The ramshackle streets of Carngrad continue to grow. I’m still working my way through my Warcry terrain, a little bit at a time. This belltower proved to be a right nightmare to paint if I’m honest but I’m happy enough with the results (in that I didn’t give up altogether and take myself off in a sulk!).
It’s one of those pieces that I might well have pushed to the side of the painting desk and studiously ignored for a few months, but the Sixty Day Miniatures Of Magnitude challenge from Ann’s Immaterium came along at just the right moment. Calling on participants to tackle the bigger items in our backlogs it gave me the push I needed to get my head down and finish the damn thing, despite the temptation to cry off, so thanks are owed to Ann there. Anyone else in a similar situation should give the challenge a look, it’s open to anything bigger than an ogre and you’ve got until the 3rd of July to tackle it.
By my eye, and I may be jinxing myself of course, I think that was the hardest of the ruins to paint so it should get easier again from here. Then again I can’t quite put my finger on why I found it so tricky – apart from that the skeletons were a little fiddly. Either way I’m planning to get torn in about the rest of the ruins soon and finish off the set, then turn my attention to making some chaos-warped terrain of my own.
Convert or Die 
May 15th, 2020 at 10:27 am
That’s fantastic, very horrifying! The highlights on this piece really hit the spot, especially the effect on the wood planks.
May 16th, 2020 at 10:04 am
Thank you! It’s pretty grim isn’t it? I love the way they’ve captured the vibe of a ruined civilisation that Chaos tribes have come along and “decorated”.
May 16th, 2020 at 8:18 pm
It’s certainly atmospheric! The bell is so ominous as well, like it’s about to start ringing out and attracting all manner of gruesome beasts to its location.
May 17th, 2020 at 12:57 pm
Ooh, I can just picture that! To me it says it all that whilst the rest of the town has fallen into utter ruin the bell is still hanging there, apparently undamaged. Surely some dread power is at work…
May 15th, 2020 at 10:36 am
A very nice bit of scenery that will look great on the table top.
May 16th, 2020 at 10:14 am
Cheers! Yeah, I think it’ll add a lot to the set overall, should make it start to look more like a town and not just a collection of ruins.
May 15th, 2020 at 5:37 pm
Looking good and I like the gibbets. (Who doesn’t like a nice-painted gibbet after all?) This is the sort of high terrain centerpiece that is great in games to have special rules or objectives and such taking advantage of the multi-level, flat surfaces that allow for placement of multiple models. I’m thinking of skirmish games here are larger games that allow for skirmisher type units; this sort of thing might be harder to pull off in purely block infantry games without some requisite house rules.
In any case, great piece, and I’m glad the challenge helped motivate you to finish it and with plenty of time to spare too!
May 16th, 2020 at 10:19 am
Cheers! Yeah, it should work well especially for things like Warcry where you can have models leaping off the top gantry onto other buildings or into the street below. In something like WHFB it would just have blocked large units of troops trying to march past, and perhaps the odd character would have climbed up there to admire the view. They play to different strengths though, I do like games like WHFB but for really nuanced, cinematic interaction with the landscape you can’t beat a skirmish game.
May 16th, 2020 at 5:38 pm
Yes, that makes sense. I wonder if a fun scenario for a block infantry game could be constructed such that there are a bunch of objectives (too many for one side to protect all at once) and each side has a bunch of single characters. There could be rules where if the character comes within X” of an enemy unit then they have to roll some sort of save or be removed, and they could be ignored by enemy units otherwise. The idea would be that your special rules characters, represented by a single model, have to occupy certain objectives and if they do you get victory points. Either per turn, a la the Cards in 40K, or all at the end, a la the Eternal War missions.
Might be a fun experiment to mix in some use of terrain, that tends to happen in skirmish games, with the sort of fun that happens in block unit games?
May 15th, 2020 at 7:50 pm
Nice bit of terrain- adds a bit of verticality to the board.
Cheers,
Pete.
May 16th, 2020 at 10:20 am
Thanks! I’m looking forward to seeing someone leaping from the top to savage some poor unfortunate below (or getting thrown off head first by a victorious rival of course!). 😀
May 15th, 2020 at 11:04 pm
Tidy job mate – being a lazy sod, I think I would’ve left the skellies off… Kudos to you for NOT being a lazy sod and actually including them!! Looks better for it🤘😎
May 16th, 2020 at 10:29 am
Cheers dude! I was sorely tempted to leave the skellies off, they did make it much trickier to paint. I’m glad I stuck with them though, even though they did have me grinding my teeth for a bit there.
May 16th, 2020 at 10:07 am
I do like the look of the bell tower model. Nice job on this mate, needs more skulls though ;P
May 16th, 2020 at 10:30 am
Thank you! Good point, will make sure I rectify that with the next one 😉
May 17th, 2020 at 6:53 am
That’s brilliant, Wudugast! There’s a certain feeling of accomplishment you get for pushing through something that’s annoying to paint, glad you finished it as the end result looks great.
May 17th, 2020 at 1:02 pm
Thank you! Yup, I’m in full agreement, it’s like breaking through the pain barrier and if the end result looks good it was all worthwhile 🙂
May 18th, 2020 at 3:52 am
Nice vertical big model – and all the detail is cool – well painted!
May 18th, 2020 at 5:24 am
Thank you! 🙂
June 28th, 2020 at 2:05 am
That looks great.. but yeah… assembly (for me) looks horrifying!
July 1st, 2020 at 8:09 pm
Oh yeah, assembling that little lot was a mammoth task. I moved house just before the lockdown happened here and at the old house there was a nice sheltered space outside that I could use to spray on undercoats. The new place doesn’t really have anywhere suitable (the only thing I don’t really like about it though) so I cracked on with building and spraying all the buildings in this set before we moved. If that hadn’t given me the push to crack on with it I’d probably still be putting it off. God was that really only a few months ago, it seems like years…
July 1st, 2020 at 11:21 pm
Yeah, this year has been like that. One of the Wrestlng News Youtube/Podcasts I listen to has taken to referring to things that happened a couple of months ago in the manner of “Seven years ago, in April 2020….”
I think they’re right on the money. And yet, we’re now halfway through the year already?