Monday 19 October 2015

EXT: Ancient Barrow


Been a while since I did one of these!

This is built around a piece of plastic, something that once had a salad in it I think. Scalloped packaging with separate compartments to keep the meaty bits and leafy bits separate, that kind of thing. Pretty much the same function as the ancient burial mounds it now vaguely resembles, I suppose.


I've always been impressed, out in real life, at how unimpressive tumuli, barrows and similar prehistoric graves are. They just don't match my expectations - there I am, getting all Tolkeined up at seeing the appropriate symbol on the ordnance survey map, and after a mere three hours of hike against my loved ones will, what do you have to see? A lump, basically. Usually of mud. With grass and shit growing all over it, so that most of the time you can't even see the bloody thing.


Well, this is in a similar vein (despite the wildly exciting GW resin skull pile) - it's sort of a hill, sort of a 'difficult ground' marker, and it's got a bush growing on one side. Could have been anything, a nubbin of a tower, or a Bronze Age fort, or what have you. At least it's not another swamp, drippy frozen yoghurt effects aside, and it gives my battlefield options a little more height.

Not much height. When you bury people, you bury them lying flat, see. Keeps the overheads down.

I've got quite a lot of terrain now, I find. There are some more things on my final wish list before I feel I'm done - some roads, some rivers (with a bridge or at least a ford) and a battleboard of some description to lay it all on. Although that wish is probably downgrading to a battle mat these days. It's not really a downgrade any more, there's some very sharp stuff on the market these days. If sharp is the right word for Fantasy Carpet.

The dressing is some Citadel odds and ends (leaves off the Citadel Wood, a resin skull pile as previously mentioned, a section of DIY Movement Tray for flagstones) and some other debris from my cupboard - rocks, lolly sticks and a Reaper barrel.

Reverse angle. It's pretty rough and ready overall, I think I've done better. The rim round the edge could have been better disguised, although I'm telling myself that makes it look more like it was once a building or something. It does at least have a nice sunken bit down the middle, as though the grave chamber has collapsed. So that's nice.

This is going to get broken in (possibly literally, I should have reinforced the hollow interior a bit better) later this week. We'll be trying out Frostgrave, Stylus and I. Partly because it's got a good rep as something that fills a similar space to dear departed Mordheim. And partly as it's set in a recently thawed ruin, just like all my terrain. So tune in around Friday or so and we'll let you know how that works out!
 
Top down. It's about 10'x8' overall, and almost two inches high. Some hill.

Like bread, we rise. Sorry! Sorry, like Dead, we rise.
 

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