Quick "N Dirty Hobbit Holes

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

With the addition of some more models to my Halfling army, I realized that I'd need some bespoke terrain for them - to act as scenario objectives and/or add character to battlefields that the little legion would play on. I wanted to create some cheap and fast Hobbit Holes for my army to live in. I saw that Games Workshop was putting out some nice resin facades to build off of eventually, but I just didn't want to wait or spend the money. I looked for a good tutorial online for building what I was looking for, but I just didn't find one. So I guess I had to do one myself.

The material list isn't too long and mostly consists of stuff I had lying around. You'll need:

     -  Some 2" thick insulation foam.               - A plastic drinking straw.

     -  A blank CD to act as the base.                -  Some scrap cardstock/cereal box cardboard.

     -  Some balsa wood strips.                          - A push pin.

     -  Various flock/plastic flowers/tufts.          - Xacto knife and a box cutter with an extendable blade.

     -  Hot Glue gun.                                          - Wall joint compound

     -  Wood Glue or Elmer's Glue

Step 1: Cut a slab of foam about 1/4" deep, 5" long and 2" high.
Using a ballpoint pen, I drew out the windows, door and stonework for the
front of the house.

Step 2: Using a sharp Xacto blade, cut out the windows and door.
I also removed some of the non-stone area to recess that a bit and bring
the stone forward.

Step 3: Glue some scrap card onto the back of the front piece.
It'll give you something to glue the door and window bits to.

Step 4: Using a hot glue gun, I attached the 2" foam to the CD as a
base. I then used a box cutter with an extendable blade to shape the hill
until it matched the approximate curve and height of the front piece.

Step 5: I then attached the front piece using hot glue. Any gaps or joins were
hidden with some wall joint compound. I then glued a bit of drinking straw to the hill to
form a chimney. A few thin cuts of foam were added to make a walk.

Step 6: I added a door and cross beams using balsa wood.  A dress maker's
pin was used to make the door hand. I also soaked a piece of balsa wood in
water until I could bend it into a curve along the top edge and then affixed it
with hot glue. A small cap was added to the chimney with some cardstock.
Finally, sand was glued down to the front porch area. 

Step 7: I primed the whole shebang with a bit of flat latex black house paint.
Then I painted the whole thing up in a pretty standard way.

Step 8: I then flocked the hill to match my game boards and added some
tufts, clump foliage and flowers to really make the hole feel homey.

And that's it. Each Hobbit Hole took about an hour to make and cost me pretty much nothing as I had all the materials to build them laying about already. They aren't the most amazing pieces of scenery ever made, but they will really add something to the games I end up playing with my Halfling army. Hope this inspires!

Cheers!

A few nights work and I have my own little Shire to defend!

A SHORT Post Today

GET IT?!

The past couple of weeks have seen me working on some little projects (get it? Get It?!) that I thought I could finally share. Due to a trade with a friend, I came into the possession of some more Westfalia Halflings and I decided to expand my force a bit. I added eight more Halberdiers to the existing unit of twelve, so now I've got a nice meaty group of guys to anchor the core of the army. 

Ready to Rumble. Or at least their bellies are rumbly.

Now that I've got a good sized army, it was time to add some scenic bits for them to defend. I built the two Hobbit Hovels in the first picture because I just couldn't wait for the resin ones Forge World is producing to come out. Before making them, I scoured the internet for a nice step-by-step set of instructions on how to make a hobbit dwelling and nothing seemed to give me what I was looking for. I'm building a third hole at the moment and I'm taking pictures as I go, so I expect to put up a tutorial soon. 

Over in Age of Sigmar-land, the latest General's Handbook has dropped and that usually heralds a change in points and rules for some of my armies because of course it does. Seems like the Kharadron Overlords were the most affected - I lost over 200 points off my existing army! So now I had to add something to bring it back up to 2000 points. I didn't particularly want to drop the money or time on an additional sky-ship, so I turned my attention to the Shadespire war band, Thundrik's Profiteers. 

Thundrik + blimp guy+ some guys with guns = PROFIT.

These guys were cheap to buy, quick to paint and seem hideously over-costed for the game. Perfect! They are all really nice models and I continue to be amazed by the Plug-and-Play style models GW is making lately. 

