Modelling: DIY Gravestones

The gravestones loomed on my while I was bleeding out on the cold ground. Was the first time I was scared of death I tell you...

Salutations fellow Mordheimers! It took a while, but I'm back with another hobby article. I present to you the DIY Gravestones Tutorial, posted at my main blog, samples and link below:

TUTORIAL: DIY GRAVESTONES

Example quote and picture:

"I then “textured” each gravestone with a rock. I know how it sounds, but yeah – I simply rock’n’rolled on top of the plasticard to create an uneven texture."

Nazroth,

Modelling: Cobblestone Bases

Been to many towns in my youth. I have an experience of a lifetime of street walking. Still no human town has a cobblestone more treacherous than Mordheim: City of the Damned...

Greetings fellow Mordheimers! I'm back with another Modelling article. This time I will show you a fast and easy way of preparing Cobblestone Bases. The same material and technique might be used to provide fine texture on the buildings or even a gaming board.

TUTORIAL: MODELLING COBBLESTONE BASES

Example quote and picture:

"Next I glued the piece onto the base, turned the base upside down and cut off the excess of the wallpaper with a Hobby Knife. "

Nazroth,

'Toad Fountain' - Special Project

Couple of months with no real adventures lad. That makes me feel like an old man. I remember the times where each day spent in this city brought something new and unimaginable. That brings back an old memory... There was this fountain in the southers market. Rumour was it granted wishes. I once tossed a coin to it wishing for calm and easy times. Never have I wandered it will bring boredom and lack of wealth. Capricious little thing must have perverted my wish. I wonder if the fountain stands there still...

Fellow Mordheimers, I know you missed me. I missed you too. So much awesome projects going on that I haven't had time to actually update this blog and I feel terrible about that. Nothing can be done about the issue - I just have a lot of commissions going on and that keeps me occupied almost all the time. Still, for those of you that do not follow Scar_hand Painting, here's another Scenery related article. 

'TOAD FOUNTAIN' SPECIAL PROJECT article will let you witness the entire process behind this piece's construction. From a basic concept, through scratchbuilding and then painting. Maybe not entirely step-by-step, but still you will be able to get an insight into my work and who knows? Maybe that will inspire you to make your own Toad Fountain...

Nazroth,

Modelling: Candles

For Ulrik's beard - It's damn cold todingt! I feel my guts freezing lad! The chill creeps over my spine like death's hand. I wish we had just a single candle to warm the room even a little...

I hope you didn't wait too long for another article. This time I present to you something more Tutorial'ish in hope to inspire you to provide some detail to your Mordheim gaming tables. Among many cool items you can toss around your scenery, there are candles - which provide a lot of dark mood to the gaming board. These can be done pretty easy, which I explain in this new article:

TUTORIAL: DIY CANDLES - just give it a try ;) 

Example quote and picture:

"I then glued small pieces of wire into the holes, to look like candlewicks."

Nazroth,

Im back / 'Dead Tree' - Special Project

Back to Mordheim lad? You've grown since I saw you the last time. Yeah, I too grew older still. My nose got crooked. My hair grew white. My eyes seen too much...

Welcome back all who read Nazroth's Mordheim Treasure Hunters! Long time no see. Was it really more than a year since my last article? That's because approximately at that time my life turned upside down with me quitting job and realizing my dreams of being a Freelancer Miniature Painter. All this time I invested my sweat and blood into fulfilling the dream and now, when Scar_hand Painting is complete - I finally have time to gaze upon Mordheim once more. 

Now that I'm back, some changes will be brought to Nazroth's Mordheim Treasure Hunters blog. Gaming, Tactics, etc. related stuff will be posted here as usual, but most, if not all, Painting, Modelling and Gallery articles will be published at Scarhandpainting.com and linked here in form of an entry. I know that it might be annoying to jump between blogs, but that's just one click per article, while in return you get a lot of quality pictures and bright colours to fully appreciate the miniatures and scenery. 

