Location, location, location

So let me apologise for my lack of blogs, I have many excuses, well 4 really, namely my wife, dog, son and daughter (33 and 17 months respectively, no wait 16 months, my wife is next to me correcting me, now you see why I don't get much done).

No in all honesty the new job has been keeping me busy, but I will try to keep you a bit more updated on gaming issues in Aberdeenshire.

So today I thought I'd talk to about scenery, many of us will rush out and buy multiple armies (Ben AND Martin, don't believe the protestations in Martins blog) and then play over the great battlefield of the kitchen table, maneuvering our units between piles of books, DVD cases and packing from the latest Amazon/ebay purchase. We drool over the glossy photos of armies fighting over beautiful boards in White Dwarf or on various companies websites, the problem for many of use is cost, to get nice scenery is often very expensive (my Flames of War scenery has cost me about £300 and still doesn't fill a 6' x 4' table, it is my guilty indulgence though), so I thought I'd share with you some of my scenery from my Infinity scenery collection and how I've managed to cut a few corners on cost.

So when it comes to scenery you can either go one of 2 ways,
1) beautiful scenery, perfect for your battlefield and costing an extortionate amount,
2) affordable scenery, which doesn't quite match what you want,
so we compromise with a lot of cheap scenery to bulk out the one or two prize pieces we have.

Well here is a third option for you, are you ready, here it is......... buy the cheap scenery and pimp it up.

Here is some of my improved scenery.....

So is my Tram from TTcombat, a lot of TT's stuff is very 20th/21st century, so I need to future it up a bit, added a few bits and pieces to the top (including a tiny radar dish you can just see at the front of the tram), I used some card to line the inside of the windows, a wee paint job, some arabic scrawled on the sides and I have a slightly futuristic tram (no need to make it too sci-fi, the Infinity universe is not that much ahead of us now at times).  A simple conversion using scrap card and microwave parts (our microwave died so I took it to pieces and am slowly finding uses for it all, the main body is now a storage/display case for Ben, he may even show you a picture of it at some time if you ask him nicely, on the front is a picture of a Mag Train breachbound, it seemed appropriate, he did come up with the blog name after all), anyway total cost of additional parts - £0, number of people in the world who have a similar piece of scenery - 0

So this is the top story from TT's theatre, whilst the theatre is an awesome building, it is very large, both in its length/depth and height, whilst I can't change it's length and depth I was able to change its height as the model comes in 2 parts.  The top part I have used for a Civilian Nuclear Bunker, I attached the rooftop doorway from the rooftop pack to the side, used some grating from the billboards pack on top and some more scraps from the old picrowave to create the gold painted siren on top, Painting labels in arabic and chinese on the front in different colours (yellow and red respectively) helped finish it off.  The door is covered with Aluminium (or if your american Al-ooh-mi-num, say it out loud, you'll get it) effect paper for a shiny and distinctive effect, again no additional cost, but have got a unique building which required a bit of thinking time to create.



Finally my second tram, well I decided that TT's fixed weapon emplacements looked badass, but not quite appropriate for my infinity board.  So why not take a TT Missile platform and strap it onto a Tram base, result a mobile Missile Battery (I plan to make a military towing tram in the future, as well as a troop carrying carriage so I will have a fully military Tram/Train).  I built up the body of the tram using thick cards and used some bits and pieces to add some little details and flourishes. Again, this conversion took no financial cost, but allowed to create something bespoke and quirky for my gaming board.

At the moment I am working on a Mosque (made from the rest of the old theatre/cinema) which will have working lights inside (taken from a small lamp I disassembled as we didn't actually use it), a power station and a few other small bits and pieces.  I hope I have managed to inspire you to try your own hand at scenery conversion to create your own bespoke battlefields.  If you do this one very important thing to remember, buy big tubs of kids poster paint, its dirt cheap, comes in huge containers as so is perfect for doing the majority of your scenery, meaning you don't have to buy dozens of pots of Vallejo/Games Workshop/Humbrol paints at several quid a pop! Oh and do not do your conversion work in your living room as it doesn't generally go down well with the wife, instead use your man cave, if you don't have one then use your living room, when your significant other complains about the mess tell them this wouldn't happen if you had a room/shed/loft/garage for you to use...