Season of Scenery 2025

                               To start, let's go with the short list of terrain/ vehicles that I have completed. 

Crimson Typhoon

    Another Pacific Rim action figured based for Mech Attack, his head was lost when our cat, Hubbie, started his own version of Mech Attack. I believe I know where it might be, just need to move a lot of stuff around.

Crimson Typhoon with previous year's, Gypsy Danger

Heart of Ghurr scatter terrain added to swamp base.

    Hope you enjoyed my lack of work this year. Okay, I know, I am giving myself a hard time, summer is always super busy with vacation and the like. I also made good progress on a bunch of my terrain, I was just hoping to have the Heart of Ghurr terrain off my desk by now.

The four largest pieces in the HoG box

    And here in no real order, the "in progress" terrain. First up are corridors I was experiment making out of cold coffee containers. Was thinking to use it for Space Hulk

    I picked up some cassettes (like over 100) for this terrain that Iron hands made for his Gundam models. I hope to use these for Battletech if my brother lets me without hexes. 

    

A quick Mordheim building? This was very rough, "eyeballed" the windows and only measured 3 inches for each level. I might use a template for my next building. That concludes my slideshow of terrain I have been experimenting with. Some more successful then others. 

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    As with the years previous, I get into building and painting terrain, so I will probably continue my Season of Scenery into September. Who's going to stop me? Dave? Well... he might...

Sending our love down the well

    Prairie Game Expo starts on October 5th, I am hoping to go set up Don't Look Back for some demos during the day. (It's too spooky to play at night!) With the trees finished, I went to work on my Annis Hag that I picked up from Sentry Box this summer.

    Killers have three qualities, MO, visage and trait. MO is how the Killer moves and is set up on the board. Visage is how the players react to the killer and traits are special rules, usually for how they attack. Mutilated is one of the visage which fits the Annis Hag perfectly. There also is ethereal, so I'll have to take a look for any spirits I could use. 

    

    Killers can be randomly rolled up or there are several pre-made in the rule book. In the new Core Rules, you can create your own Killer as well as let a player control the Killer. I haven't looked into the new rules much, maybe I will create a narrative setting with it's own killer! That is one of the reasons I picked up the new rules. 

    For the most part, I have all the terrain I need to play, but there is one plot (scenarios are called plots) that has the players preform a ritual at a well to summon an evil spirit killer. They, of course, instantly regret pissing off ancient evils and need to gather items to banish the ghost. Well, now I have a well. 

More like a pool for the Annis Hag

Killer Party!

Max beside the well

Max summoning the Old Ones.

    I'll probably paint up some more killers and some fences and bushes to add more variety to the board. As well as pick up a game mat to make sure everything stays flat.

Painted: 86 Troops, 4 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I was a bit out of sorts when I finished off these projects, I wasn't exactly sure where to go next. I settled on painting up some of my Warcry Slaves to Darkness warband as some of the new additions are just primed. This was before forming a solid plan for DLB.

Can't see the axe murderer through the trees

 

    Started out with pizza wedge shapes, then moved to more circular bases, which I prefer more. These foam boards might need some hard MDF glued to their back so they don't curl so much, as extra glue doesn't seem to help. Planning to purchase a 3' X 3' game mat soon, these might turn into play mats for my daughter if I can't figure out a solution.

Focus on the cute toddler, not my super warped boards

    Last year, I flocked a large amount of cheap Christmas tree from Micheal's, which like most terrain projects, got shelved immediately after I finished half of it. I find that I am super pumped by the project while creating terrain, but the mess and clean up makes it tough for me to get started. It's much easier to paint miniatures at a desk.

    That said, Season of Scenery has now ended and I find myself wanting to continue working on terrain. Spooky season is coming up soon and I want to start playing the second edition of Don't Look Back. I already have Coyote Manor and a camp site painted, would be nice to have some fences and one of the plots ( the scenarios in DLB) has a well as it's main focus. With these trees, as they would primarily be used for DLB, I was thinking of making their bases a bit more spooky, with body parts or skeletal remains. For now they are just normal forest trees.

Painted: -20 (10 small terrain)

Purchased: -43

Total: -23

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    Wow that total looks great! I am almost in striking distance of being positive for my painting. Oh wait no, I might have picked something big up....

Skirmish boards

 I picked up some smaller mdf boards for skirmish games. Easy to paint up and I was able to involve my daughter, she is 3, as well.

The urban board was created using the terrain tutor's guide. In his video, he is more efficient, building 4 boards at once. Easy enough to expand upon in the future though. Down the road I'll create a green space insert for the large grey area. The other idea I had was using the back for a grass area, but not sure how it would hold up if it was always being played on the opposite side. I had the intension of using this board for Super Mission Force, a super hero skirmish game, but Songs of Blades and Heroes and 100 point Ronin game or Fistful of Kung Fu could work if I went with more of a Big Trouble in Little China feel to the game.

    The next two pictures are 2 x 2 board that are double sided that my three year old daughter assisted with, she had a creative vision that I wasn't quite picking up on. Fishing 28, a non-combat skirmish game, is what I plan to play on the water board, but add in some docks and it could fit any genre.

Water side

   

    Full thrust, a space combat game, would fit on this board, but Super Mission Force could also make an appearance too! Could start a grand story of supers fighting in outer space then land on earth only to be pulled into the water! Oooo guess I could start painting up heroclix miniatures with space/scuba suits on.

SPPPAAACCEE!

