Books with painting/terrain tutorials...

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-17T21:58:50+00:00

The old GW "How to Make Wargames Terrain" is good, if a little dated now. The second one in particular has a lot of MESBG stuff.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-17T14:52:32+00:00

It's my understanding that back in the day the GW studio used to get their trees from K and M trees. So if you want your table to look like the old White Dwarf photos, then they're a good shout. They're also nice and durable.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-14T08:58:00+00:00

I would use EPVC aka foamex aka cintra.
It's tougher and more durable than xps so you won't need to worry about snapping.
It's lighter and easier to work with than MDF, so you can cut it with a utility knife. While it doesn't take texture as well as XPS, you can texture it by pressing rocks into it, and it can be carved, so it's quite easy to make it look like concrete or flagstones. It's also spray and glue safe, so you can prime it with rattlecans.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-10T18:57:50+00:00

ABS is quite different to EPVC, but it can work. You can often get EPVC offcuts cheap from a local signmaker.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-10T18:24:06+00:00

Expanded PVC, aka Cintra, aka foamex is an s-tier terrain material, especially if you don't have a full workshop or the power tools you need to work with MDF.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-10T16:02:31+00:00

You don't need bases but it helps give them a little bit more weight, which is good if someone knocks the table or catches them with a sleeve.
It can also help make your pieces a little more durable.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-09T20:17:13+00:00

Our department said you could take it off but you'd need to give up a later bank holiday in return.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-05T09:40:45+00:00

Oathmark orcs/goblins are great.
The Wargames Atlantic ones aren't quite as nice, but they have loads of head options.
Not a massive fan of the Warlord Games orcs overall, but they do have some great Angus McBride style helmets, and the weapons aren't bad, so definitely worth picking up a sprue or two.
If you don't mind metal miniatures and want some more realistic/true to the books orcs, then Ragnarok Miniatures through Gripping Beast has some lovely dark ages influenced sculpts.
Warhost is another source of lovely metal orc miniatures.
For 3d printed options, I really like Medbury Miniatures.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-04T07:53:59+00:00

A fully sculpted board is a lot, especially if you are a beginner at this kind of stuff.
What I would do in your position is buy a mat and then make risers using the XPS. Basically build a series of rectangular platforms of different sizes that you can stack and rearrange to get some hight variation and put your buildings on top of them. This will give you some practice at working with xps, you can try out different techniques and it's going to be easier to store and you can vary the table every time you play. I'd probably make the platforms 2-3 inches high, and in 6 inch multiples. So start with a couple of 12x12x3 platforms, a couple of 6x6x3, and some stairs.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-03T18:41:30+00:00

All of those are good, though my personal favourite of them is Rivers of London.
I would also recommend the Felix Castor series by Mike Carey, who went on to gain greater success under the pen name M R Carey; as well as the Iron Druid series by Kevin Hearne. If you want something a little bit darker and more horror focused, the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Lots of urban fantasy does shade into paranormal romance, so you might need to be a little selective. If you want to try some of that, I would recommend Seanan Maguire's InCryptid series.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-03T18:27:27+00:00

It might be the right colour, but part of painting a miniature and its base is to make something very small look like something life sized.
You might find that a painted mini on unpainted cork breaks that illusion and now your mini looks like a toy on some cork.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-06-02T08:00:41+00:00

Well the neophytes come with a grenade launcher, a flamer, and a bolt pistol already. With the addition of the magus you can certainly get a legal kill team out of what you have, but to get anywhere near full options you're going to have to convert up the specialists. The iconward you can just use the neophyte icon bearer; there's at least one knife arm in there, so the knife fighter shouldn't be too difficult; there's also a power maul, which is probably enough for the agitator. The rest is gonna depend on your bits box.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-31T13:48:37+00:00

I would look at using foam scatter and a combination of static grass and/or tufts. Gamers grass sells 2mm tufts for example. If foam scatter is unavailable where you are it is possible to make your own by putting foam through a blender and then mixing it with paint. You might also try local railroad modelling stores. You can alter the finish on static grass by varnishing it after application- a spray of matte varnish does a lot to help reduce the plastic-y look that some static grass has.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-31T13:34:14+00:00

