Fixing Wobbly Model Syndrome

How many times when you play 40K do your miniatures end up like the picture on the left? Do you lay your models down and say, "They are right here!" in frustration? A couple guys in our club that play Tyranids and Orks (go figure!) do this more often than not and while we play a pretty lose game, it's still annoying and isn't conducive to a fun game environment.

The other problem is precariously placing an entire unit on a hill or other piece of terrain and as soon as you get the last model in place, they all fall over. This not only slows down gameplay, but also leads to broken and chipped models with no one wants to deal with.

There are some ways to remedy with this: use empty bases, creating terrain that is more model friendly (mine certainly isn't), or just advising your opponent where you models are standing (but this causes issues in more competitive games). Today, I'm going to do a quick tutorial for creating stand in markers for 25mm bases. Below is a list of what you need to get started. Let's go!

• Felt. Get the kind that is peel and stick as that is the easiest to work with. Color choice is up to you. I got mine at Michaels.
• 1/8" x 1" washers. You can buy these at any DIY store like Lowes or Home Depot.
• 1" Hole Punch. These can be purchased at any craft store. I bought mine at Michaels.
• A computer with a printer and some sort of image editing software. Hopefully, you have a Mac. :-)
• Card Stock
• Testor's Dull Cote or some other clear coat spray.
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Razor Knife
• Cutting mat or some other suitable cutting surface.

Step 1: Cut a piece of the felt with the razor knife on your cutting mat. You may want to be more careful than I was and try to minimize excess waste. Peel off the backing and stick the washers to it.

Step 2: Again using a razor knife, cut out each of the washers. You just want a loose cut here we're not looking for precise. I find it to be a lot easier to do the major cuts with the razor knife as the felt will get stuck to the scissors if you are cutting a really big piece.

Step 3: Once the washers are all cut out, use the scissors to trim off the excess by using the washer as a guide. This step is a bit time consuming as the excess pieces will stick to the scissors. I wouldn't recommend using the hole punch for this. I tried and ruined mine so take our time and stick with the scissors.

Step 4: Create an icon sheet with your image editing software package of choice. I prefer Photoshop CS 5.5, but I know everyone won't have access to that. I hear good things about GIMP if you are looking for software to use. If you need icons, you can download various 40K icon fonts here. Below is the image I used for my Blood Angels. I created one icon in white and one in yellow to represent a Sergeant or a model with a special weapon. When creating your icon sheet, be careful to leave enough room between the icons. I'd recommend leaving an 1 1/2" or more.

Step 5: Print out your icons onto card stock. Once the ink dries, spray the sheet with clear coat. This will help protect the tokens them and keep them lasting longer. When the clear coat dries (and you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process) use the hole punch and cut them out.

Step 6: Once you have all of the icons punched out, you want to add a bit of glue from the glue stick and glue the card stock in place. I'd recommend putting something on top of the token while it dries. Other washers work well. Let these dry for a couple hours and you're done!

Below is the same picture from the beginning of this post, but now I am using tokens instead of miniatures. This is far more preferably as I know exactly where my miniatures are, and I'm not worried about them falling over and breaking or chipping. The felt helps the miniatures "stick" into place and you can use the tokens at greater than a 45 degree angle without them sliding off as you can see from the second picture below.

Next time, I'll post some pictures of the desert table and terrain I created for a campaign I am currently running for my gaming club. I'll also be posting the rules I created with the help of someone else in my gaming club for a different way to play 4 player 40K games.

Until then,
–The Harrower

Blood Angels Captain new Gamesday Mini!

I didn't play 40K back in the 2nd Edition days, but I did buy the boxed set and I always loved the cover. Shortly thereafter 3rd Edition came out and me and a couple of friends decided to switch from Warhammer Fantasy Battle to Warhammer 40K.

It wasn't a coincidence that Blood Angels were my army of choice. The original artwork was done by John Blanche and I believe Mike McVey did a conversion of the model in White Dwarf back in the day. I have a copy of the issue somewhere and I'll see if I can dig it up and update this post with the pic.

