Rockin out

So,

Tonight I am doing a little rock work for terrain for Gathering in the Desert Operation Torch. I need a few rough ground sections for a few of the tables and here are a few. It's just Pink insulation foam cut out with a wire cutter and some of my super secret method of doing rocks.

Here is the other side before I do my "rock method" so you can see a difference.

Here you can see the right side done and the left side getting ready for the rock treatment.

So what is the super secret method you may be asking? Well its a simple rock out of my front yard, big secret huh? I just use a rock and press into the foam, basically just embossing the foam, that's it. Pretty simple really and the results are awesome.

TK

Dirty Dozen

So,

Been working on some terrain today, getting ready for Gathering in the Desert Operation Torch. Here is a quick picture of one of the tables. This board will be used in a scenario called Dirty Dozen, which I will keep under wraps until the event.

 

 

The newest part is the board base, which is MDF and sprayed with textured paint. Once that dried I painted over it with a dark brown followed by a dry brush of desert sand color. pretty simple really and a quick board for this scenario is complete. You may notice that the board is sitting on my regular game table which is 4'x6'. This board is a lot smaller and this will work out great for the scenario as well as games of Pulp Alley.

 

TK

Ragnarok 2015

So,

Today was the big (or small) event for Saga her in the Valley of the Sunstroke. We had eight folks that committed to the event. But life got in the way for one person so we had seven total folks. The breakdown of players and armies were as follows:

Tom O - Vikings
Robert B - Vikings
Jerry A - Vikings
Mike W - Vikings
Matt W - Scots
Al R - Brentons
Tim K - Anglo Saxons

We played three scenarios that were set on each table and we rotated to each table with a different opponent. Table one had Clash of Warlord on it, table two was Battle at the Ford and the last table was Home land.

We kept it simple just tracking wins and victory points. Since we had an odd number of players, we had one player take a bye and get a win, I took the first bye since I was running the event. It all worked out well with only one issue with paint judging.

So here are a few pictures from the event: .

Clash of Warlords Board

Battle at the Ford board

Homeland Board

Jerry with Vikings vs Tom and his Vikings

Al with Brentons vs Matt and his Scots

Robert and Vikings vs Mike and his Vikings

Mikes Viking Raiders

Jerrys Vikings run to defend their village!

Toms Vikings looking for trouble.

Roberts Viking Jarl viewing the battlefield in the shade.

Mats Scots proudly displaying their banner.

Al's Breton force, looks like a WAB army on the table.

My Saxons forming up a shield wall.

Jerry's Vikings advance through the rough ground.

Mat's Scots defending their homes!

Tom's Viking warriors.

Tom's small Hearth guard unit.

My Saxons charge across the ford to engage the Vikings.

Another view of the epic ford battle.

Saxon Hearth guard and warriors cross the ford.

Vikings cross the ford

So after all the dust settled, I added up the win/loss of all the players.

Tom O took overall winner, Robert took the best painted and then everyone else got to take turns claiming their prize.

All in all it was it was a great time and everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a bunch of folks come by and watch the games.so their you go, Ragnarok is in the books, we will be doing this event again in the near future.

TK

Ruins and another Pulp!

So,

I have been busy working on a few ruins for the up coming Gathering in the Desert event that I am running for Bolt Action. Over Christmas I picked up a set of Warlords Ruined Hamlet which includes three ruined buildings. I built up the ruins and mounted them to MDF and went to work painting them up. Now I have to say I wanted to go to town on these with more rubble. But what I have found is that it may look cooler with more debris, it usually doesn't lend itself for playability. So I kept these relative clear of debris going for playability over realism.

Well besides the ruins, I got another Pulp Miniature completed this week, it is Doctor Mathis from the University. Once again, this figure was a blast to paint up and had just the right amount of detail.

So there you go folks, another week down and another post. I will be doing a write up of the Flames of War event I attended this past weekend, so once I get all my thoughts down I will get it posted here, so stay tuned...

TK

"The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time.

Well,

Tomorrow Gathering in the Desert 2012 kicks off at 5:00pm with the March to Mount Doom. But for me and the staff, we will be getting a start on moving all the terrain to the venue (Imperial Outpost Games). Then it will be set up and getting everything ready for the whole weekend. My wife has to make sure the lunch is ordered for the weekend and then there is the important stuff, making sure we bring the M&M's to the event!

My wife who has been helping with GitD for the last three years (yeah you married guys are jealous, I know it!) hit upon a great idea a few years ago, she brought big bags of M&M's to give out to the players. while she entered all the stats. And speaking about that, my wife enjoys data entry sort of things, so it was pretty easy to get her to help out.

Well Saturday the real battles begin, this year GitD is doing something a little different. I am matching up players Good vs Evil. I had the players sign up for either side and will be awarding Best General awards to the best Evil and Good General. This is something that few tournaments in the states do, hopefully it catches on.

Once this weekend is over, normal posting will happen here at Cursed Treasures, and there are a few new things that I am itching to show off, one being a new paint challenge, so stay tuned...

TK

So it begins..again!

So loyal fans, it starts again, that's right, the gearing up for Gathering in the Desert 2012. So with that means you will be seeing a lot of work here at Cursed Treasures about building terrain for the event.