For instance here are all the refreshed galleries of my personal miniatures (just click on the images and enjoy):

I hope you will give it a try and to make the transition more pleasant - I would like to present to you the newest hobby article. This one is about a scenery piece I built and painted last month. 'Dead Tree' is a special project that started a series of brand new scenery for my personal collection... 

 

'DEAD TREE' - SPECIAL PROJECT article will take you back to the time when this piece was merely a badly drawn concept art. You will be able to traverse the path it took for me to create this scenery with an almost step-by-step precision. Hope you will enjoy both the article and this new form of publishing I choose. 

Nazroth,

MORDHEIM DESIGN NOTES -15 YEARS LATER

Ever wandered how it all started lad? Why the things here in this particular shithole of a city are how they are today? No, ofcourse you didn't. You focus too much of that youthful mind of yours on how to get yourself disastrously killed. Praise Sigmar that you have such a fine teacher. Who? Who do i mean you maggot? It's obvious that i meant me. Ehh why do I even bother when all that can be observed about you is that your mind works backwards? Never mind. Sit, Ill tell you how it all started. 



Fellow gamers, Mordheim fans, Warband Leaders and Henchmen alike - today something magnificent had happened! Tuomas Pirinen (one of the Mordheim's designers) broke the long silence surrounding Mordheim and blessed us with his Design Notes. The original can be found at Tuomas Pirinen Facebook Page, but I just couldn't resist not to share it with you.