The below pics leaked on Heresy Online today and the new mini looks amazing. Click on the below pics for a larger image. This was an awesome Christmas surprise, though being Finecast makes the baby Jesus cry just a bit. Hopefully, they have the whole Finecast thing figured out with the newer models. In any case, I want this miniature bad and I'll probably get raped on eBay when I go to get mine. Anyone heading to Gamesday this year and want to do me a huge favor? :)

Till next time,

–The Harrower

Craters in 40K: Part 2

Last time, I talked about craters in 40K. If you happened to have read that post and there wasn't much there or it didn't seem like it was finished that's because it wasn't. Apparently I hit the publish button when I just started writing it. I didn't notice until I posted and realized it wasn't showing up on From the Warp or any of my other feeds. Turns out the date was wrong because it was published a couple days sooner! Doh. So make sure you go back and read Part 1 before continuing.

Today we're going to finish off our trimmed craters. The goal of this tutorial is to create a crater that is roughly the size of a Rhino or Razorback. Here is what you need to get started:

• Vacuum formed crater. I'm using the Pegasus Hobbies Crater Set, but Games Workshop's Moonscape will work too. My wife prefers the Moonscape because they have sharper detail and paint up easier.
• A base for your crater. I use MDF.
• Cat Litter. I use Tidy Cats Non-clumping for Multiple Cats. I guess you can't use this stuff if you only have one cat (shrugs).
• Wood Filler. I use Carpenter's Wood Filler Interior/Exterior.
• Razor Knife
• Glue Gun. You could just use PVA glue, but that takes long to dry and I'm pretty impatient.
• PVA Glue
• Isopropyl Alcohol
• Eye Dropper
• Paint Brushes
• Paint. I use craft paints for terrain. You can buy them at AC Moore or Michaels. Wal-Mart even has a decent selection by the school supplies.
• Blue Foam
• Scissors
• Sharpie
• Sand Paper

Step 1: Cut out the crater you want to use with a pair of scissors. I used the triple crater that came with the Pegasus Hobbies Crater Set as it was the perfect size and I got three craters for the price of one!

Step 2: Trace your crater onto a base with a sharpie and leave about 1/4 to 1/2 inch all the way around. We don't want the base to be too big. Once your base is traced, cut it out. I use MDF which requires a jig saw. If you can't use power tools you can always just use foam board or card board. Once the base is cut, I shave the sides at an angle with a razor knife and I use sand paper to sand it smooth. In the pic below, I stuck a piece of foam under the crater to keep it upright and I attached the crater to the base with a glue gun.

Step 3: Here we need to build up the sides of the crater where we made the cut with the scissors. You can use various materials for this such as foam, modeling clay, green stuff, or even paper mache. I used blue foam and shoved it under the crater and affixed it with the glue gun. Once the glue dried, I cut into the foam to make it look like rock and match the rest of the crater.

Step 4: In this step we cover the sides of the crater with wood filler. There is no way to be neat about this step so just use your fingers from the beginning and save yourself time as opposed to trying to be neat. What we want to do is make sure that we are covering the seam where the crater meets the base or it will stick out like a sore thumb when we dry brush it later on. I love working with wood filler because it doesn't crack, it dries really quick, and you can sand it smooth.

Step 5: If there is anything I want you to take away from this tutorial it's the next few steps and how to make piles of rock and rubble. I got this tip from some dude on TerraGenesis and it's really easy to do and the results look great. If I made a list of my top 10 killer tips when making terrain, this would definitely make the cut.

Now that I have your attention, take out your cat litter and make random piles of rubble on the crater. Don't be afraid to stack it into large piles, because when we're done it will dry just like you place it. I'm adding in some other rocks too for variety. You'll want to do this on a piece of newspaper because once the rocks are in place, we can't move it and we'll be adding glue in the next step.

Step 6: Once we have all of our rock piles in place, you'll want to take your eye dropper and the isopropyl alcohol and get all of the cat litter wet. You don't want to go over board with this step, but you want to make sure that the cat litter and any other rocks you put on the base are well covered in alcohol.

