About a year ago I purchased a Mantic Mystery box, and in this case a Terrain Crate. The plan was to get painting the massive amount of terrain but I was distracted with other projects. I finally started to get around to painting some of the scatter. This was done with a combination of normal and contrast paints, as the plan was to get them painted and table-top ready for gaming.

Last year I bought one of Mantic’s Mystery Terrain boxes, which was jam packed full of scatter terrain pieces. So I finally made an effort to get some paint on a number of them. These were painted with a mixture of normal and contrast paints. The aim was to get them painted as quickly as possible with the aim of getting them table ready asap.

I’ve finished a few buildings for the Asian gaming board. The idea is to develop a board for Asian games set in almost any period with a change in scatter terrain.

I also tried my hand at freehand painting an Asian shop sign, it says The Temple Jin. I copied the wrong image. I was supposed to copy the one that said Dumpling restaurant lol.

I’ve had some scatter terrain for a variety of genres that have been sat in a box unpainted for nearly 10 years. So I finally decided to dig them out and actually get some paint slapped on them.

The mixture includes some weird fantasy plants with scary man-eating mouths, and some bits and bobs suitable for Bolt Action.

I have a number of terrain pieces in boxes that I’m slowly trying to get painted whilst in lockdown. Here are some the finished pieces so far.

I have numerous pieces of terrain in a variety of scales that need to painting, so whilst I’m stuck at home during the lockdown I’ve been trying to get as many as humanly possible painted.

One of these is a water fountain in resin by Airfix, it’s 1/72 scale but will happily work for 15mm and 28mm. I painted this is a simple grey colour with some shading using Nuln oil. I then added weathering powders to make it look more weather beaten. A very quick and dirty paint job to get it tabletop ready. I picked this up about a year or so ago in Home Bargains for about 3 quid.

I’ve had this tower from Games Workshop built for several years and for some reason I’ve never managed to get any paint on it. So I decided over the Christmas holiday to finally whack some paint on it. I decided to go with a simple paint scheme, and finish it of with weathering powders to give it a weather beaten look.

Finally I had a couple of farm building in 10-15mm, now I bought these back in 2011 and didn’t do anything with them, mainly because I didn’t get around to purchasing and painting a 15mm army. In the last 12 months I’ve started armies in this scale for Flames of War and Team Yankee. So I decided now was the right time to get some paint on them. This was done using a simple and quick paint scheme making use of contrast, washes and a couple of normal paints.

As part of the Chinese/Asian town project, I wanted to add a gateway similar in style to one I saw at the movie town set in Shenyang.

Paifang or Gateway

I’d seen traditional Japanese Tori style gateways, but nothing that looked similar to a Chinese Paifang. Then I spotted a Tori on E-bay that could pass as a Chinese version. Eventually I will build an entrance with a more traditional Chinese Paifang, but for now the E-bay find will do.

A paifang, also known as a pailou, is a traditional style of Chinese architectural arch or gateway structure. Evolved from the Indian subcontinent’s torana through the introduction of Buddhism to China, it has developed many styles and has been introduced to other East Asian countries, such as Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.

The gateway I purchased on E-bay came in two parts and was 3D printed. The first thing I had to do was give it a quick wash before applying a white undercoat.  The roof I tried to give a terracotta colour, and then the supporting element under neath I painted a bright blue.

I was going to paint the struts and poles a bright colour but decided to go with a dark wood colour instead. The model itself was quite nice and at a reasonable price and would definitely purchase a 3D printed model again.

Bridges

I needed a couple of bridges for the game table to go over a planned river. I don’t plan to stick the bridges down permanently so I can place them wherever I want. There are plenty of different types of Asian style bridges on the market for a variety of prices. I decided to go with the TT Combat bridges simply because they came in a pair and they aren’t too elaborate in design.

The style I wanted are called Moon Bridges and are high arch foot bridges generally associated with both China and Japan. This type of bridge was originally designed to allow pedestrians to cross canals while allowing the passage of barges beneath. When constructed using the climbing ascent and descent, it has the further advantage of not using space from the adjoining fields for approaches to the bridge.

The two bridges from TT Combat were really easy and quick to build. I painted them both using contrast straight on to the wood without an undercoat. The blue dried a little darker than I had hoped for but it’s fine as is.

At the start of this year I planned to build a gaming table utilizing the Sarrissa terrain tiles.The plan for the project is to build a generic Asian town that could easily fit into 19/20th Century Asia, with specific influence from China.

On a trip to China a couple of years ago I visited a permanent movie set just outside of Shenyang. It was basically an early 20th Century town, so I decided I’d use this as my first point of reference in building the gaming table.

I put a project up on the On Table Top website here (https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1381838/) which hosts a lot of the image I took at the set. This should give me a good reference point for a sample of the types of buildings I could use and colors.

Since the UK went into lockdown and my company furloughed me I’ve been able to catch up on a lot of hobby projects and painting tasks.This has included being able to build and paint some of the buildings I currently have for this project idea. I’ve not been able to make a start on the tiles themselves because we went into lockdown before I was able to pop down to my nearest Wilko and hardware store. So for now I’m concentrating on building and painting the buildings I have.

The first two buildings I have are two dark age dwellings from Renedra, both of which cost £5. These will be used as rural farm homes, fortunately they’re pretty generic looking and will pass as homes for poor farmers. The build on both of these buildings was very easy and quick to complete.

I gave them a quick paint job and didn’t want to spend to much time on these, as once they’re placed on to the tiles, and the rest of the scenic elements are added, you won’t really notice the paint work.

The next building I built and painted was the Ramshackle Barn by Renedra, this costs around £19 though I recieved mine as a gift for xmas from a  friend. The plan with this is to use it as a workshop/barn on the outskirt of the town, that no longer in use.

The build was relatively simple and quick to put together, being hard plastic meant it didn’t take long for the glue to set. I gave it an undercoat in white, for the wood I used a combination of washes, inks and contrast paint to build up the appropriate color. The roof tiles were done the same way, but I also added a dry brush step with grey.

The next three building I have are MDF Table Top Scenics from the Eastern Empires range, the Kura Storehouse (£10), Small Minka A (£6.95) and Machiya Shop Front (£4.95). These are slightly slower kits to build due to glue drying time, with them being MDF. I plan to build and finish these in the next week or so. I also plan to purchase the following buildings from this range as well Oriental Bridges and Lanterns, Small Minka C and both sets of Eastern Accessories which are produced in resin.

Eastern Empires

Renedra 

I’ve been collating some project materials for a few months and I’ve decided to make an initial start. The first thing to do was to lay out the Sarissa tiles and start making down what I want on them. The first thing I realised was I’ll need another pack of tiles in a few months time.

The thin tiles would be used as a river, with a bridge and jetty. Also as I have one of the building built, that would be the first tile I’ll work on. This will form part of the town tiles. I have two other town buildings, so to begin with three tiles from this set will form part of the town.

Other buildings I have will be used as rural locations, small poor peasant farms.  I’ll need some additional materials for these locations which might require scratch building fencing and small out buildings.

I also have some resin Terracotta Army pieces which are large enough to be used as statues, which means I can build an ancient ruins location on the board.