Terrain - Features

Terrain Contemplations
Terrain came to mind during the hours driving to and from Saturday's event. I'm thinking of making some.

Firstly, i still don't want more than one box of terrain. 

Ideally, on game day i'd like to take 1 box of terrain (which can make up 2 tables easily) and my army box (just 1).

While there's still a bit of wriggle-room in the current terrain box, i'm not just looking to fill it for the sake of it. 

I'm thinking more along the lines of 'feature pieces'.  I saw a nice terrain piece a week or two ago which brought all these thoughts back to light as well.

Obviously ship = feature piece. Ship has it's own box (immediately violating the 1 box rule - but it goes out infrequently).


An aside... So i was thinking about the fluff of my terrain... What?

The tables i can currently put together are set on an 'agriworld';  the majority of usable surface is covered in 'crops' then pick it, pack it, fire it up... into space and send to other worlds that can't grow their own crops (forge worlds, mining worlds, hive worlds, etc etc). 

While crops cover the surface from horizon to horizon there would still probably be small (relatively minuscule compared to hives cities etc) admin settlements, shipping ports, fuel or water distribution line stations etc etc.

The 'ship table' is a small dock for restocking or refitting an orbital defence monitor [wow, really threw everything at that table hahaha].

The terrain can can alternately make an administration 'settlement' with apartments as the main feature...

There's also also the forests and chapels table...

 And of course customise to taste on the day...

Back to the point...
i was contemplating the settlement table could have a single, larger apartment complex/hub/(mini-)hive as a centrepiece. Perhaps using a 'placemat' sized structure (rather than the standard smaller 'coaster'). This might be 4 tiles high in places. Not sure. Just contemplating.

  Placemat

 Coaster

Could also emphasise the industrial stuff a bit more (has fallen out of use), so do a few more of the container 'coasters' and perhaps a container mega-stack on a 'placemat' piece.

Additionally or alternately for industrial i was thinking of running a big 'pipeline' pieces across the table. 4" pvc tube spruced up suitably and dividing the table into interesting segments.  Fits with the fuel or water pipe network theme, and on a planetary scale.

...something like that perhaps. so just 40mm pvc with themed 'blocks' for stability etc. would be a cinch making those with the filament but would bother on the resin. might look at wooden blocks with holes cut by a forstner bit... dunno.
The design has changed a little since the original draft... am looking to make the entire thing out of 'connectors'. easier than cutting wood blocks. The pipe will just slot into the connector and done. 
will epoxy the connector to a coaster with a downward angle piece as appropriate, then build up around the sides with wall plaster. will probably add some gubbins and widgets at the connector points to add some interest.   should be easy.

I guess the bottom line is i'd like central, megalithic pieces to provide a thematic focus and tie the board together thematically - and also help break up the space, rather than relying on numberous smaller terrain pieces quite as much.

All just contemplation at this stage... we'll see what we see.

Side Note - Forest Terrain
[later 20190819: this has now happened]

am giving some consideration to modifying the forest area terrain. so creating cut-out/recesses on the area terrain plate that the tree pieces will slot into. (not that it specifically needs it) but it will make the piece more stable.
a possible downside is that the tree will need to slot into the correct hole... and the scatter-anywhere option is decreased/removed.
a plus side is that it might make the piece look a little more unified rather than a plate with stuff clearly sitting onatop.

probably wont both making an mdf top piece with pieces cut out. more likely to build up the top of the plates with plaster, moulding around the tree pieces, then re-basing the plates. 

recesses with tree floating over...

the recesses would still be painted the same colour as the rest of the plate (not pink), but with less grit and texture. The plates currently have some pretty course grit on there which will need scraping off.

This is the desired result...

So when not in use the tree fit smoothly into the base plate.

The forest terrain has seen a bit of use over the last few sessions, not just as a space filler but dudes hiding in it.
Being able to remove the trees is a definite must have. 
Will just need to work out the best positions for the inserts.
[later: am also considering adding a fourth base plate. along with this the plates will have a mixture of rock inserts and tree inserts. not sure if this will be too sparse. will try and find out.]

Until next time...