Step 7: Now that the cat litter is wet with the alcohol, you'll want to again use the eye dropper and drop on diluted PVA glue. I dilute mine about 3:1 water to glue and I have a Tang container filled with the mix because I use it so much. The glue should be thin enough that when you drop it on, it flows through the cracks in the cat litter. If it doesn't flow and just sits on top, you can hit it with a couple drops of alcohol and that will do the job. Try not to get it all over like I did on the pics below. I ended up gluing the crater to the newspaper. Oops! Nothing a little sand paper and a spackling knife can't fix.

Step 8: Wait for the glue to dry. You should wait at least a few hours. I let mine dry overnight and work on it again the next day when I come home from work. In the pic below, you can see the cat litter stayed firmly in place just how I wanted it. A few pieces may flake off, but nothing too major. 

Step 9: Now that the cat litter is dry, we need to cover the rest of the base with sand. I just use straight glue from the jug without any thinning for this step and I use a cheap brush to apply it. Dip your crater in the sand, shake off the excess and allow it to dry. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of this step, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Step 10: This step was the easiest (at least for me). Paint the craters black and start dry brushing the different colors on. My wife is excellent at painting terrain, so I let her do it. We use craft paint for painting terrain because it's so cheap. She used black, gray, and white. For the browns, I had gallons mixed up years ago at Lowes. I believe I had them match scorched brown and vomit brown, but I'm not 100% sure.

Step 11: Marvel at your craters' greatness! And if you are me, you thank your wife for taking some time out before Christmas to paint terrain. Thanks babe! This doesn't solve wobbly model syndrome entirely, but it certainly helps and gives you a good looking piece of terrain that's also functional in the game. The craters are big enough to fit a full Tactical Squad and you can probably fit a few more models in there if you had to.

Below are some pics of the finished craters as well as a sneak peak at some of the desert terrain I've been working on. I'll have some pics of my desert terrain up in a future post as well as a sort fix I came up with for dealing with wobbly model syndrome.

Till then, have a Merry Christmas and may your dice always roll sixes.

–The Harrower

Craters in 40K: Part 1

I apologize for the brief hiatus. There is a lot that I have been working on in regards to the hobby, but I wanted to focus on getting things done and take a break from the blog for a bit. Not to fear, I have some cool content planned for 40K as well as Mordheim in the coming weeks.

I've been doing a lot of terrain in preparation for a campaign I'm starting next month, and I wanted to talk a bit about making craters. Craters are an absolute necessity for 40K. Not only do they make the battlefield look war torn and cool, but you need craters to represent destroyed vehicles. I've played in places where they've used old CDs with texture on top or cut circles of material to represent craters, and while it works for gameplay purposes it just doesn't look right to me.

I was looking at other alternatives and Greenman Designs, Inc. makes cool laser cut acrylic templates the exact size of a destroyed vehicle. For gameplay purposes they are perfect as you can set up your models without any issues, but buying a lot of these can get pricey and there is the whole having a realistic looking battlefield that I am such a stickler for.

Image from Greenman Designs, Inc.

I decided the best thing to do was just to make my own craters. Originally, I made a few craters out of blue foam. They looked decent, but the problem was getting models to stand on them. Plus, if the crater is too small you end up packing your miniatures in as close as possible. Which isn't bad until someone drops a blast or flame template on your squad. In hindsight, realistic looking craters don't make good terrain. I messed around quite a bit with blue foam, but I couldn't get something that looked suitable and played well.

Those that play in my gaming group know that I have a love hate relationship with all of the new fangled plastic kits that Games Workshop, Pegasus Hobbies, and other companies have been producing recently. Good homemade terrain is just as important to me as converting and painting your own models. With the Realm of Battle Gameboard and a newer kits like Skullvane Manse and the Fortress of Redemption scratch building terrain seems to be a part of the hobby that is starting to die out. Take a look through any recent White Dwarf or take a trip to an official Games Workshop store and you mostly just see Realm of Battle Gameboards with plastic sprue terrain. So it was with some regret that I turned to a plastic terrain kit to solve my problem.

My thought was to use Games Workshop's Moonscape. I know a lot of people hate it because models won't stand on them because of the smooth sides, but I figured if I based it on MDF and added additional texture it should work fine. Initially, I thought this approach worked the best. The craters were sturdy and looked good and models could easily stand on them without tipping over.

