used
figures I had already finished but I also wanted to use the event as a
catalyst to get some more painting done! In the end all but two of the
figures used were painted specifically for the day, plus all the
furniture;
- The scenery would need to be
modular so that it could be transported and stored;
- The scenery would ideally
also be versatile enough to be used for other casts and scenarios for
games played after Vanquish. A modular setup allows for a certain amount
of flexibility when repurposing the scenery for other scenarios by adding
new bits and swapping old ones out.
After a lot of
thought (heavily influenced by other sets I have seen and admired) I decided on
creating a stronghold of some sort, a
walled structure with internal buildings. With a little imagination this might
serve as all sorts of locations. If painted in grey it could pass for concrete
or stone and with any base areas painted in brown shades it could easily sit in
a variety of settings, from desert or jungle to mountain top or even the polar
regions, and of course could be adaptable to all sorts of different casts.
The structure was
first assembled out of cardboard in six separate components. Buildings within
these areas would be solid structures with no access to internal rooms (taking
buildings apart during a participation game was to be avoided). A series of ramps
allowed several options for routes around and into the structure via the
central courtyard, flat roofs and walkways, as well as walls that could be
climbed, and gave the whole set more visual impact because of its vertical
scale.
For ease of play, and so that I wouldn't need to take them apart during the show, building interiors would mostly be inaccessible. Clearly such areas were off-set and no filming would take place there. But one corner would
represent a few rooms within the Supervillain lair itself. The top of this
would remain roofless and open so that internal rooms could be represented and
furniture added, and maybe even the villain confronted in his lair.
Two other corners
would contain things that might be alternative objectives or just visual
dressing. One would have a helipad and the other a radio mast (my original idea
was for a gun battery or missile silo but constructing this would have substantially exceeded my available time!)
Construction of the
main elements
Each of the six main
elements of the set was constructed with a basic frame of cardboard taken from
boxes and Amazon packaging, with added flat surfaces and raised detail made
from card and foamboard.
Each element was
based on 3mm MDF cut to appropriate size. Papier-mache was used to strengthen and cover gaps. Surface details including closed doors, windows,
and raised edges were made from card and mounting board. Some minor adjustments
were made using foamboard and Milliput to make better joins between different
elements - cardboard has an unfortunate tendency to warp.
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| Element #1 |
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| Element #2 |
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| Element #3, with helipad |
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| Element #4 |
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| Element #5 |
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| Element #6, gatehouse, from the front |
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| And from the rear |
Building walls were
textured with a filler, sand and chinchilla dust mix, while flat areas were
textured with chinchilla dust only. When complete, each element was toughened
and sealed with PVA.
The whole building
was painted with a matt grey primer, to simulate stone or concrete, and dry-brushed with a paler grey. Floor areas and some vertical walls were painted
with a different grey to add contrast. The interior of windows were painted
black and doors picked out in an appropriate shade of grey. Base areas on the
ground were painted in Crown Cappuccino matt emulsion and highlighted with
Crown Brown Sugar.
Base cloth
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| The basecloth |
I made a bespoke
base cloth for the set from a cut piece of table protector (about 3mm thick
material that you would normally put under your tablecloth to protect your
table from hot dishes). I painted the underside of this with a thick layer of
Crown Cappuccino onto which I generously sprinkled chincilla dust. This was
left to dry to make a textured painted surface (the chincilla dust absorbs the
colour of the paint). When dry, it was all dry-brushed with Crown Brown Sugar.
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| Close-up of finished base cloth texture |
Helipad
After rejecting
several ideas of a separate removable helipad I finally simply painted the
helipad design directly onto the roof section using a home-made stencil.
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| The helipad |
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| The SHIVA copter |
The helicopter is a cheap Cararama diecast model taken apart and repainted appropriately to accompany my SHIVA cast.
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| The SHIVA copter on the helipad |
Radio Mast
This was a simple structure
made from strips of foamboard and card glued together an attached to a small
box on an MDF base. The box and base were textured with chinchilla dust and
sealed and the whole structure spray-painted grey.
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| The radio mast |
Open
Room Section
To keep games
sensibly short I limited the number of rooms, eventually settling on an
entrance room (occupied by guards and a security desk), a main chamber with
windows overlooking the courtyard (the supervillain's quarters), a back room
connected to this (the control room in which I put a couple of scientists and
computer banks), and a secure room (containing a safe). There was also a lift from which minions could enter the entrance room from within.
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| Open room section from the front |
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| Open room section from the back |
The walls were made
from foamboard glued to an MDF base and internal doors made from card. A large
window from which the supervillain could overlook the interior of the base was
made from foamboard and clear plastic. The outside of this was textured with
filler and chinchilla dust, and it was all painted grey.
Rooms were
appropriately furnished with items from Crooked Dice, Pigeon Guard Games and
Ainsty Castings.
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| With furniture, and various occupants |
When assembled, for
visual effect and to create some cover, I also added some jungle terrain elements
(put together for the Congo game), areas of scatter terrain (crates and oil
drums), and two jeeps.
The Casts
