Terrain for Gaslands

We've been planning to try out Osprey's Gaslands for some time, so a few of us combined our imaginations, scoured our bit boxes, and found a handful of old hot wheels cars and made some vehicles. With a week to go after Colours before we were due to play we realised we were going to need some terrain - so here's what I put together in seven days, along with a few pictures of the game we played at the end.

I bought a 4 x 4 wasteland mat from Deep Cut Studios at Colours. To be honest it wasn't the mat I was originally looking for but they didn't have that one in the right size so I settled on this. In the end I have no regrets as this was definitely the better choice - the base cloth looks fantastic with the terrain on it. The only issue for me was to colour match the terrain pieces. As you will see I didn't get it perfectly right, but the end result I think looks OK.

The scenario we planned was Death Race. That meant all we really needed was a few race gates and some obstacles of various types. I added some sections of road, some concrete barriers and a couple of areas of hazardous terrain into the mix as well.

Race Gates

I ended up building six gates, though we're probably only going to ever need four. Each was a strip of 3mm MDF with two cylinders made from rolled corrugated card on each side. The start and finish gates had poles (cut from a set of black and white striped pencils bought from Poundland) and the other gates flags made from kebab sticks and masking tape. The card rolls in which these were set were filled with Milliput for strength and topped with sand. The base was textured around the cylinders with filler and sand mix, with the central section just textured with Chinchilla dust.

The general colour for the terrain was a bespoke mix of chocolate brown and a little dark red cheap emulsion paint (tester pots), dry brushed first with a light sand colour and then with a lighter cream colour (again, cheap emulsion testers). The cylinders were painted black and dry-brushed with gunmetal to give the effect of concrete-filled bollards made from corrugated metal. Flags were painted in bright colours with numbers.

I tried various approaches to make the start and finish banners with numerous failures because of the lack of strength of materials or the inability of the glue to stick to them. Finally, I settled on the simpler but less effective solution of printed paper banners with string glued to the top and bottom edges, connected and held firmly between the (pencil) poles by glue and a few blobs of green stuff. They're very solid, and they look OK from a distance. If I get the time I might replace them with something better, but they will do for the moment.

I realised (as some of you will have already, probably) that my design wasn't directional, so I needed some way of indicating the way to enter each gate. The easy solution was to add some signs so I printed out some yellow and black chevrons of the type used to indicate sharp corners an stuck these to sections of wide lolly stick (readily available at very low cost in The Works and other such shops) and glued them to the sides of the gates.

Start and finish gates

Gates #1 - #4

Solid Obstacles

Basically, these are piles of rocks. I cut bases from 3mm MDF, put some PVA-soaked newspaper on top and pushed some stones into it. This sets extremely solidly. When dry these were textured with the base mix and finally painted in the general terrain colours above. Very simple.

Rock piles

Destructible Obstacles

These are road signs and billboards. 3mm MDF bases with signs and boards made from lolly sticks, coffee stirrers and kebab sticks, with some spare tyres added at the edges of some of the bases for effect. Bases painted as above, wood given a thin coat of the sand colour used as the first highlight.

I appreciate that there are signs and billboard posters that are available from the Gaslands web site or Facebook group but I wanted something different so the signs and posters I used were either taken and modified from images available on the Internet or made up by myself. The exception is the advert for the forthcoming 7TV2 Post-Apocalypse Kickstarter from Crooked Dice, which is a reduced sized copy of their flyer. Next month, chaps. I am not the only one to be very excited about this. 

If you want to make your own billboards using these designs, they are available to download as a jpg file here.

Various signs and billboards

Volatile Obstacles

Two of the signs indicate flammable and explosive items, so I made a couple of small bases with 20mm oil drums (from Debris of War) as well.

Danger - explosives

Roads

The roads are two straight sections of 3mm MDF, each 24" long so that they will fit perfectly across the base cloth. I made a couple of smaller sections with angled edges so that the road could also run diagonally across the board as well.

I glued a narrower strip of roofing felt to these to be the road surface. This works very well but needs to be weighted down while it dries so that the edges don't curl up. I used a normal household glue to stick this. I made the mistake a year ago of trying to stick roofing felt to MDF using epoxy glue. Do not try this - it melts the felt and makes a horrible mess.

When dry, I carefully added base texture to the edges of the road. These edges were carefully painted so as not to paint the road surface. I was a little less careful with the dry brushing as a little of this on the road surface is fine and just gives the impression of a dusty landscape.

Highway across the wasteland

Concrete Barriers

I'm not quite sure about these, to be honest. I think they would be improved by some graffiti, posters or signs so will probably add to them in due course. However, here they are for the time being. Based as usual on 3mm MDF, these are made from cardboard coated with paper mache and textured. I was going for a sort of concrete wall look and I think they work fine. They could be used as solid obstacles as well as the rock piles, though in the event we didn't use these in our first game.

Concrete barriers

Hazardous Terrain

The easiest of the lot. This is just made from 3mm MFD textured (with an extra sprinkle of small stones) and painted.

Areas of hazardous terrain

More Signs

I made a lot more of the directional indicators than I needed for the gates, so I kept these to use as items of scatter terrain around the circuit. They don't necessarily mean drivers have to follow those directions, of course, but are just there for effect.

