Winter Gameboard; Scenery

As Paul mentioned yesterday, Christmas is almost upon us and although I'm just as excited about the prospect of turkey and presents, he seems to have left out an important point about this time of year - it's freezing!

Never ones to let such obvious inspiration pass them by, Andy Hall and Adam Troke have enlisted the help of the Studio's hobbyists to create a series of articles to help you fight winter battles. Over the next two weeks (actually there's another one tomorrow) they'll cover everything from making winter terrain and bases, to Ice Magic and environmental rules. The first of their Winter War articles takes you stage-by-stage through painting your Realm of Battle Gameboard as a frozen landscape. You'll find Winter War - Realm of Battle here or through the Astronomican.

Here in the office we've just finished reading Adam and Andy's article and we all agree: there is definitely something very cool (pun intended) about armies of warriors stomping across frozen fields that crack under the weight of boots marching resolutely to battle. There's also something very dark about a battle where screams are drowned out by howling winds and the fallen gasp their last through cracked lips. We're a festive bunch...

Outside the Studio, almost everyone I've spoken to here at Games Workshop HQ has been painting and modelling one piece of scenery or another in preparation for gaming over the holiday period. Here is a few of the pieces that caught my eyes:

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  This is one of the many pieces of Warhammer 40,000 terrain the Warhammer World store have modelled recently. It was made by combining pieces from the Sanctum Imperialis and Manufactorum kits. The rubble was made from bits of chopped-up plastic frame and gravel. The snow effect was achieved by mixing Citadel Snow and Citadel Sand with Skull White paint.

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  Jim Lister painted this Battlescape after defeating Rich Taylor's Imperial Dragons Space Marine army. Jim painted the Rhino to match the Dragon's colour scheme, which he felt was a nice way of adding backstory to his terrain (and reminding Rich of his defeat). I particularly like the rust effect Jim's achieved on the Rhino by following the guide in How to Paint Citadel Miniatures.

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  This Gameboard was painted by a group of Outriders -hobby-mad volunteers who run events and activities throughout Northern Europe. The mix of green, brown and grey gives the Gameboard a realistic feel and makes it more interesting to look at than a monotone board. Notice that all four edges on every section are covered in static grass - this allows the board to be setup in any combination without worrying about the colours of edges matching.

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  This Gameboard was painted in greys by Mick and Ray from the Warhammer World Scenery team. You might remember the 40K board the pair finished recently. As it will be permanently set up, the 40K board was screwed onto a piece of MDF. This Warhammer board is an evolution of that idea; rather than screw the Gameboard down it has been placed within a frame that maintains the Gameboard's modular features. As with the 40K board all of the scenery was painted before being glued down.