Then we ran into an issue I really didn't expect. The craters were way too big. If a unit was attacking a transport in close combat and it blew up, the crater was so big that the unit attacking in close combat ended up in difficult terrain. The other problem was if there were two transports together and they both exploded, we didn't have enough room to place another crater.

I thought I'd try the crater set by Pegasus Hobbies. At $12.99 from TheWarStore I figured it would be worth the investment even if it turned out to be a bust. The craters came in and they were similar to the Moonscape set: nice, but just a bit too big. There was one triple crater that would have worked perfectly if they made the individual craters that size. On a whim, I took a pair of scissors and cut it up into individual craters. The size was almost perfect.

I'll just need to base these on MDF, fill in the cut out side, and paint them up. Next time I'll do a quick tutorial and finish these off and we'll see how they work.

What do you use in your games for craters? Do you use plastic kits by Games Workshop or Pegasus Hobbies or do you just make your own? Am I being too anal in wanting actual modeled craters? I'm curious what other people out there are doing in their games as there isn't a lot out there on the search engines. 

Till next time,
–The Harrower

Necron impressions after a couple games

We went on a road trip this past weekend to New Jersey to pick up the Necrons. I wanted to start small since I haven't finished my Blood Angels yet, and a friend of mine has been waiting for this release for ages so he has models he graciously let's me borrow when playing. I picked up the Codex, a Cryptek, and the Ghost/Doomsday Ark (these names still confuse the heck out of me!).

I put together a quick list at 1,000 points and I got to play a couple games with them over the weekend. Seeing as they are the new hotness and my second army, I thought I'd give a quick run down of my thoughts after my games against Imperial Guard and Grey Knights. Here was my list:

HQ
Necron Overlord w/ Warscythe
Cryptek w/ Abyssal Staff, Veil of Darkness, and Nightmare Shroud

TROOPS

9 Necron Warriors w/ Ghost Ark
9 Necron Warriors
8 Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines

FAST ATTACK

5 Necron Destroyers w/ 2 Heavy Gauss Cannons

3 Canoptek Scarabs

HEAVY SUPPORT

1 Canoptek Spyder

I posted 2 losses. The first game I played against Imperial Guard. The mission was Capture and Control with Pitched Battle deployment. I decisively lost this game because my Immortals with Tesla Carbines couldn't scratch a Valkyrie that was contesting my objective and I couldn't get close enough to contest the other objective. It didn't help that my Necron Overlord hung out in the Ghost Ark all game with a unit of Necron Warriors far from the action. I also forgot that monstrous creatures have Move Through Cover and my Canoptek Spyder moved like 8" in 4 turns and left the Canoptek Scarabs on their own where they got crushed in assault. It's a humbling thing to see an army decimated in assault by Imperial Guard, but that's what happened.

The second game, I played against Grey Knights. The mission was Annihilation with Pitched Battle deployment. This game was a lot closer and I only ended up losing by 1 kill point. My folly in this game was forgetting the mission from the very beginning. I needed to just hunker down and open fire. I spent a couple turns moving my Ghost Ark 12" which meant it and the troops inside couldn't fire. That was 28 shots wasted. I wanted to be in rapid fire range, but that didn't get me anywhere. Next time, stay put! Plus, I got a bit too aggressive when deep striking my Necron Destroyers and they were annihilated by a Purgation Squad with 5 Psycannons and Astral Aim. I didn't do bad, I just couldn't cause enough damage to win.

Here's my observations:

Not So Fast

Going from Blood Angels to Necrons is going to be a steeper learning curve than I thought. I'm used to zooming around the battlefield laying down shots from my Razorbacks, but you don't have that luxury with Necrons. A lot of people are calling the Necrons a mobile army. I disagree. They are quite the opposite as you need to pick your spot and fire away. 

"Did you say nine pens?"

Canoptek Scarabs are INCREDIBLY deadly. Taking a Leman Russ' armor down by 8 points on all facings in 1 turn is crazy. Same goes for a Psyfleman Dreadnought with 5/5/3 armor. There really is nothing cooler than shooting with gauss flayers and all your hits auto penetrate on the damage chart.   

