The loft conversion

They look really nicely done. Some nice tapering on them.  I think some individual large hill/stones would supplement these nicely, you could use them separate part of the board into a sort of melee zone.

Looking great! It'd be cool to see how things would play out if you surrounded an objective with these.

With the Agrellan Earth is it a case of the more you paint on the bigger the cracks?

1 hour ago, AdamJ said:

With the Agrellan Earth is it a case of the more you paint on the bigger the cracks?

You need it fairly thick to get any cracks, but its the speed of drying and subsurface that gets you bigger cracks.  Paint it over smooth painted surface and you get big cracks, rough surface leaves smaller, as it cant slide as it shrinks so you get more smaller cracks rather than fewer and larger).

Thanks for the comments.

@stato is spot on with the Agrellean Earth.  On this terrain most of the crackling is smaller scale because I was applying over a sanded textured surface but on the plus side it has adhered really well, which isn't always the case with Agrellean Earth on bases.

I'm going to build most of the hills into the table I think by having a 2" layer of insulation foam over the whole board that I can cut into.  There will still be some substantial flat or near enough flat areas to place these pieces on.  I might try making a taller table corner or edge hill piece with a bit more of a stepped hill built into the ground.  I'm thinking of doing another archway piece that stands above these current ones.

Another idea I had was to make some longer channel type gorges maybe about 12" long and 3" or 4" high that would create Zone Mortalis corridor type game play that could be cool for objective play.

I think with terrain you want people to interact with it in their actions, not just move past it like it was not even there. Creating valleys or canyons would work well i think for this.  Im not convinced by corner hills from the few games ive had them, they do look great but never add anything to games.  However a big central hill, say half of the centre, with additional features really makes for some great game play and very cinematic.  

My local gaming centre has a great table like this. Its a death themed table, central hill graveyard with walls and fences to climb (or find a gate if you are a dwarf) and a few buildings. Its not a lot but its enough to impact movement, charging and LOS to smaller Hero's. 

Pics here... 

 

Thanks for the link, I'd not seen that thread.  There's definitely some great idea's there for directing the game play. and creating combat zones.

I'm going for kind of the opposite in terms of layout with a central almost completely dried up river being the lowest point on the board with some sand banks along the sides that will provide some cover.  It sounds a bit open in the middle I know but I've got lot's of ideas for things I could add to make it more interesting... wirey desert trees, an AoS aesthetic village on stilts, quick sand, realm gates, elephant graveyard, etc. 

These look really cool. Can you post up a picture of the drill attachment and the hot wire cutter you have used? I'm really interested about terrain making at the moment and am looking for fun new toys. 

 

Awesome work. I'll be stealing this for some of my tables!!! 

Thanks guys, I use this product https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N3OK6O4 to cut the foam, it doesn't cut super quick like a hot wire cutter but it does the job and gives a more rounded cut.  The flail thing I have I can't seem to find anymore online, it's a drill attachment with loose flappy strips of sand paper hanging out of it that give a soft sanding action when you spin it.  I'm not at home at the moment but I'll try and take some WIP pictures when I get back.

Normal sheets of sand paper works too they just wear out quite quickly on the uneven surfaces.

Awesome. Remind me a lot of Hoodoos you see at Bryce Canyon National Park.