Yet more signs

And now that I have all the basic terrain I will add to this slowly as I am inspired!

Our First Game of Gaslands

This was a lot of fun and I was very pleased that my effort in putting the terrain together was not wasted. We were slow, true, and the game was not finished, but that's because there were five of us with two cars each and we were all unfamiliar with the rules. We also probably put the gates too far apart. But we got faster as we played and will doubtlessly continue to do so as we play more.

Some images of our game follow for your entertainment!

The Making Of Drax Returns!

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.

Drax's secret base

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.

Element #1

Element #2

Element #3, with helipad

Element #4

Element #5

Element #6, gatehouse, from the front

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

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.

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. 

The helipad

The SHIVA copter

The helicopter is a cheap Cararama diecast model taken apart and repainted appropriately to accompany my SHIVA cast.

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.

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.

Open room section from the front

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.

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

Finally, here are some pictures of the figures painted and used for the game.

Drax and Jaws

Bond and Bond - players could opt to be Daniel (Hasslefree, L) or Sean/Roger (Crooked Dice, right) 

Steed and Emma Peel

X-commando squad

Minions!

And more minions!

Drax Returns!

It's the pivotal scene in a new episode of Drax, a made-for-TV follow-up to 1979's Moonraker. James Bond and operatives of Dept X of MI6 confront the insidious industrialist and his new-found allies at the supervillain's lair.

It was also a participation game by Wycombe Warband for all to enjoy at Vanquish 2018.

In 1979, according to MI6 files, an Insidious Industrialist's dastardly scheme to replace all humans on earth with his chosen master race failed. Its mastermind, the multi-billionaire Hugo Drax, met an ignominious end, shot by 007's cyanide-tipped dart and expelled into space. And so, with his death, the case files were labelled with the name of the space shuttles so crucial to their plot and filed under M for Moonraker. 

It is not wholly clear how Drax survived the cyanide or the vacuum of space, let alone re-entry through the earth's atmosphere or the shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean into which the wreckage of his space station fell. But against all the odds, in a way that can only happen to principal or significant supporting characters in such films, survive he did, to be picked up by agents of a mysterious organisation which, it turns out, had been keeping watching over Drax and his enterprise all along. The Supreme Headquarters of International Villainous Agents (SHIVA), in return for his loyalty, vast financial backing, and the secrets of the chemical agent Black Orchid, duly nursed Drax back to health and gave him a position of some responsibility in their own organisation.

This all provides an unlikely, though not completely implausible, premise for a possible film sequel to 1979's Moonraker or, at the very least, a TV mini-series, and Channel 7TV2 was quick to take up options.

The Plan

Using the 7TV2rules,  we ran the above game several times through the day at  Vanquish 2018.

The idea was to introduce newcomers to wargaming and the 7TV2 game, as well as to meet gamers from other clubs and encourage new recruits to our own. The episode was run as a participation game, with players taking on roles within Dept X and MI6 in a mission against Drax and his horde of minions. I ran the bad guys, with a few minor tweaks to the rules for the purposes of the scenario. The challenge was all about the good guys completing the mission they were given.

The Set

All set up and ready to go

As we all know it's the look of the game that first draws people in and so the set was built with that in mind. I will post separately on how the set was made but essentially it was a bespoke base cloth and six modular elements, plus an open section of rooms, a helipad and radio mast, all of which was finished off with furniture, scatter terrain, two jeeps and a helicopter.

The Props

I provided some background material for the players in the form of a manilla envelope containing case files, which was given to players and others who were interested, containing:

• Letter of instruction from MI6 and Dept X;
• Blueprint of the base layout;
• Brief summary of the premise and game rules;
• Postcard advertising Crooked Dice (provided by Karl - many thanks!);
• Flyer advertising our club, Wycombe Warband.

Players were given a quick run down of the essential game mechanisms and then made selections from a choice of gadget cards. Then a specific mission for the episode was chosen by drawing a random card from a set of bespoke mission cards (fronts and backs here) that I made for the event.

And... Action!

Here are some stills capturing some of of the highlights of the day's filming during the filming of various different takes of the episode. Apologies for the poor quality of some of the photos!

One of many X-commando/minion firefights ensues

Steed and Mrs Peel sneak up behind unsuspecting minion guards and take them out with panache 

Our heroes take the advantage of higher ground as hordes of minions approach

The cameraman gets a good angle on the action…

…focusing on X-commandos taking a professional approach, making good use of cover…

...whereas Bond and Steed take a more direct approach

Mrs Peel acknowledges she may have taken on more of a challenge than she initially expected

Drax maintains a false sense of security with his ninja bodyguards close at hand

Bond chases down a fleeing Drax, dramatically stopping his escape just in the nick of time

Jaws crashes backwards through the door, felled by Mrs Peel’s white-leather kung fu kick

The helicopter bursts into flame during the obligatory special effects sequence

I am consistently impressed with 7TV2. It is really clever how these rules create those cinematic moments and cliffhanger scenes so well. Also, there are very few wargames that can take brand new players who are completely unfamiliar with the rules and play a game to a conclusion in an hour and a half. 

And in summary, people enjoyed the game and went away happy, and it was a very successful day.

Now to plan for next year...