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Building Up Some Terrain
So, after Christmas, a bunch of kids' toys went on sale. And I went
saleing! I really have no idea why these two sets went on sale. They're
building blocks. Like people don't buy that all year round...
This is what the first set (<$30) looks like laid out. So, for a reasonable
price, it covers about a 2'x3' area fairly densely, and that's still with
some elevation. My first instinct was to paint them up, but looking
at them out of the box, they're quite beautiful. So I think I can just
leave them like this for a while.
They scale well with 28mm figs. The hieight is a little low, but not
too short. As buildings and blocking terrain, they fill up the space
well, are pretty stable and create a reasonable illusion.
These are pretty flexible stylistically and will work with different
genres.
Including some really weird ones.
You can even make a Gothic Cathedral shape ... now if I just new of a game
that used Gothic architecture ...
This is the other set. This shows a very dense 3'x3' area covered
for less than $30.
Some of the blocks would work fine as they are.
But others really needed to be stacked to work with 28mm. You can
see how low the wall is in this case. So I really need to do something
more with them.
Like this. About half of them got glued together and then painted
with grey paint, PVA, and flour for a cementy texture. Then I hit
them with a black wash, and viola ... nice blocky ruins!
For the rest (not quite all the rest, actually), I went with a
scifi theme. I glued them together to make fortifications and
added some thin cardboard plating to them.
They painted up reasonably well and their short height lets my 28mm
guys peek out from behind them, which is a reasonable visual, even
if you wouldn't want to do it in real life.
So half of a set gave me a decent 2'x2' area of fortifications.
Of course, one of the big benefits is they can be reconfigured
easily, depending on your needs. And they store easily.
In fact, it wasn't until I was stacking them to put them away
that I realized ... Oh, yeah ... they're bocks ... I can stack them.
This fortress is about 12"x9" and has a farily imposing look to it.