How To: Quick Rubble Bases for Your Warhammer 40k or IHMN Figures

Whether you need to base your Warhammer 40k Space Marines or a Brick Lane Company for IHMN, we have a quick rubble technique for you. Start with some coarse ballast or you can pick up a bag of Lizard Litter at a local pet supply store. It is made of crushed walnut shells. For the larger brick pieces, chop up old left over sprues from your models.

It doesn't matter if you use a slotted base, coin or Renedra base, they all work the same. Using any craft glue, apply a liberal amount to your base and sprinkle on the coarse material. Then place one or two chunks of the sprue.

Once thoroughly dry, paint it all with a coat of black.

Add  heavy coat of dark grey...

and then a coat of medium grey.

For variety we glued on some grey medium ballast...

then applied a final drybrush of  light grey.

There you have it, nice and easy. The same technique works for basing any terrain piece you might build.

Have a Great Battle
The Old Crow

Steam & Aether from Meridian Miniatures, Steampunk Armies!

Meridian Miniatures creator and sculptor Andrew May has been working on his own Steampunk army miniature range.  His KickStarter goals were met and miniatures should be out in the near future.

The 28mm miniatures can be used as either two distinct armies or with a bit of imagination, can fit into many different settings.

Maybe a new force from the dark reaches of Prussia to overtake those Scotland Yard chaps "In Her Majesty's Name". .

Meridian miniatures have all been sculpted with optional heads making them extremely flexible in their application to many game settings.


Just look at all the heads!!!










Keep looking there's more!!

Andrew has primarily designed the miniatures to fit with the world setting of "Steam & Aether" that he is currently creating. A back story written with Mark Latham, formerly the editor of White Dwarf magazine and head of Warhammer 40,000 for Games Workshop, is now being posted on the Steam & Aether Blog.

For his game development and world building updates you can follow his blog at http://steamandaether.blogspot.co.uk/

The rules will be free PDFs, that's right, FREE! Also they'll be updated with each release and both the rules and miniatures range will expand to more factions and machines over the coming months.

Hope you have a great battle!
The Old Crow

How To Build Scale Wooden Fences for IHMN or Historical Wargames

 Here we go with a quick How To project. We'll show you how to build wooden fences for In Her Majesty's Name or other general historical wargames. These would work very well with WWII or even Civil War games.

To start you'll need some foam board, wooden sticks, squared off toothpicks, coarse ballast and sand. We used black foamcore and for sticks we used balsa, coffee stirrers and craft sticks.

TIP: keep any old vitamin or other containers that have a flip top or shaker top. You can store and dispense sand or ballast from them.

We cut the foamcore to 4 inch by .75 inch, approx 200 mm x 20 mm for our base.

Trim the edges at approximately 45 degree angles..

then using a hobby knife trim the edges at an angle. The rougher the better.

Next, cut a gap down the center of the base wide enough for your sticks.

Cut your sticks to varying heights and take notches and chunks from the top and edges. These will come to play during the painting stages.

Using the toothpicks, cut two of them to reach across the back of the fence and glue them into place as supports. We did one across the top. You can put one at the top and bottom if you'd prefer.

To secure all the vertical boards, apply craft or hobby glue along the front and back of the fence base. Before the glue dries press coarse ballast into it...

then spread sand into the gaps to cover the rest of the glue.

Once dried you'll have your fences ready for painting.

Base the fences with black, we used black rustoleum primer. We did apply a coat of acrylic paint to the edges of the foamcore so that the spray paint would not dissolve the foam.

Paint the first coat with a dark brown, We used Burnt Umber.

Next apply a liberal coat of medium brown.

Then a dry-brush of Territorial Beige, a light brown.

Finally a light dry-brush to highlight all the rough edges. We used Barn Wood to add age to the fences. We also applied a bit extra to some boards to give variety to the pieces.

Make sure to get highlight on the cross supports on the back.

For the rocky base we painted a rough coat of Medium Grey then a dry-brush of Light Grey.

You can add touches of static grass or flock to the base. We used a mixture of old spices and Coarse Turf. The old spices give a look of dead or dry plant life you'd likely find in a war torn area. For some flare you could place a barrel or other piece of scenery on the fence bases.

And there you have it, simple wooden fences, easily and quickly built for use in any of your wargames.

Place along a wharf for your game of In Her Majesty's Name...

or in the hills of a European hamlet being liberated by your Allied troops.

Have a Great Battle,
The Old Crow

Space Marine Stalker/Hunter New Release for Warhammer 40K

We missed this one from last month, the new Warhammer 40K Space Marine vehicle box set can build either the Stalker, or the Space Marine Hunter.

With the plethora of new aircraft for Warhammer 40K this new kit will create an anti-aircraft tank to be reckoned with. The Space Marine Stalker can target multiple enemies, stitching the skies with a hail of armor piercing bullets.

The Space Marine Hunter, meanwhile, scours the enemies from the skies with its surface-to-air missiles.

The main weapon of the Space Marine Stalker is the Icarus stormcannon array; whilst the Skyspear missile launcher is the primary gun of the Space Marine Hunter.

Whichever version you choose to make, there are options to include re-enforced armor on the sides of the tank, as well as pneumatic pins along the base.

Both variants are built upon the Space Marine Rhino hull which is included in this set. This includes a back ramp which can be left unglued so that it opens and closes; interior detail including a control panel with spare boltgun; and 2 side hatches that can be glued open or closed.

Also included is a sprue of vehicle upgrades with which even more detail can be added to the model. There are a choice of 2 top hatches 1 of which has the option to mount a storm bolter.

You get enough parts to make either a Space Marine gunner within a turret, or an automated weapons system; a hunter killer missile; a pintle-mounted storm bolter; a sensor array; a searchlight; 2 smoke launchers; 2 towing hooks; and a name plate for the tank.

The Space Marine range is designed so that all of the plastic parts can be swapped between different kits.

The Space Marine Stalker is no exception, as it uses the Rhino hull in its construction many of the parts found on other Space Marine vehicles can be added to this, allowing the opportunity to create truly unique collections of miniatures.

Have a Great Battle,
The Old Crow