"MORDHEIM DESIGN NOTES -15 YEARS LATER
Ask and you shall be given: over the years I've received so much feedback and fan mail for Mordheim that I've been meaning to write my own reflections on the game. The people have been really curious about the birth of the game and what led to creation of a product that was quite unusual for the GW product line-up at that time.
IN THE BEGINNING...
Mordhem was started with a model of a burned-out, ruined city, made of Mighty Empire pieces and custom houses the Perry twins when brainstorming the history of the Old World. Rick Priestley (whose help in getting the game published was vital) and I had just had a good laugh at all the year 2000 religious cults that were prophesying the end of the world and we thought it would be really funny that in the Warhammer world the same thing happened -except all the portents of doom were real and something apocalyptic DID happen.
We looked at the history of the Old World and realized that year 2000 was perfect for a setting of the game: the Empire was fragmented, magic was illegal, and Chaos was ascendant. Thus the setting of Mordheim was born, and the twin-taled comet, the traditional symbol of Sigmar the patron god of the Empire became
THE PRE-PRODUCTION
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Mordheim is how it sparked off the creativity at the HQ. The whole Studio was energized, especially the artists who (led by mighty John Blanche) really let it rip with Mordheim Art, blending the old Realms of Chaos spirit with the modern Warhammer look and feel.
People literally worked late hours against the wishes of the management: Gav Thorpe crafted some excellent stories that also became the basis of the Ulli and Marquand comics. Rick Priestley wrote absolutely cracking background to the Witch Hunters which still makes me chuckle when I read it today. Me and Alessio played countless matches and discussed how to blend skirmish wargaming with narrative. I worked with Alan Merret and others designing a way to create affordable and extremely flexible plastic sprues for the Warbands. We poured over dozens of history books detailing the end of the world prophecies and the times when the black plague devastated much of the Europe, to create the atmosphere for the game and its art.
We put enormous effort into the symbolism of the art and the writing -the fish that you see everywhere was not just a unifying visual element, but they also represented the souls of the people of Mordheim where the powers of Chaos and Sigmar vied for them.
THE RULES
I think most Warhammer fans remember me mainly for my efforts to balance the 6th edition of Warhammer and to bring back the importance of troops. This is because normally when I design game rules I start with the mechanics and establish the maximum and minimum values for all game parameters and then try to break them through external playtesting, writing some simple excel calculations and keep tweaking them so that the core rules are as balanced as possible. I also always enrolled the best tournament players I could find to read the rules like the Devil reads the Bible to find any loopholes and exploits.
But I did make a decision early on that Mordheim would be a fiction-driven game where the flavour and creativity would be given priority over strict game balance. I do not mean that I would throw away the game balance for nothing -but for example in the fiction of Mordhem armor was expensive, so I made it expensive in the game as well. This was intentional, and became more of a bragging right to the players rather than a common occurrence. At the Studio campaign a suit of armor became a bragging right and a source of many model conversions.
So instead of making the core rules first, in Mordheim I created the Warbands and their background first, and fleshed out the overarching history of Mordheim. Then we worked on the rules to bring those Warbands and their world alive on the tabletop, and create a rules framework from which the stories of those Warbands could arise.
Mordheim was never meant to be tournament game (though I've had an honor to judge several Mordheim tournaments and I thoroughly enjoyed them). I've gotten some flack for that over the years, which is fine -players are entitled to decide which aspects of the game they appreciate.People have made their own versions of the game (such as Coreheim) to mould the game to their tastes, and I am fine with that: in fact I've always encouraged players to do so.
Mordheim was in many ways my attempt to blend tabletop RPGs with miniature gaming as seamlessly as I could. I've taken a plenty of flack for this approach over the years, but I do think that a designer has to stay true to his or her vision in order to create something memorable. Ultimately it is up to the players to decide if I succeeded, but I remain proud of Mordheim to this day: I believe I could write the rules better today, but I do think that by and large we managed to create what we set out to do.
THE ROLE OF RANDOM
In many ways, the large number of random tables throughout the game became my greatest ally. I wanted everything in the game to be risky -that's why so many items, choices and weapons in Mordheim carry a large risk factor with them. I wanted the game to create epic, memorable stories for the players to recall fondly years later. In games where the game is very rigidly controlled by players with very little randomness, you can control the balance and create a very competitive and even game akin to chess. But maximizing randomness creates situations and choices for the player to react to which he never even dreamed of encountering, and the one to marshall all their resources and imagination to deal with the unforeseen situation. An a magician Warband leader suffering from Stupidity is a situation Mordheim can throw your way, or a Vampire who has immense strength but no Toughness to deal with incoming blows. Only a game with high random factor can create these challenges and allow player to rise to the occasion -and perhaps more importantly remember it for years to come.
In many ways Mordheim was meant to be playing the dice with the gods of Chaos: they would bend the rules, make your Warband leader lose both his eyes and legs, and then laugh at your face -or even better with you, as you did your best to salvage the situation the best you can.
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME...
I think that because the playtesting and campaign I ran at the Design Studio was very story-driven, I missed some of the things such as Skaven being equipped with endless number of slings, and did not write some things like the rules for the Steel Whips as clearly as I could have. This would have never turned Mordheim into a primarily tournament game, but would have lessened some of frustrations of players: game can have a highly narrative drive, but in my opinion rules should always be as clear and easy to use as possible.
If there is one major addition to the game I think would enhance Mordheim it is a separate section and rules for a role of the game master who pushes the campaign forward and creates scenariors and long-term goals for the players. As I did this role myself during the initial Mordheim campaign, I honestly did not see how much a Games Master who creates special scenarios enhances the game. I think I should have taken all my special scenarios, notes on running the campaign and long-term aims and goals, and I would have spent a few months to make them something anyone can use to create their own campaigns for Mordheim.
THE FUTURE
To my delight despite all the challenges more niche games face today Mordheim lives on today on the tabletops of die-hard fans, on the bookshelves of the collectors, on PC thanks to computer games, and I'd like to think in the hearts and minds of the game fanatics like me.
I am very impressed with the work that Rogue Factory are doing with the PC version of Mordheim. I think they are true inheritors of the the spirit of Mordheim, and it is good to see its popularity on Steam. Many of the Old Guard fans or Mordheim are enjoying it which warms my heart.
But most of all, I still see daily how enthusiasts and fans create their own Warbands, terrain, conversions, rules and background. It was this passion I had had for old wrinkled Dragon magazines, Rolemaster RPG critical hit tables and long sessions of Warhammer that led into my own pursuit of games as a career, and I kind of hope that perhaps my efforts in their own small way have sparked an imagination of some young designer somewhere who will continue to carry the torch of the industry far into the future."

