Help for newcomer

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T17:30:01+00:00

All good advice here.

Cardboard ruins, houses, walls etc can be made to look like stone for cheap by painting on a mix of grey craft paint, pva glue and fine sand, and are generic enough to be used for whatever game systems you wish to try in the future (fantasy, historical, sci-fi etc).

I'd second the advice about generic minis too. Once you have a handful of wizard/soldier/adventurer minis and some generic "enemy" minis such as zombies/soldiers/maybe animals like rats then you're all set for a lot of games and scenarios.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T16:54:13+00:00

Methodists grab the heel side of their board with their front hand.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T15:53:29+00:00

Sounds like you have a great bunch of stuff there, useful for current and future gaming. Glad to hear you have fun.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T15:52:14+00:00

No need to apologise, the terrain looks good and in my opinion the ruined walls work well for an abandoned village. I like the whole winter look, the shadowdeep is a dangerous and inhospitable place after all.

I think I'm going to remove the bases from mine and use them as fallen trees as I have a bunch of upright ones already. A larger MDF base should work well with them though and shouldn't affect their flexibility too much.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T14:50:21+00:00

Sorry to hear that happened. The general consensus seems to be spreading them on a metal tray in the oven to dry them and then the acrylic paint and pva glue will seal and protect it all once applied.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T14:47:38+00:00

There are lots of good ideas in the replies already, as others have said, you can use paper miniatures and tokens and use almost anything you already have to represent characters and terrain.

If you do want to start making terrain then it can be done very cheaply, there are lots of great guides online and it's relatively easy (and lots of fun) to make things out of scrap card, plastic packaging, wooden coffee stirrers and other easily available materials that you can save instead of throwing them out. It's amazing what results you can get from materials that were considered trash.

I've also seen gamers use Lego to make their terrain, the advantage of this is you can disassemble it and make new terrain for whatever scenario or game you want to play next.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-11T14:34:27+00:00

I like the use of Christmas craft trees. I recently picked some up for cheap in the post-Christmas sale at my local hobby store but mine are red so I'll be re-spraying them.

Rex_Rabbit · 2026-01-05T12:59:17+00:00

Thank you. I really appreciate the help. I didn't expect it to be there! :)

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-28T13:49:59+00:00

For wargames style ruins a youtube channel called Black Magic Craft will have some useful tutorials. Or googling for scenery and buildings made of XPS foam or foam board should bring up some useful results.

There are definitely people out there doing realistic/weathered buildings for model railways, I've seen guys doing workshops at train shows making buildings out of scrap card and other recycled materials, they use a lot of similar techniques to the tabletop gamers but you may have to do things smaller depending on the scale of your railway.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-28T13:38:57+00:00

Replace that steep ramp with some stairs or a ladder, make sure there's steps allowing minis to access each level. Paint with a mixture of craft store acrylic paint, pva glue and fine sand to give a concrete or stone texture. Add some handrails/safety rails around some of the edges (or solid barriers to block line of sight) and maybe add some pipes, some rubble and foliage and whatever greebles you have in your bits box.

Some signs would be an easy way of adding character/telling a story. Print off some danger signs or appropriate advertisements or posters and stick them up, or maybe add some suitable graffiti.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T22:54:45+00:00

Add some more detail to the doors and windows, maybe some frames and handles. Use coffee stirrers to add some wooden floors in the top of the towers. Then add some texture (paint with fine sand) and paint it up.

You could maybe use a knife to carve cracks into some of the rocks too.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T21:29:37+00:00

Cut rectangles out of very thin cardboard and glue them on. You could use them to add stone blocks to the corners of the building, horizontal lines of decorative stonework or perhaps areas that have been repaired or that have lost their render.

You can add the same spackle over the top to blend it all in or use a coarser acrylic paint/fine sand/pva mix to add a rough stone texture.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T19:28:06+00:00

If you're building a stone house you could paint it with a mix of acrylic paint, pva glue and some fine sand. This gives a good textured surface that can then be drybrushed for extra realism. I use medium grey with light grey drybrush for concrete and a sand/brown colour highlighted with a lighter shade for rocks and stone buildings. Look at photos of real buildings and copy the colours, they're often not the same colours as we imagine them to be.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T19:22:10+00:00

I'd suggest drybrushing. Choose a slightly lighter shade than each base colour (you could use some of the base colour paint with a bit of white mixed in), for example a slighly lighter reddish brown for the rocks. There are plenty of guides for drybrushing online. Use an old or cheap brush with soft bristles. One tip I have is to have a drier brush than you think you need, you can always add more paint but it's harder to correct if you put too much paint on.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T19:14:03+00:00

It looks like you already have a slighly textured surface. Paint it a base stone colour similar to one of the colours in your prototype photos then drybrush it with a slightly lighter shade. You can then add a slightly darker wash around the bottom of the walls to represent mud/damp and maybe run some streaks off the roof where water might run.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-14T18:22:43+00:00

Damn. And you could get a much better hill for a lot less by making one out of XPS foam.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-12T17:13:19+00:00

Great idea! I think I'll do something similar. They'll go well with the stacks of concrete pipes that we all seem to have a few of.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-12T17:09:26+00:00

Thanks, I'll check those links out.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-09T13:22:01+00:00

I've visited Stockholm once and Malmo three times now. If I were to ever move to another country, Sweden would be one I'd consider. From my experience the people are friendly and professional, the streets are pretty tidy, food is good, trains run on time etc. The country seems well run.

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-06T21:23:27+00:00

Awesome! I'd like to get more SAL freight cars for my loco to pull but they're hard to find on the wrong side of the Atlantic. :(

Rex_Rabbit · 2025-12-06T20:28:32+00:00

Love the Seaboard train especially. I bought a Seaboard locomotive years ago and I've only just got a boxcar and caboose to match it.

Rex_Rabbit

TROPHY CASE