Copy-pasted from an advice reply over on T9A for Mad 'At's Citycape Skirmish Blog, since much of it could be of general interest to wargamers all over. Mad 'At is by the way an accomplished scenery builder and miniature painter, as should be evident here, and it's something out of the ordinary to play across his club's terrain at some Swedish tournaments. __________________________________________ Hills as Dump Piles On a different note, how about spicing some of your hills? Tired of all wargaming hills looking virtually the same? While we all want a flat surface on top for movement, the steep hillsides are usually open field for add-ons, so long as they don't interfere with movement trays on top and units passing by. While moss and flowers can be added to the sides of hills to bring nature more into the game, there is also another route which can be taken. Simultaneously with the vegetation, in fact: Hills as dump piles. One dump could be corpses and skeletons, such as this Hill of the Slain, an illustration for Silmarillion: Another could be ruin stones poking out from the sides of the hills, some bearing ornate carvings, like the Schuttberg in Germany made up of rubble from cities bombed asunder during the Second World War: Another could be a Tell, an ancient settlement mound built up of layers upon layers of sunbaked mud brick. Perfect for desert tables. Some artistic license would work best here, since the outermost layer of bricks usually crumble down to an indistinguishable dust layer. Instead, make some sections of the hillside be worn brick wall visible among the earth. Could include pottery and bones for extra effect: Yet another take on a fully or partially artificial hill could be to make it a dumping ground for waste, such as one made up entirely of pottery shards stacked on top of one another, akin to Monte Testaccio in Rome which is a hill made up of millions of discarded olive oil amphorae during the city's ancient heyday of bustle and consumption: And last and least, how about a dump pile for Skaven underground digging? All those tunnels and caverns clawed out from the earth must leave a lot of waste, that needs to be dumped above ground. This would be an ordinary hill, but perhaps with some Skaven skull or broken ratman shield or weapon sticking out from the earth, rocks or grass of the hillside. The same could be done for others than the verminous swarms, of course, including Dwarfs (runestone proclaiming ownership of dump pile material by some clan?), Chaos Dwarfs ( sprinkled with obsidian shards and dead Goblins?) and Goblins (Goblin waste, including dung, broken gear and fungi). Just make sure any such vertical/diagonal additions to hills are done in a friendly fashion for tabletop movement. Got any tips of your own to share? Do please spill the beans!
I wish the pix would display at a decent size. (edit) Aaaaaarrrrgh. Click on one & it blows out to wider than the thread. (/edit) (Edit2) Pictures fixed! Hurrah! (/edit)
Fantastic pictures, thank you for posting! This first one is especially chilling and dramatic. Considering that all the casualties are bones already, I am not sure why the crows are still hanging around... do crows and vultures eat bones too?
- The crows are likely close to the figure to denote that she is a witch or some form of spell caster that and death they go hand in hand with death - as much as the vultures are there to scavenge the bone pile I don't think they're associated with mortality in the same way crows are - except in desert scenes