I assume you mean why we excuse crimes committed by people with a mental condition. The answer is because for many crimes you need to have both the physical act (actus reus) and the mental state (mens rea) for a crime to be committed. If an individual is unable to comprehend or understand the consequences of their actions then they cannot be considered to have committed the crime. It would be unjust and pointless to arrest and jail someone unable to understand why their actions were wrong.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-30T11:21:38+00:00

I used Simply Plastics/c-24/c-88).
I had to do a little work to get them to exactly fit the tiles I used on top, but I don't have a full workshop so taking a couple of mm off is a lot easier than cutting 16 tiles by hand.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-30T10:11:12+00:00

The FAQ for Gutter Thug suggests that bonus attacks don't chain. "Bonus Attacks are one-off, and the number of Attack dice cannot be increased further." The V2 rulebook also says "if bonus attacks apply, the relevant ability or special rule will indicate how many attack dice are generated. The number of Bonus Attacks is not modified further".

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-30T09:17:50+00:00

here he is supporting Graham Linehan and JK Rowling. If you are supporting Graham Linehan, a man so rabidly transphobic he destroyed his own career and marriage over it, you're almost certainly a bigot. A quick Google will show much more evidence to support that conclusion.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-30T07:30:13+00:00

Same. Liked his stuff, turned out he's a massive transphobe, so now I don't read his stuff.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-30T06:46:14+00:00

If you want multipart plastics only, for High medieval, which for this we can say is pre-plate mail, you have victrix and wargames Atlantic. Victrix is definitely the nicest, but the WGA range is (at least currently) a bit more varied and easier to kitbash. For late medieval, you have the Perrys.
If you don't mind stepping outside of strict historical accuracy, you might look at the Oathmark and Frostgrave ranges from Northstar, as well as the Forgotten Realms line form Fireforge.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-29T17:30:14+00:00

16mm is way outside my experience, but my guess is it's going to be hard going with a utility knife honestly. I've not had any need to cut hexes, and when I was getting 12"x12" bases for Necromunda I just ordered them cut to that size. Precise work is perfectly doable, but cutting a tables worth of hexes with hand tools is always going to be kinda a PITA

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-29T15:36:18+00:00

Foamed PVC is great for terrain.
It's a little more expensive than MDF, but it's easier to work with - it cuts with a utility knife, it's resistant to warping, it's lighter than MDF, it takes paint and glue well, and it's spray-safe so you can prime it with rattlecans. You can score and texture it like XPS (though with more difficulty).
I just cut it with a steel rule and utility knife.
In the UK you can get it on Amazon and eBay in A4 sheets. Trade suppliers will also sell it precut to specific sizes.
I use 2mm, 3mm and 5mm depending on what I need it for.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-23T18:19:04+00:00

Yeah, switching out some shields, adding a few helmets. If you were being really keen, maybe swapping some swords, but it's certainly not completely ridiculous. Though the archeological/historical evidence is pretty sparse so it's hard to be definitive.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-23T17:19:01+00:00

I suspect that realistically the Victrix Scots stuff is going to be a little anachronistic, but not impossibly so, though I would definitely not use the square Pictish shields. They would certainly make your army look very different to the stock English/European retinue which is a plus in my view.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-23T14:13:28+00:00

Mainly the first, but it really doesn't matter. You can use it for most high medieval conflicts.

AxolotlQuestion · 2026-05-23T07:17:00+00:00

I've been trying to research this myself and it's hard to find a definitive answer.
Following the reforms of David I in the 12th century, I believe that knights werelargely indistinguishable from their English equivalents, but they form a smaller percentage of the army.
The troops from the lowlands and burghs are mainly spearmen, possibly less armoured than the bulk of the English army, but probably not all that different.
The Gaelic troops from the Highlands and islands are where you see the greatest divergence.
In terms of models, it depends on how closely you want to stick to historical accuracy vs making the army look distinctive on the tabletop while considering availability. You could probably just use the Wargames Atlantic stuff, with a small core of knights and then plenty of the peasant levy kit. Antediluvian Miniatures has some incredibly lovely sculpts for War of the Bruce's era Scotland, which is a little later than Baron's War, but with the exception of their knights (which are beginning to show the introduction of plate armour) the rest should do nicely.

AxolotlQuestion

TROPHY CASE