"Standing Stones"

A Modelling Masterclass by Tony Harwood

Master modeller Tony Harwood takes us step by step through the creation of a simple but tremendously functional piece of terrain that can be used for many different games systems. 

~

December last year saw the launch of a new game from Maveryc Games. S.P.Q.oRc – Pax Bochemannica, which pitches brutish Orc Legionnaires against equally uncouth Boche Halflings. I was lucky enough to be involved in some of the pre-production work and built some themed terrain pieces which were to be used at the demonstration games in 2013. The game was withdrawn from sale and didn't get a full release. However, the terrain I designed has a place in many game settings, here is one of the pieces I designed for it, a ring of standing stones.

~

On a visit to my Mother-in-Laws, I picked up a pocketful of suitable stones, one large central stone and some smaller flint shards.

I cut a simple circle from some 3mm thick plastic card, the sort that sign makers use and chamfered the edges.

Here you see a ‘mock-up’ of the planned piece.

I attached a smaller ring of plastic card to the centre of the bigger one and superglued the largest stone in place. I have reinforced the base of the stone with odd scraps of plastic card, superglue and glue from my Hot Glue gun.

The smaller stones were attached in a similar way with the foundations built-up from DAS modelling clay.

I choose to add five smaller standing stones and used DAS to ‘blend them in’ to the groundwork. When this was finished I added some sieved stones and fine sand to the base over a dilute coat of uPVA glue.

Here you see all the modelling finished and awaiting a coat of paint.

Painting was very simple; the base was first basecoated with Beastial Brown and then highlighted with Snakebite Leather/Beastial Brown and later Snakebite/Skull White.

The standing stones were left unpainted and simply drybrushed with Grey and Grey/White. Small individual stones were picked out with a mix of Chaos Black and Skull White. When fully dry, the whole base was washed with Sepia and Black washes from Citadel.

I flocked the base with a mix of static grass, static grass tufts and some ground foam.

A simple (and very cheap) piece of terrain that would be at home in many game settings.

~

Webmaster's Notes

An Orcs in the Webbe Original! "Standing Stones" was written exclusively for Orcs in the Webbe and was first published on the 9th December 2013 as part of it's 2013 Advent Calendar. 

Pax Bochemannica (or Pax Boche as it's affectionately known) is a 'heroic' scale set of miniature skirmish rules pitching Orcs of the Noman Empire (as the name suggests, based on the Roman Empire) against the Halfling Boche (based on the varied tribes of Britain around the time of Boudica). Pax Boche was released after rigourous playtesting early in 2013 but sadly was withdrawn from sale soon after release, now it's back!

The miniatures are available to buy from the MiniFigs website here. They really are wonderfull character miniatures and well worth a look if alternate history featuring fantasy races is your kind of thing (and if you're still reading this, it probably is ;) )

The rules are also available to buy, either the standalone rules if you've got the miniatures, or in the superb value boxed set.

Craig Andrews
December 2013