Terrain & Turning Key Project

[Zorcon]

I recently played 2 games of BFG with my 11 yo son (and surprisingly) my wife. I haven't played for probably 10-12 years so I was *very* rusty on the rules. The first game was pretty rough and took quite a long time to play, but the second game went much better. Basic rules IN vs SM 500 points.

Anyway, this isn't a BatRep. The games really inspired me to make some terrain! Back in the day I scratch built some orbital defenses, a large space station, and a bunch of large asteroids. But I wanted to have an option for all of the table top features mentioned in the BBB. I also liked the GW PDF article "New Phenomena". So I sat down at the computer and went to work. Here is what I have so far:



What you see here is a combination of original creations and modified Google finds. Here is a list of what is there:

Asteroid Field x6 (2 ea of 10 x 5 cm, 15 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm)
Asteroid Ring x9 (45° segments @ 30 x 7 cm)
Comet (20 x 5 cm)
Gas Belt x11 (150 liner cm @ 5 of 10 x 7 cm, 6 of 25 x 6 cm)
Gas Cloud x4 (1 ea of 15 x 2 cm, 30 x 6 cm, 20 x 12 cm, 10 x 25 cm) 4-6 more to come
Gas Ring 1 x9 (45° segments @ 35 x 10 cm)
Gas Ring 2 x9 (45° segments @ 24 x 5 cm)
Meteor Shower (15 x 5 cm)
Mine Field x6 (2 ea of 10 x 5 cm, 15 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm)
Small Planet (15 cm dia)
Small Planet (25 cm dia)
Medium Planet (32 cm dia)
Medium Planet (40 cm dia)
Large Planet (50 cm dia) Will be cut into 2 pieces
Large Planet (80 cm dia) Will be cut into 4 pieces
Plasma Cloud x3 (1 ea of 8 x 5 cm, 15 x 4 cm, 30 x 12 cm)
Vortex x2 (1 ea of 5 cm dia, 15 cm dia)
Warp Rift x3 (1 ea of 30 x 5 cm, 15 x 10 cm, 20 x 10 cm)
Sun-ward Edge x2 (80 x 4 cm) Will be cut into 2 pieces

I also plan on making a huge planet edge (90-120cm wide, 20-35 cm deep), similar to the sun-ward edge piece above, to place along a table edge including atmosphere, low orbit, high orbit, and a gravity well.  I have ideas for some scratch built planetary defenses and I think this will make a great scenario/battlescape. If it works out, I will probably make something similar to indicate low orbit and a gravity well of each of the 6 planets above.

When playing, I noticed my wife and son really struggled with the fiddly movement process. I sketched out an idea and cut out a prototype during the game. It worked well so I moved to the design process. This is what I came up with:



The "divots" are meant to be placed on the post of the flying stand. I also have a 20 cm version of the Range Key. After a few more games I will decide if I need and additions or adjustments.

[horizon]

Hey, nice work. 

[Jimmy Zimms]

yeah that's triple gold platinum work!

[Zorcon]

Thanks guys! I've really gone nuts on this project!

[connahr]

these are brilliant, especially the firing and turning keys

[fracas]

Awesome!

[Zorcon]

Thanks fracas and connahr!

I did a little more work on my terrain project.



After some thought, I decided to adjust the color of all the gas/dust clouds/rings/belts to the same colors. I figured it would be less confusing to tell which phenomena is which.

Then I made an Asteroid Belt, the optional sun-ward edges, and some moons. I also added pieces so there were more pieces for most types of phenomena.





Here are a couple 120cm x 240cm tables I mocked up. I rolled up the terrain randomly. The first table is Deep Space, and the second is the Outer Reaches. I am really liking how this is looking digitally. The one thing I noticed is the asteroid fields are too square.

I printed out a handful of samples at my local print shop. I used the thickest paper the printer could use, 12pt cover stock. Unfortunately, it wasn't thick enough. I glued the pieces to black construction paper and that did the trick. When I print the final pieces, I am considering printing on a large format printer and having the whole thing lamented with a matte finish.

HA! I just noticed I placed the phenomena in the wrong orientation to the sun-ward edge on the second table!

[Zorcon]

So, I was reading through a couple of BFG Magazines I downloaded from the Google Drive that were missing from my collection. I discovered that the 'New Phenomena' article I am partially basing this project on is actually from BFGM issue 17, page 18.

[sricardos2000]

Very Nice, I'm a fan of 3D terrain myself but those planets look so good I think i might be turned...

[Zorcon]

Posted by: sricardos2000

I'm a fan of 3D terrain myself but those planets look so good I think i might be turned...

Thank you! I started out creating digital phenomena only for pieces that are too big, or too unwieldy to make physical representations of (ie a 50cm dia planet). But once I got into it, I ended up making a digital version of about every option! My latest additions are a trio of Debris Fields:



But I am also a fan of 3D terrain! I consider these digital pieces like area terrain in 40k. Much like a forest,  I will place physical asteroids on the asteroid field like this:



While I'm at it, here are more pics of my existing terrain and scratch-built defenses:



I apologize for the dusty bases and the giant space cat that shed all over the local system! 

[sricardos2000]

Woah ho ho! that is impressive. The asteroids look very convincing. What are the blue ones? Ice maybe?

The forest base idea is good one, much more practical for actual gaming.

The asteroid base is a work of art...i never did work out how to paint convincing white shading like that.

In terms of 3D terrain I've been having fun with nebulas and my new 'Mars-like' planet. Low res picture I know but hey I was busy fighting chaos scum.

[Zorcon]

The blue asteroids are painted coral. I always intended them to have special rules, but never settled on anything... alien creature, exotic material, ice.

Thanks. I will likely do the same with mine fields.

Thank you. So far all of my "defense" models are in that white/gold scheme (ie a unique fleet color) with the idea I could use them with any/most of my fleets.

Nice work!

On another note, I've always liked the idea of hidden dangerous terrain in FB/40k. The Star-Wars-inspired-creature-in-an-asteroid was meant to be just that--The first time you make contact/get near an asteroid field, there is a 1-in-6 chance it is inhabited with said creature. We never used it in a game, so again, I never settled on any rules, but I figured it would gobble up ordinance, and maybe a ram attack vs ships (only escorts?)

[ale_box]

Nice Stuff! Where can we find the Hi res images?
thanks

[Zorcon]

I will definitely share hires files when project is completed!