Personally i was just mesmerized with this article. To learn of how it all begun, to take a peek into the mind of Mordheim's lead designer is just something I did not expected. I love what Tuomas did and I hope to see some more in the future. Still this article was not without heart sunking moments. When I saw this: "I should have taken all my special scenarios, notes on running the campaign and long-term aims and goals, and I would have spent a few months to make them something anyone can use to create their own campaigns for Mordheim." I was like 'nooooooo! Such a waste! Why didn't he took these materials!? Hopefully Mordheim is still alive even if not supported by GW. Seeing what GW did to Warhammer I'm contented with current state of Mordheim and it's career. Not to mention PC version comming soon. Year 2015 is 'The Year'.

So Tuomas, you probably won't read this, still - I love what you did with Mordheim. I think that most of the oldschool Mordheimers are in your debt. You and the rest of the crew did a fantastic job and created a game  that lives to this day and hopefully outlives us all. Mordheim is a game with depth, mood and fantastic setting. I love it and when i write 'love' i mean love like this:

Long live Mordheim!


 Nazroth,

Modelling: Fine Cobblestone

Oh the good, old Mordheim and it's streets. So many cities in the Empire but that's the one which stole my heart lad. This one is special you see. Not that there's a huge meteor whole in the center of it. Not cause of all the opportunities for gold and profit. Not because of death that lurks behing each and every corner this city has. The smell here is bad. Weather here is even worse than bad. But the cobblestone?! Lad! The streets are made of stone packed thicker than marble blocks before the Merchant District in Marienburg!
 

While preparing a new Mordheim comission i've used the opportunity to make this tutorial. This time i would like to show you a quick and easy way of sculpting Cobblestone. Not that i personally like the Cobblestone Bases but the feelings of most Mordheim gamers are strong. I think that this Tutorial will come in handy for many modellers out there.

MODELLING FINE COBBLESTONE

Before start make sure to have these prepared:

* Sculpting Tools,
* Green Stuff,  

* Super Glue,

* Piece of Cork,

* Some bases, 

 

1) To begin the process of making Cobblestone Bases just intermix the Greenstuff's ingredients and roll a medium Greenstuff ball. When it's ready - put some Super Glue onto the base. Do not cover whole base, cause you don't want the glue to leak all over the rants in Step Two.

2) Flatten the ball in your fingers and put it onto the Glue covered base, right in the middle.

3) Now's the time for some Cork! Deep it's tip in the glass of water. The Cork won't absorb any water and has rough structure - it will smear Greenstuff over the base ideally, not dragging it back.

4) Use the tip of a Sculpting Tool, or Modelling Knife (if you preffer) to clean up the base's sides. 

5) Wet your finger with water and gently flatten the rough edges of the Greenstuff. The final product will look like this:

6) This is the moment when the Sculpting Tool comes into action. Moving it's tip in successive up/down/up moves sculpt the cobblestones. Try to keep them small as this way the base will look far more intricate.

7) The end step is flattening the cobblestones with the Sculpting Tool's tip. This way the rough spaces between cobblestones will be masked and you can futher change the shape of the stones.

The whole process shouldn't take more than few minutes so i can easily assume that you will be abble to base a whole warband within an hour. This is how the Cobblestone Base looks in the end:

Hope you like this Tutorial. If so -make sure to check out all the Modelling Tutorials on Mordheim Treasure Hunters.

Nazroth,

Modelling: Hairy Fur

Of all the creatures in Mordheim i hate the Skaven most. For years i tried to think of the reason why. There's plenty of greater dangers including Orcs which are more powerfully built. Depraved Chaos Cultists and the Heretic Sisters of Sigmar! All of whom i loath but the Skaven? They make my stomach ache. It's the fur lad. That wet, stinky shag of theirs. It reeks of rat's piss mixed with a stench of dead man...



 
Here's another of my Modelling articles. This time i will show you how to sculpt Greenstuff to create a nasty looking, hairy fur! Not that i'm some kind of a pro when it comes to Greenstuff sculpting. One of my friends asked me to fur-up his Rat Ogre so i just used this opportunity to make a tutorial. 