Now as some know, this will be the 5th year in a row that GitD 2012 has been going on. For those that do not know what Gathering in the Desert (GitD) is, let me explain. GitD is a Independent Grand Tournament for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (Feb 17 -19th, 2012). It all start when I was frustrated at the lack of good local LotR tournaments here in the Valley of the Sun, so I organized my own.

So around this time every year I start turning my attention towards the next event, and this includes what terrain will I have at said event. To start things off, I place an order with Games Workshop for terrain. Below you will see this years haul of GW product that will morph into Middle Earth.

Now over the years I have accumulated quite a bit of terrain (which the wife always wants to know where it will go in the house!) for the event. This year there are a few large items that I ordered, below you will see one Realm of Battle board, with two extra panels (making it a 8'x4' board or two 4x4 boards). The new Sorcery tower along with two ruined towers, three sets of GW "Creapy Trees" and 5 bags of the GW jungle trees.

The plane is to paint the RoB boards in a desert color to represent Harad and use some of the trees for that. The other creepy trees will be pressed into service on other existing boards and so will the towers. I am thinking I might be able to turn the Sorcery tower into something less WHFB looking and give it more of a LotR feel.

But wait a minute, some of you might have spotted some very 40K terrain sections on the right of the RoB board. And you may be asking how are these going to be used for LotR? Well fear not folks, the 40K terrain is going to be used for...wait for it...40K! Whhhhaaaatttt!!!!

You see this year GitD will be expanding it's boarders a bit and GitD will be hosting a small Combat Patrol 40K event the first weekend of March (the 3rd to be exact). Which is two weeks after GitD. So it is time to start building some 40K terrain for this new venture, so once again you will be seeing some progress reports here at Cursed Treasures. So below there is a Fortress of Redemption, a Imperial Bastion kit (which has two kits!). Two Imperial statues, 3 bags of 40K accessories, two boxes of the wrecked rhinos and one crashed Imperial shuttle.

But wait a minute, why are we doing this? Well it is quite simple really, I am frustrated at the local 40K events here in Phoenix. I am looking at bringing everything I know about running events to the 40K side here in the valley. So that means cool and well built terrain, smooth running event, and for folks to have a good time.

So stay tuned for more information concerning both events as well as progress on all this terrain!

TK

Moria Table Done!

So,

Khazad - Dum, 'the Dwarrowdelf or Mines of Moria, this is the second new board for Gathering in the Desert 2011. Here is an overall shot of the new board.


It may seem that the board is pretty open and lite on terrain, but it is rather a tough board to play on. First up is the main road that runs down the middle of the board. It has no few than 12 pillars running down each side of the road, giving you 24 total pillars. Were this may seem like a no big deal, if you try to get line of sight for shooting it starts to become a mess. Also would like to thank Mike from Da Green Skins blog for helping me lay all the tiles on the road and gluing down the pillars.


I also include this hallway that has dwarven doors on both ends of it, which once again creates either a great place to hide or chock points to defend. Nice things is that I it is removable and I can use it for other projects.


On the other side of the board is Balins Tomb, which I followed the plans loosely from the Fellowship of the Rings Journey book. The pillars have enough room for a single 25mm based figure to hid behind (from a troll perhaps?) as well as having a ledge that runs around the inside of the tomb. The only thing that is different came from Drunkensamurai, that there is no back door to get out. In the journey book there is a collapsed exit that you can leave from. But in the movie I swore that the Fellowship leaves from the main door! Anyway, this will make an interesting feature on the board with only one way in. Do you hold up and defend or pass it by, hmm the decisions.


Also on the board are a few rock castings from a Woodland Scenic mold set that I have. Once again Mike from Da Green Skins stepped up to help me cast these bad boys. The are made with dental plaster castings and blue foam for the backing. Than they are mounted on Masonite and painted, so that means they have a pretty good weight to them.


I also made them to go in he corners and the edge of the table. This was done to give the feeling of being in an underground environment like in the movie.


So there you have it, another board for GitD 2011, if you are in town, stop by to see these in person...

TK

Isengard Finished

Well,

It has been a few days since the last post, been busy working on two new tables for Gathering in the Desert. You may remember the an older post that showed the basic construction of the new boards.

Well as of today one board is just about ready to go, here is a overall shot of the board. This board was inspired by a board that one of the local guys did up in Colorado. I had a chance to play on it and it was a blast, so I molded it after that one.

I did two towers or scaffolding's but i wanted one to extend out into one of the pits. It is a separate piece and gives more playability to the board.

Besides the pits and the scaffolding's I also did a few pieces to block line of sight. So there is a few lumber piles, a Loose dirt pile, as well as a pile of boulders. I am also finishing up three rock piles to throw onto the board.



Here is a shot to show you just how much the lumber piles block line of sight. This is a standard two handed orc hiding behind the lumber pile.

Also with the pits there is a inner ledge that models can stand on to get more cover, here you see a two handed orc standing on the lower edge. An just an FYI, one of the pits has a ledge big enough for at least a 40mm base, so that means mounted models will fit.

The only thing missing are the smoke plumes that DrunkenSamurai built, so those will add to the line of sight blockage. So there you go, a new board for Gathering in the Desert 2011...

TK