Painted: 8 (Two large terrain)

Purchased: -63

Total: -55

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Seeing as it's the Season of Scenery, I have finished my Haradrim for Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Battle Companies. Seriously though, I will have some terrain coming soon...

Season of Scenery 2023

     Alright, recall the search parties, and take my picture off the milk carton. I was always here, just a bit busy with childcare and working. Though I did manage to get a few terrain pieces done for Season of Scenery this year. 

    I picked up some MDF modern house terrain from cardboard dungeon two years ago or so. These kits are pretty cheap at $20 CND or sometimes less, so one of the reasons I hadn't had the energy to tackle the two houses I had picked up is due to the lack of detail. Coyote Manor doesn't have detail on the exterior. I started cutting out cardboard to look like vinyl siding, this I didn't finish as my mind thought other things to add. Wires? meters? A basement... somehow? The Grey Harbour house C that I painted, at least had laser cut details on the walls.

    You'll notice that the windows on each floor look different, that's because I made my own on the top floor when I couldn't find the ones that came with the kit. I tried to remove the bottom ones, this made the carboard rip or remove the paint. I might come back to it later, but for now, I am fine with it.

    I only did the exterior as the interior would need a lot of detail work, stairs for the second floor, wallpaper, furniture, etc. Design wise it also doesn't really led itself to a real home structure. I can't see stairs, kitchen and a living room being in that small space. Upstairs could easily fit a bathroom and a bedroom with stairs going down.

    I also finished some 3D printed doors, six of them to be exact. These are to be used in Resident Evil 2 board game. 

    I also played a solo game of Don't Look Back, a co-op survival game that emulates 80's slasher flicks. Some interesting mechanics, hopefully I can run a group through a game or two during October. 

    Black Magic Craft does have a video on how to transformer these Christmas Trees from Michaels into regular looking tree, so I am working on getting them done soon.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Finishing up some of the adventuring party challenge, some have been finished for awhile and haven't had the motivation to post on here. Five are done... and it's basically October.. I gotta get moving on them if I want 7 more before the end of the year.

Reign in Hell - Finished Cabals

        In 2021, Snarling Badger Studios, released a daemonic combat skirmish game called Reign in Hell. This is the first game that Adam Loper and Vince Venturella, of YouTube fame, have created together. Initially, this was a PvP game with cabals fighting each other for control of Hell with campaign play as well, they have since released co-op and solo rules in a free PDF called The Oculus Spear to help players get games in during the height of Covid.

    Just this week, I have finished two cabals from the Dreamblade miniature I had picked up off eBay the same year Reign in Hell was released. The game can be played with up to 4 players, and has several different philosophies which dictates what type of daemons you can bring in your cabal. Painting up only 14 of the 51 miniatures I picked up, I see more cabals being created in the future. But for now, this will be enough to learn and play the game, besides, I have a BUNCH of daemons from 40k I could use in a pinch. 

Reign in Hell Cabals

    The two philosophies I picked for these two cabals were, Earth-bound and The Empty. Earth-Bound are daemons that want to return to earth, where all the fun is at, you know manipulating weak humans. Searching through the Dreamblade minis, I picked out figures that you might find on a metal album cover. The leader can be of three different types, Warrior, Zealot or Schemer. I chose Schemer, which has the ability to leave combat once per round and is able to activate another daemon near by after his activation. The Devout for an Earth-Bound cabal is a Succubus, able to Charm other daemons into attacking others and deflect some damage when she sees friendly daemons slay opposing daemons. 

Schemer and Succubus

    Some of the daemon profiles are up to interpretation so go ahead and use that sweet models that you can't seem to fit into any other games. I got a local 3D printer to print some bases for me, there is some hit and miss for quality but they were pretty cheap to get made.

    The band members all lined up ready to rock your socks off and devour your soul!

    

    For The Empty cabal, they are trying to unmake Hell. I went with a more muted paint scheme, mostly to get them off the table a bit quicker, but it also fit their theme. Only giving them splashes of colour besides the "Pain Smash" which just screamed to be bronzed. All daemons in The Empty cabal can destroy terrain or objective markers with a 6 on their attack roll. Both the Leader and Devout have some teleporting shenanigans as well. 

Devount - Void Demon and Leader - Zealot

    I went with models that were blind in some fashion, the bases were painted as a contrast to the Earth-bound bases, adding a hint of their base colours to them. 

For someone without eyes, the Pain Smash is quite the exhibitionist.

    My brother, Shawn, and I tried out Reign in Hell on Saturday. We played the scenario called The Prison, which has the cabals seeking forbidden knowledge from the captured daemon in the center of the table. Daemons who move within 3" of the pillars claim the objective, they only give it up after being slain or move away. However, the rules aren't clear when more daemons show up and the first original daemon has moved off the objective. I think we rolled off to see who claimed it, but I think in the spirit of the game, I think both would own it till either were slain.

Loonies for objectives

    And you are probably thinking, maybe, oh wow that's a neat mat that you have your miniatures displayed on there Jon. I have just made two mats based on the Black Magic Craft video here. I didn't use the oil washes and I was trying to add more of my mossy bits that I had, so it's bit rough. I also wasn't straying my watered down glue at first, which actually helped as it gave the grass some depth. 

    I have had the mats out in the garage which is a bit moist as the mats like to curl on the ends, so hopefully I can glue the opposite side to prevent this or the house temperature is more suited for them. 

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I have joined a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game Tournament for July, now I just need to paint and assemble all the miniatures I need for it! Shouldn't be too bad, as I'll be playing Evil so a healthy coat of black is basically all I'll need.