Let us begin!

MODELLING HAIRY FUR 

Remember to prepare all the necessary items before beginning:
* Sculpting Tools,
* Green Stuff,  
* Super Glue,

As a preparation Intermix the Greenstuff's ingredients and roll a bunch of small GS balls.

The most important thing in sculpting the fur is a technique. If you make to much of straight hair the fur will look flat and unnatural. Same goes for texturising if  to much small indentations were made. So here's how i recommend to do it:

1) Put some Super Glue onto the space where you'd like to start. Embed one GS ball in the glue. Start sculpting by shaping couple of short, straight lines in the direction from where the hair grow up, pulling them onto the surface. Lenghten the lines backwars but this time do not pull the GS, just model them onto the surface. 

2) Add more lines creating some density. The direction of the lines can vary but not to much.

3) Cut some lines on the slant, shortening the hairs and adding more uncouth look.

4) Using the tip of the sculpting tool  lever some hair to make them messy.

Theoretical:

Practical:

5) You can add futher layers of fur onto the one already sculpted. Try not to disturb underfur too much and remember to keep pulling the initial lines of the ball onto the surface. 

6) Just keep up the good job and continue to 'fur' the miniature :)

That's it. Now you know all of my fur sculpting secrets. The Rat Ogre i used belongs to the same friend who made Warband: The Carnival of Chaos miniatures. I cannot wait to see his Skaven painted!


Nazroth,

Warband: Dwarf Treasure Hunters 'Captain Blackboar & his Boar-Ding Party'

'Sails ho! Prepare to Boar...D!' the sound of his scream was utterly muffled by the thickness of his black beard! Yet the crue seemed to understand. Powered with the lust for gold and probably taste for our blood they flipped a boarding plank between the buildings and charged! Missiles and cannonballs ricocheted all around me producing a crackling cacophony of sound. Wood fragments propelled by the impacts scraped off my face and that's when i saw him: Charging headlong through the boarding plank was the captain! My eyes met his hungering gaze and instinctively  i grabed my gold pouch. Just before our blades crossed i was distracted by a giant red boar emerging from behind the Dwarf and going strait for my legs. Without enought time to prepare myself i was thrown off balance, kneecap pummeled into paste. Bone fragments protruded from my left leg. I felt pure agony lad, like i have never felt before. I would have died back then if not for my favorite Warhound - Tośka. One moment the Dwarf Captain towered above me with an evil grinn, the next he joined me on the ground with an angry hound on his back. I was able to crawl away just in time to see a sharp point of an anchor wielded by a massive, muscular Troll Slayer, puncturing the side of my loyal hound. I was routed that day lad. I lost many companions, Toska included. It was the first time in my life that i fled and im not proud of it... but i kept my life and my gold!

Warband: Dwarf Treasure Hunters

  'Captain Blackboar & his Boar-Ding Party'

The Dwarf Treasure Hunters may easily be considered a most popular Warband there is. Mainly because of the Dwarf own popularity but also due to their ultimate climate. These short and bearded Treasure Hunters stand high above even the Undead or Witch Hunters as there's almost none gaming group without a Dwarf player. I fought bravely not to own a Dwarf Warband myself, yet fell in the attempt. To keep the vestiges of originality i have changed theme of my Dwarves but lets be honest: they're still short and got beards! Now when all that was said let us take a closer look into the Dwarves.

Advantages:

- Stone Skin,

Dwarves have a T value of 6 and benefit from two powerful rules: 'Hard to Kill' and 'Thick Head' which give them awesome durability both in hand-to-hand and range combat. Your enemy will need 6's and will not benefit from clubs/hammers etc. special rules when fighting against Dwarves. Just keep in mind not to be overwhelmed by enemy numbers cause a Dwarf stunned in hantd-to-hand combat is a dead Dwarf. 

- Look, it's a Wyrdstone Shard!