"Killian, I'll be back!"

The Necrons are crazy resilient. Reanimation Protocols works really well as does using the Ghost Ark to add D3 fallen Necron Warriors back to a squad. The ability for Canoptek Spyders to generate additional Canoptek Scarabs is awesome and my opponents were not pleased by how resilient my force was.

Gauss is Boss

Don't underestimate gauss weapons glancing on a 6. I did some serious damage with this. Maybe it was luck, but I was a mech armies nightmare and I wasn't even optimized for that. Of course, against the Grey Knights that didn't mean much with Fortitude, but there is a lot more potential there than most people probably realize.

"Don't get cocky kid!"

Starting fast doesn't guarantee a win. In both games, I started out with a huge lead putting some serious hurt on opposing vehicles by immobilizing them early. By the end of turn 2, it looked like I had both games in the bag, but my lead quickly flitted away. If you aren't careful, a couple assaults can really turn the game around. With this army more than any other I've seen, the tables turn fast.

Changes with 6th Edition

A lot of people said that some stuff with the Necrons won't make sense until 6th Edition. First off, rapid fire sucks. Necrons are a shooting army with primarily rapid fire weapons which means you sit around a lot. Rumor has it that 6th Edition will change rapid fire to the following:

Rapid fire weapons may be fired twice at max range if the shooting unit didn't move that turn, or once at max range/twice at 12" if they moved.  

If that's the case it will be a HUGE boon to Necron armies as it will pretty much double your shots. It also makes a lot more sense why Death Marks have rapid fire sniper rifles.

Necron Destroyers have Preferred Enemy (Everything). Dumb, right? If the rumors are to be believed, in 6th Edition Preferred Enemy will work with shooting attacks. I think there will be some change to Preferred Enemy, but I'm not sure the rumors are right on this one. If they are accurate, I'll be annoyed that they didn't just make the weapons twin-linked instead. I don't want my Necron Destroyers in close combat anyway.

Overall, I think Matt Ward did a great job with the Necrons. I don't see them as overpowered. Sure, there is some nasty stuff in there (Canoptek Scarabs, Death Ray!), but so far so good. It's a cool book with a lot of really interesting choices that should shake up the current 40K meta with it's focus on anti-mech.

Till next time,

The Harrower

Mordheim: Initiative, Climbing and Jumping

In Mordheim, the Initiative stat is used for multiple actions. Spotting enemies that are hiding, who strikes first in close combat, climbing, and jumping. The jumping actions also come into play when initiating a diving charge or when you get knocked down close to an edge on an elevated platform. Today, we are going to focus on climbing and jumping and the issues it brings to Mordheim.

What's the Problem?
The advantages of climbing and jumping are underestimated by a lot of people who play Mordheim. One of the issues we've run into throughout the years are Warbands that have a really low Initiative are at a disadvantage and can get easily out manuevered. More than that though, they can't climb or jump across gaps at all and this could be detrimental depending on the scenery you are using and the scenario you are playing.

How do we fix it?
This is the tough part. Honestly, at this point I'm not so sure. The goal is we want Warbands like Undead and expansion Warbands like Dwarves and Lizardmen to be able to move more freely through the streets (or jungles) of the battlefield. At the same time, we don't want to take away the superior maneuverability of other Warbands and create a shift in power.

The way the rules are now, we run into situations where Skaven and Elves are so good at climbing and jumping that they hardly ever fail and Dwarves and Undead are so poor that they almost never succeed. I know some people are probably thinking, "Yeah, that's the point! Your comparing the most nimble warrior to the clumsiest and that's how it should be."

The problem I have with this approach is that no model should ever be so good that it never succeeds or so poor that it never fails. This kinda came up in my post on fixing parry where someone in the comments suggested we create a chart for parrying. The rational reason being that a warrior with a higher weapon skill should be able to more easily parry an attack from a warrior with a lesser weapon skill.

From a practical standpoint it makes a lot of sense, but when it comes down to feel and how it plays out in a game, it doesn't work because you are creating a gap where the lesser warrior always fails. That type of situation is great when you have the better warrior, but sucks when you don't. Sure, when the lowly warrior gets off a parry against a more skilled opponent or manages to cut him down, we feel great! That's why we play miniature games for moments like that, but Mordheim already has those moments and this isn't the best way to get more of that into the game.

