Day 6... last day before the big game and unveiling of the bunker

So the last day is upon us. Thanks to my partner he does all the priming in the morning while I have errands to run. This is what I walked in to that morning.


A very impressive structure but with much work left to do on it. I convince him to start on the muddy area as I planned to use three colors and layer it up to give it a nice churned mud look to it. Started with scorched brown, then heavy dry brush of bestial brown, followed lastly by vermin brown for the highlights. I think it turned out well and this was also my friend's first try at a heavy dry brush. He got enough practice on this terrain piece now though and is probably an expert on it now. So here is the first layer.


I didn't take pics of the complete layering of the mud but here is one more completed look at the base and also us starting on the grey colors. Namely the dragon's teeth and inside the bunker. I also went ahead and worked on the outside of one of the pillboxes. I did the right side dragon's teeth and my friend using the technique he picked up doing the mud went to town on the rest of them. He did a damn fine job with it too. Hope the close up can show that. You can also see a better picture of the mud as well in it I hope.


We got pumped and zipped through the base.


The morning of the game my partner in crime cleaned up the area around the table for some clean pics to be taken. Note the comm array, my partner is the one that did that whole thing by himself. Also note the various items on the roof to provide cover to the forces on top.


The above picture is with all the modular pieces disassembled. Below you'll see the final product completely assembled.

Finally on the table for the megabattle. We were greeted with some very nice praise from the other participants and the game moderator and the push to get it done was worth it. Here was a worthy piece for centering the imperial lines.

And so that wraps up the bunker. Just so you know we had two 5 man Marine squads in the side pillboxes, a unit of HtH Termies in the bottom with a tooled up inquisitor Lord and retinue, second level had two ten man IG squads. Third Level had one ten man IG squad and the Company Command Squad. The roof had a Vindicare assassin and an Autocannon Squad. The only place that felt "crowded" was the roof and that was mainly because of the big heavy weapon bases. Great fun was had by all and much carnage insued. The imperials won 1-0 and claimed victory for the second Lucky 13s Megabattle.

Now have to finish that Mordant 13 ShadowSword. Atleast it's assembled and primed now. Time to sling paint...

Day 5

So Day 5 was a huge success. We hit the ground running and had a plan and goal in mind. Mainly to get everything assembled and based. Then primed to let sit overnight to begin the painting on Day 6 morning. We also planned to get the second and third level glued together and to dry over night. Then primed in the morning and finally painted in the evening.

It's time to get started. We gathered up the finished base and placed some newspaper underneath it to help control the overflow of the basing material.



So what is our materials list for such a massive area? Why two sturdy brushes, 3 bottles of white glue, and last but not least... lots of basing material.


We started by both of us taking the area in sections. Once that was done I went ahead and poured the sand on it while my compatriot in arms continued on with "painting" on the glue. I must stress this, if you have a massive project and a tight time line. Find yourself a reliable partner and divvy up the tasks. We managed to get a lot more done each night because we worked as a team.


Below is the final based terrain piece. We left it to dry and began working on other things.

So now comes the hard part. Making the actual modular second and third levels as well as the roof. So using wood glue and our little supports we very carefully and much cussing later (lessons learned here, make a better plan on the actual bunker pieces and add a day to allow you to be more patient) we finished up the two additional levels.


Some nifty adhoc construction frame work (this was one of the lessons.)

With the second level dried for about an hour we test fitted the first piece. It was a little tight mainly due to the first level leaning in slightly while drying that first evening. Again lesson learned. I know now a better way to build the bunkers. Also as you will see later on, we decided that we also need to use better and smoother wood. This stuff while cheap tended to splinter when sawing or cutting or even just painting.

Now it really looked like it was coming together nicely. So off to prime this beast.


Once again the time was late so it was time for me to head home and crash. Real life chores had to be done way too early in the morning but I felt happy that the priming was done on the main board and that tomorrow the final steps would commence.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

It's done

Well the bunker is done. Finished painting it this evening. I will post the last two days of work after tomorrow. I want the bunker to be a nice surprise to the local people that follow this blog. I'll also get a couple pics of it in action.

Stay tuned

Day 4

Unfortunately I don't have a lot to report today about last night, got stuck at work late and had to build 4 servers for today. So anyway, the only thing that got done last night was the completion of the comm tower:



I also went home to hopefully unwind and crash but got stuck with being awake after the drive home. (hate that) So I went ahead and finished the shadowsword:


Now to prime and paint that sucker, will probably prime tonight after work. Going to try and get over to my friends early tonight to hopefully get the bunker knocked out and assembled tonight and hopefully primed so we can start painting tomorrow so it's dry by Sunday.

Stay tuned

Day 3

Alrighty was too tired last night to post an update, so here we go. Headed over to my friends to get some more work done on the terrain piece. The down side is it was raining so we know that there would be no priming. That's okay though since we still had a bit of work to do on it. So we started putting together the base part of the bunker. First we needed to finish up the walls, put on doors and firing slits. We also decided to add some stuff to the bunker roof, like a comm array. So while my friend started working on that, I started on the doors.

This was my first pass at it. It was okay but lacked something, so we dug around his place to find some flourishes. This is what I came up with:

You can also see the side doors into the bunker above this. You can also barely see the outlines I have on the front wall for the firing slits. You'll see in a moment how it all looks together.


Here's the start of the comm tower. I didn't get more pic unfortunately because he also used those little pieces of wood next to the comm tower run a lattice work up the sides. I'll get more pics tonight hopefully of it. At this point I went out to cut the firing slits in the garage. So with that done it was time to go ahead and mark the outlines for the rest of the firing slits for levels 2 and 3. Now came the exciting part... let's put some of it together. Remember these?

These are added to the base level and this is what we got:

And a close up



So you might be asking... "Mr WildFerret... what can that base level hold?"

Well children... let's see

That's a squad of 5 Terminators and a Venerable Dreadnaught in there. And it still has room behind them for more troops if you wanted. The front door is big enough to get the dread base in and out since actual model size and terrain have to be taken into account. And yes they all fit height wise too:


So there you have it... end of Day 3 and it's all coming together really nice. Especially considering only getting to work on it a couple hours a night.

And here you go... a preemptive look at my next project...