Yes you will start the game with one less hero but it means that your rating will be lower almost every time. You also gain an additional Wyrdstone Shard after each battle which gives you an edge against other Warbands in early campaign.

- Beardlings,

Dwarves have access to a great and cheap Henchmen group in the form of Beardlings. For 25gc. you get a human with one less I, one less M but T 4 and two powerful rules. I did not mention BS 2 intentionally as these are hand-to-hand warriors so Ballistic Skill does not count.

- Bipolar uses,

Dwarves are very flexible in terms of gameplay. All heroes may choose combat skills and three of them are able to choose strength skills. In the same time up to two heroes may become potent shooters with access to shooting skills and a variety of shooting weapons including pistols. You can build your Warband around hand-to-hand combat with a support of pistols and one or two crossbows or you can go all ahead shooting and use Troll Slayers as a hand-to-hand combat counter force. Both builds will work fine and i recommend that you test both of them in time.

- Powerful late game Skills,

Master of Blades is just sick! Combo it with two Dwarf Axes and feed with tears of your opponents each time you get into hand-to-hand combat. True Grit and Thick Skull may not be as powerful as Step Aside but they are very useful, especially in hand-to-hand combat where Stunned usually means Dead. 

Weaknesses:

- Yo! Where are the guys?

With a maximum number of 12 models and M 3 you will often find yourself outnumbered and unable to cover a large area of the table. In some scenarios it may prove to be fatal. Remember to bring some Thunderers as a precaution and to keep certain areas of the table occupied. 

Tips: You can buy a Wardog to bring a fast moving member to your Warband ;)

- Let's dig a hole!

Most of the Dwarf players preffer to stay put and use shooting weapons to repell eventual attack. If you take a look at the Skills and weapons available for your Heroes you should see that this is a hand-to-hand centered Warband. I know - you think me a Heretic now but my point of view is dictated by years of experience, fighting againts Dwarf players both in Mordheim and Warhammer. Believe me when i say that Mordheim Dwarf Treasure Hunters are something totally different than Warhammer Dwarf Army. Mordheim is more scenario oriented so most of the time you will be forced to race with your opponent or in the best case meet him axe against blade. Of course you should not forfeit shooting totally but consider not using four crossbows. Two (cannons) will do the trick and you can equip two heroes with a brace of pistols to keep up with the main body of your combat group wile maintaining a sniper/support role. I won't bully you into this strategy - just try it out for yourself ;)

Dwarf Noble: Captain Blackboar and Bucu (Cannon Fodder Boar)

Dwarf Engineer: Quatermaster Deadshot

 Dwarf Troll Slayer: Anchorfish

"We rob you of anchor..."

Troll Slayer: Squidwheel 

"...We rob you of wheel..."

 Dwarf Thunderers

 "...We rob all your weapons..."

Dwarf Clansmen: Hsif, Krahs

 "...All cargo..."

Dwarf Beardlings

"and beer!"

 'Chaaarge!'

 'Prepare to Boar...D!'

'Last stand'

Warband: Dwarf Treasure Hunters 'Captain Blackboar & his Boar-Ding Party'
Cost: 500gc,
Rating: 96,

Dwarf Noble: Captain Blackboar 103gc,
Pistol, Mace, Dagger, 

Dwarf Engineer: Quatermaster Deadshot  78gc,
Crossbow, Mace, Dagger, 

Dwarf Troll Slayer: Anchorfish 60gc,
Halberd, Dagger, 

Troll Slayer: Squidwheel  53gc,
Mace, Dagger, 

Thunderers (2) 130gc,

Crossbow, Dagger, 

Beardlings (2) 56gc,
Mace, Dagger, 

Arabian Merchant 20gc,

Scimitar,

This Warband roster is a classic flexible start with an addition of Arabian Merchant in place of usual Tilean Marksman. Merchant will add speed to my Warband's early progress so that i will be able to recruit more crue as fast as possible. When the numbers reach 12 fully equiped Dwarves (13 with Merchant) i will further invest in Hired Swords acquiring services of Ogre Bodyguard, Pit Fighter and then Tilean Marksman.

Nazroth,