I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, but I had a really long discussion with Jervis Johnson many years ago about Weapon Skill and why you only ever needed a 3, 4, or 5 to hit. In my impetuous youth I told him the system was broken. My reasoning being that a warrior with a Weapon Skill of 10 should be able to hit a warrior with a Weapon Skill of 1 on a 2+. The lowly warrior with a Weapon Skill of 1 would need a 6 to hit him back. Makes more sense right? I don't remember if he told me Warhammer used to be like that (I started with 4th Edition) or if they play tested it like that, but they came to an inevitable conclusion: it was a disaster. The power gap was too great and the game wasn't fun because playing out the battles was boring since you knew who was going to win.

Getting back to Mordheim, I'm all for good positioning and solid tactical gameplay, but when a low initiative Warband like Undead is in a position where they are on street level and Skaven or Elves are raining missiles down from on high, the outcome is a foregone conclusion and they are pretty much dead. Not only are they at a disadvantage to begin with, but attempting to climb or jump to get at their assailants is too much to risk. If they do somehow manage to get closer, they either suffer a diving charge or get knocked off the ledge and suffer failing damage which is going to hurt more than the missile fire!

Proposed Fix
So I'm not settled on a fix yet, but I do have a few ideas. Here they are:

1. Models succeed on a climb or jump check if they roll a 3+. If they fail, they slip but can attempt to save themselves. To see if you save yourself, make an Initiative check. If the Initiative check is passed, the model succeeds as normal. We've been playtesting this for quite some time. It's okay, but doesn't seem like the long term solution. Pros: Gives lower initiative models a better chance to succeed. The mechanic is similar to what is already in the game and is easy to pick up. Cons: Gives higher Initiative models a better chance to succeed. Requires two rolls to resolve one action.
2. Steal the climbing and jumping rules from Legends of the Old West. On a roll of 1, the model fails and falls. On a roll of 2–5,  the model is successful and his movement phase ends. On a roll of 6, the model is successful and can continue with any remaining movement. Pros: It's simple and quick to adjudicate. Cons: It might be too simple. It puts everyone on an even playing field which takes away the flavor that Elves are more nimble than Dwarves.
3. Come up with a new system entirely. This is something I have been working on recently and what I have been leaning toward. The way the system will work is each model will have a climbing/jumping rating. This will be either a 3+, 4+, or 5+ and the model will need to make the roll to succeed. All of the races will be rated on a chart. The preliminary chart will have Elves/Skaven at a 3+, Humans at a 4+, and Dwarves/Undead at a 5+. A model attempting to climb or jump will need to roll that number or higher to succeed. Models wearing heavy armor and carrying a shield will suffer a -1 penalty. Pros: Requires 1 roll to perform the action. Is simple and keeps differences between nimble and clumsy warriors. Cons: Introduces a new mechanic and a chart. :( I don't like charts as they slow down game play. Needs to take into account skills, items, and special rules that use the climbing and jumping rules. Every model in the game would need a climbing/jumping rating including third party Warbands.

Settled on a Fix
I started on this post long before my post on Tweaking the Parry Rules and after letting this sit for a couple weeks in my queue and giving it additional thought, I've decided to go with option 3 above. The additional skills, items, and special rules can continue to work as is. The only issue will be creating the chart which shouldn't be too bad. Again, I don't like going with a chart, but I think this is the best way to go.

Not sure what is on tap for my next Mordheim discussion. I have a few things I have been tossing around as of late. Maybe I'll post a rewrite for one of the Lustria Warbands. The Lizardmen have always lacked in flavor and needed to be taken down a notch, so maybe I'll post the what I've been playtesting recently.

Till next time,

–The Harrower

Making destroyed wrecked markers for 40K

I recently went went shopping with the family at the local dollar store and like always, I was on the hunt for some cheap stuff for the hobby. They had packages of 3 LED tea lights that I picked up. I've seen people make destroyed wrecked markers out of tea lights before, so I wanted to give it a try. As an aside, when a friend of mine was first starting in the hobby he asked me why I had "skunks" on top of my tanks. Apparently my cotton spritzed with black spray paint didn't look very good. Hopefully with these new glowing markers that won't happen again and it'll save me some embarassment.

