Warfare Viewpoints - Miniaturised

(Intelli-Gaming: Article)

I am happy to present more pieces of miniature scenery that I have created over the years to improve the looks of my battlefields. Those battlefields are used for war-games such as Warhammer and WH40K. This current article is the 3rd in this series. Here are links to the previous two:

• Battlefield Scenery

• Create the scenery that you love

Also, while on the subject, here are previous articles that I published regarding those subjects:

• Miniature scenery

• Drilling miniatures

• Heavy Gear Elite Southern Militia Squad

Without further ado, here are today's newly presented pieces. Let me know in the comments which ones you prefer or any suggestions you might have.

1 - Column of Skulls

I built this around 1993 / 1994. The monument is inspired and somehow dedicated to Khorne, which is the God of War in the fantasy game Warhammer. Khorne is in fact a God of Chaos, of which there are four total: Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh. I have written an article previously about Tzeentch where I observed what Change itself means and why it is so important (see the article here: Fate Weaving Entropy Hating Tzeentch). Khorne itself is the also known as the god of blood, war and battle.

Back to the column itself, I wanted to show some lava spewing out as if the construction was partly magical and partly natural and resulted in a volcanic effect. In fact, now that I think about it, I recall that it wasn't what I wanted at first. What happened is that the clay I was using dried and then cracked. So that is why I decided to paint the cracks with some red, orange and yellow.

The skulls (and noses) were modelled by hand. I also added an extra "Khorne" symbol to push the notion that this was a Chaotic element of the battlefield. Here is the Khorne symbol by itself, for reference:

The centre for the column was built from the same material I often use: polystyrene foam (which I often call by its brand name: Styrofoam). Around the base I layered some clay to mould the skull shapes. I then used the same technique as before with white glue and grass particles to create a grass effect at the base of the pillar.

Over the years, some parts of the column have been damaged and were chipped away. Other portions have also fallen but luckily, I managed to recuperate this larger part and glue it back on. Those pieces of scenery are fragile and for them, moving from house to house is demanding. It is also demanding on me, who has to wrap them all up, make sure them don't move or hit other objects and don't get crushed by other items.

Overall I had a ton of fun building that piece. It was one of the first pieces that I did with clay. I learned my lesson the hard way: Clay will crack when it dries unless you take specific steps to prevent it.

2 - The Sponsors!

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3 - Small rock formation and small hill

The following two elements show how these pieces can be combined together to form more complex pieces. The first is the small rock formation:

The small hill covered with rocks was carved entirely out of a piece of polystyrene foam. This was amongst one of the first pieces I ever did and the grass flock is the older type that I use to have. That particular flock (as seen in the image) has longer fibres within it and the result is not as realistic as with the other types of flock. Given the fact that this piece is nearly 30 years old, it has accumulated a good layer of dust and I had to dust it off before taking the newer pictures for this article. Dusting off those pieces is not easy because the grass flock itself can come off. I am always careful where I do this because I have the experience of having to clean off a lot of small particles afterwards.

As you can see from underneath, the bottom surface is unpainted and the shows the original material. This is what I refer to as "Styrofoam" (polystyrene foam).

The next image shows another small hill, which was created at around the same time and which has no rocks on top of it. This way, both can be combined at will and this gives you more possibilities to create various pieces of scenery as you see fit.

The small hill can be used by itself, of course, although it is not one of my favourites. I prefer larger hills since I own a High Elf army and that army makes heavy use of archers and ballistas, both of which benefit from a deployment on top of a hill. The benefit is that it allows those ranged attackers to get a clean shot above their comrade's heads. Basically, this means that from the top of the hill, they have LOS (Line of Sight) to the enemy troops.

Coming Up Next

Next will be additional pieces as I go trough my collection of scenery pieces. Currently, in the world surrounding my imagination, battle lines are being drawn. Alliances are forged, mortal enemies are designated and as I mentioned before, "The Great Game" as portrayed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard, is enabled once more. So, coming up is more miniature scenery! Follow me here: https://read.cash/@Librarian. Thanks for your time.