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Home » Great Library at Hoeth » Tome of Creation » Scenery » NESS’ Terrainworkshop 5: Roads
| NESS’ Terrainworkshop 5: Roads |
| by LochNESS |
This artcle was written by me for Dicetroll.com and is one of the articles I've written on terrain for that website. It's a small forum getting slowly more active again after a long 'recession'. I've posted this by request of Ediblespread to get some more articles in the Library of Hoeth. For more articles follow the link to Dicetroll and go to articles there. You can find them in the 'Gaming Tutorials' section.
Roads
Roads are often the only fast routes through the Old World and many old civilizations have created roads through the dangerous lands of the Old World. Most hard roads (those made from stone) were constructed by the Elves and Dwarfs during their height of power, and have since then fallen into decay. However some parts are still being maintained by Imperial Counts, Bretonnian Dukes or Tilian Princes.
Further there are also many roads on Ulthuan and in Naggaroth, and the Cathayans have most likely constructed a large network as well. Within the Empire, Tilia and Estilia and Bretonnia are however most roads just dirt roads, though within the cities (especially in the first 3) roads are also made of stone for hygiene and watering reasons.
Roads also provide an nice look to the gaming table, even if you have no use for them terms of rules (WHFB). However, if you are interested in them, there is a set of trail rules posted in the general questions section of Warhammer Fantasy Battle section. Please try these rules, so I might continue an article about rules and maybe scenarios for the roads.
But now the question may arise: how do I construct a set of roads for myself? And if it’s possible at a decent price, because those Forgeworld things are EXPENSIVE!!! Well, that’s what I intended to explain here, so here we go. Note that prices are approx for the Netherlands and are in Euros, other countries could have other prices
· Hardboard plate (4’*4’)
· Woodglue (250ml for 3.50)
· Textured Wallpaper (6 meters for 9.00)
· Bird sand (5 kilos for 1.50)
· Chicken stones (5 kilos for 1.50)
· Static Grass (Long, 3.50 for 50 gram)
· Static Grass (Short 3.50 for 50 gram)
· Acrylic Paints: Black, Dark Brown, Medium Brown (approx 5.00 – 7.50 for 500 ml)
· GW Paints: Codex Grey, Bleached Bone (2.50 for 12ml)
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Total: 47.5 Euro
Some short notes on the costs. The initial costs of almost 47.50 Euro may seem a lot, I must note though that the investment in the Black, Dark and Medium Brown (and if you can a white, so you mix that with the Medium Brown and Black to get either Bleached Bone and Codex Grey) are well worth it. This is because the paint is much cheaper in the long run then using GW paints. And I can tell you, you can paint a lot with it. I did also my rivers with those colours, and the bases for my forests as well. And I’m still not halfway. The same goes for the bird sand (with little shells in it, and an anis smell) and chicken stones (you can buy this at a pet store) which will go along for your entire life (unless decide to do your gaming table with it).
Now we have gotten all the materials together it’s a good idea to make a plan of what kind of pieces you might want to have. I can suggest you would need a good number of long straight pieces to make the roads distance and have the space to place some buildings along it. I personally have constructed 3 different lengths. Some very long pieces of about 33cm, medium pieces of 15cm and short pieces of 10cm.
Further you might want to get some 90 degrees turns. Although these are not the most important making two of them is always a good idea. And some other pieces of 45 degrees change, I made 4 of those pieces to make some changes in the road direction here and there and combined they can make a straight angle again.
Last are the junctions of course. I made three T-junctions and one 4 way crossing. The exact choices are however yours and see your own pieces fit for your table or gaming ideas. And of course the space you have on the hardboard.
To get all the positions right and the most out of my hardboard, I drew the complete system on it first. This gives a good idea on what you can fit and gives a better measure for the size of the junctions and crossing, as well make the corners easier.
On the picture above you can see the roads I drew on it. The continuous lines show the total size of the roads, while the dotted lines are the actual road. The road is 11cm wide (5 small bases+ bit extra for movement trays) and the sides are approx 1,5 cm large. This gives some space to for nice blending into the table, static grass and some markers (like milestones, signs etc.)
After I had cut the roads from the hardboard using an electric jigsaw, I cut pieces from the textured wallpaper and made it fit for the road. So 11cm pieces and glued this to the hardboard using ordinary wood glue (see above).
When the glue had dried I used a rotary tool (like a Dremel) to sand the edges so they slope nicely into the gaming table. If you don’t have a rotary tool or your parents won’t let you use powertools, you could always fall back on the file. A large rough file will do the work as well, and pretty fast.
If you have finished that, your final result should look something like the picture above. You can see the slightly sloped edge. This doesn’t make such an abrupt transition like a straight edge. So this takes only little extra effort for making better-looking terrain.
After this step, I painted the textured wallpaper with the acrylic black paint. You could also use GW Chaos Black, but that would cost you a fortune. Another option might be spray paint. When this was totally dried, I applied bird sand to the edges. For this I used wood glue. I also applied patches of sand here and there on the road and made the edges between the road and side a bit ‘blurred’ by also applying some glue on the outer edge of the road to make it blend it more into the piece of scenery. The result should have some likeliness to the image below.
Now the roads were drybrushed with Codex Grey and afterwards lightly with Fortress Grey to give texture to the roads. When this was dried up, the sand was painted with dark acrylic brown paint, drybrushed with a lighter acrylic brown paint and finally very lightly with Bleached Bone. Your roads are now gaming ready.
I personally did not attach static grass to the roads, but as a finishing touch you could add some static grass to it and maybe some shrubs to give it a good Warhammer Fantasy feel and bring the roads more alive. However, I also wanted to use my roads in Warhammer 40k City fights. So by using small loose bits and pieces mounted on small bases I can still give it a fantasy feel or 40k feel depending on what game I play.
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