This tutorial is straight forward and doesn't take a lot of time. You can easily make a dozen of these in an hour or so and they really look cool on the battlefield. Here is what you need to get started:

• LED Tea Lights
• Christmas Snow or Poly-Fil 
• Glue Gun
• Aerosol Hair Spray
• Hair Dryer (If you are impatient like I am)
• Spray Paint (I used black and red)
• X-Acto Knife

Before we get started, a word on "smoke"

I have 2 types of materials listed above that you can use to make the smoke. The first (and the one I prefer) is Christmas snow. The kind you want to buy is the snow that you have to pull apart. Resist the urge to buy the cheap stuff at the dollar store. It's a lot thinner and doesn't work as well.

The second material is Poly-Fil. You can buy this at Walmart in the craft section. They use it to make pillows and stuffed animals. The reason I am listing this material is because it is available all year round and does a decent job. If you can, get the Christmas snow. If not, Poly-Fil will do in a pinch (I've seen people use cotton too!). I'll explain the differences in the tutorial below. Let's get started!

Step 1: Use the X-Acto Knife and cut the flame off of the top of the tea light. This makes the "flame" a bit brighter as the light isn't getting dispersed by the soft plastic flame. You want to be careful not to cut too far as you'll cut into the LED and ruin it. Just run the blade around the base of the flame and pop it off.

Step 2: With the glue gun, run a line of glue around the sides of the tea light and glue down your smoke. Don't worry if you use too much glue. More is better in this step as it will help to keep the smoke attached.

Step 3: Once the glue dries, start forming your material so it looks like smoke. You can use the glue gun at this stage to glue the smoke to the top of the tea light around the LED. Also, if you are having trouble and your smoke is too thin, you can use the glue gun to glue pieces together if it isn't cooperating. This is the stage where I prefer the Christmas snow. You can shape it a lot easier as it comes in sheets and is made to be pulled apart. With the Poly-Fil, it breaks apart too easily and takes a bit more time to get it shaped correctly. Again, allow the glue to try before proceeding.

 

The marker on the left was made with Christmas snow. On the right, I used Poly-Fil.


Step 4: After the glue dries, give it a good shot with the hair spray. Make any final tweaks with the smoke and let it dry. I got tired of waiting at this point and used a hair dryer. You can probably skip this step if you don't have hair spray, but I wanted the flame to be a bit more stiff and with my wife and 2 daughters in the house, we have tons of hair spray. If you are using Poly-Fil, I would definitely use hair spray as this material tends to fall apart.

Step 5: Now that the hair spray has dried we can start painting. I'm still experimenting with coloration, but you want the paint to be thicker at the bottom and lighter as you get to the top. Once the paint dries, you can pull on the smoke again to let more white show through (I wouldn't do this if you used Poly-Fil). I added just a spritz of red for color and I like how it looks. Just keep painting and tweaking until you are satisfied with the look and allow everything to dry.

Step 6: Turn on the tea light and marvel at the burning destruction! Above is a picture of 2 different markers I created. The marker on the left was made with Poly-Fil and the marker on the right was made with Christmas snow. You can see why I like the Christmas snow better as you can give the smoke the illusion of blowing in the wind. All in all, it takes maybe 10 minutes to put one of these together.

Updated 11/23/11: Added some videos so you can see the effect better.

You can get a lot of variation with these markers. Make the smoke bigger or smaller, add more coloration, or use multiple tea lights to create burning terrain that blocks line of sight.

I think it would be cool to use 25mm round bases and make signal grenades with plumes of green or purple colored smoke and use them as objective markers. I always wanted to model a smoke launcher template to cover my tanks and after this I may give that a go in the future. There are also rules for burning buildings in Mordheim so these will work for those as well.

Hope you enjoyed this quick tutorial. I'd love to hear your comments and see the markers you put together. Drop me a line with some photos and tips and I'll feature them in a future blog post.

Till next time,

–The Harrower