Cheers!

The Halfmen of Westfalia!

"For the Shire!.. err... wait! For the Moot!... eh.. that's not right... For Snacks and Comfies! That's better."

Geez, it looks like four years ago I backed a small Kickstarter for some 28mm Halfling miniatures from Westfalia Miniatures. When I got my tiny pledge (literally - I only ordered a unit or two) I was a bit crestfallen because I hadn't realized they would be resin casts instead of metal. I put them on the back burner of my project list and when I discovered a friend had also backed the KS, I "gifted" mine to him in a clever ploy to get them the hell off my desk. But he realized that he'd never get around to them in his queue and the scallywag turned around and gave me mine back along with his! Dastardly.

Well, I guess I finally got a wild hair up my ass to paint them so I've put together a small army of them. I plan on using them for Dragon Rampant or as proxies in Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The sculpts were very obviously inspired by the old Warhammer Imperial Halflings of the Moot, so I like to imagine a little piece of the Old World spun off during the apocalypse and now the chubby little fellas are furiously defending themselves in a new nightmare reality.

The General, Philip "The Black" Wooltoes.
"Dost Thou Wish to Live Deliciously?!" is his battle-cry.

Cassandra Gentlebosom, seer and diviner, adds some
magical punch to the army.

The Knights of The Third Order of Breakfast  are the greatest of all time.

The Shirewardens patrol the edges of the Halfling lands, ready to battle intruders at a moment's notice!

The flashing blades of the swordmen of the Jack Rabbit Company are deadly to both foes and dinner parties.

The stalwart halberdiers of the Brotherhood of the Last Leg will fight until the end of any battle. Or until supper. Whichever comes first.

Robert the Hood and his Rapacious Rapscallions stand ready to waylay any un-guarded baggage trains they find. 

Professor of Gunology, Schmendrake Thistlebottom, guides the army's
artillery train.

A Heckblaster Volleygun is ready to send any marauding chaos worshippers straight
to the Hot Place!

In order to finish these guys as an Age of Sigmar Army, I've got to paint up an Endless Spell for them and they'll be around 1000 points. Everything in here is a proxy for Freeguild units ( Freeguild General, Battlemage, Gunmaster, 2 units of Guard, Archers, Helblaster Volleygun, Knights of Order, and Outriders), so it'll all port over easily. This has been a fun little army (EH?! GET IT?!?!?!) to knock out, and I'm pretty pleased with them. I'm sure they will get murdered in games, but that's kinda the point I guess. 

Cheers!

Big and Tall and Short and Plump

I missed updating last week, but this week has seen some good progress on my painting desk. I've got a bunch of diverse stuff I'm chewing my way through - Adeptus Titanicus stuff, a copy of Blackstone Fortress, a fantasy Halfling army, more High Elves and some other odds and ends that need doing. First on deck is a second Warlord Titan for my War Griffons Legion.

The complete force.

The second Warlord amps up the total game size I can play, and brings some much needed diversity to the weapons systems I can deploy. I've still got a second plasma cannon arm to paint, but I will probably do that in colors for my Legio Mortis force so they have some more options.

Clamor Aquilae - The Eagle's Cry - brings its massive firepower to the battlefield.

View of the plasma cannon and carapace lasers.

The other arm has a mighty power fist, ready to crush the foes of the Emperor.

If you follow me on Twitter (@Cwalton73), you've probably been watching me chip away at a bunch of Halfling models from Westfalia Miniatures for last week or two. These sculpts are just full of tons of character - which helps because the amount of air bubbles, mould shift and tear out on these resin casts is atrocious. Nevertheless, I'm hell-bent on getting a little army of them done. I figure I can use them as Freeguild (once known as The Empire) in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar or just stat them out for Lion/Dragon Rampant. I still needed to purchase a few figures to complete the army, but according to their site Westfalia can take up to sixty days to complete an order. So, who knows when I'll be seeing those models? In the meantime, here's an army shot of where I'm at so far. 

For the Shire! Or the Moot! Or what-ever!

With the titan done and the Halflings a bit stalled, I'm probably going to focus on knocking out the Blackstone Fortess box set this week. 

Cheers!