Hobby Log – Tables in Progress

As I said about a week back, we at the Maelstrom have been working hard to increase the quality of our battle reports. It’s been a while since we even posted one, as we wanted to spend some time focusing on the hobbying aspect that we neglected for a long time. In the effort to put our videos up on a timely basis, we ended up neglecting the armies themselves. Everyone enjoys looking at finished forces much more than bare plastic, so we’ve been pushing to get these new armies up to tabletop standards. With the new Curse of the Wulfen book I have settled back into my Space Wolves, and Josh has been pursuing a Dark Eldar force for a while now. Add in Hutch’s Eldar (which are getting painted faster than the rest of us can keep up with!), and the tables are starting to look a lot more colorful.

While all of us have enjoyed the snow table we finished last year, we decided it was time to add some variety to the 40k side of things. We plan to follow this shortly with some new terrain for Dropzone Commander as well, but one thing at a time!

When we went to Dicehead Games two weeks ago to pick up our new forces, we were drawn to a pair of tables that were there on the shelf, from Secret Weapon Miniatures. If you have never been to their website, you are cheating yourself of an excellent experience. From bases and hobby materials to models, the company offers a wide variety of excellent products to choose from. We decided to pick up these two tables and bring them home to join the collection.

They are a fantastic addition, with square tiles that can combine into a wide variety of plazas and street combinations. They have locking pieces that snap onto the bottoms; these work MUCH better than their GW counterparts on the Realms of Battle table tiles. The detail is fantastic, and there is enough variety that you never feel like you’re looking at a repetitive setup.

Our first step was to prime them a flat grey; we did this with some cheap primer we acquired at Wal-Mart. If you’re going to do this, though, I suggest that you always test your primers on a non-conspicuous surface to make sure it isn’t going to react strangely with your plastic. For our boards, we checked it on the bottom of one of the plates.

Once this dried, we airbrushed the streets with Vallejo air primer. This stuff is fantastic for models and for boards, and coats well with one pass. To avoid spraying it onto the sidewalks, we held an index card along the edges of the street, touching up any shortages with a brush once the streets were dry.

Finally we did a small amount of detail work. Rather than getting overwhelmed with adding a ton of realism, we decided to go with a minimalist approach to adding depth. We sponged a bone color onto the sidewalks lightly, to give the appearance of additional texture and depth. Then, we touched the grates and manhole covers with Leadbelcher. Once all of this has time to sit, we are going to go over the metallics with Nuln Oil to drag them back down a bit.

With that set, we now have two new 6’x4’ tables! One set of the terrain represented clean city streets, and the other was rubble-strewn and filled with craters. Some of these details will require additional touch-ups this week, which I will share with you during my next hobby log. We may also weather some of the beaten sections. The best part about the two sets is that they mesh very well with one another, so they can combine to make two war-torn cities that aren’t completely destroyed. Look for these tables in our battle reports in the very near future, and make sure to give Secret Weapon Miniatures a look if you have never been to their site.

Two more tables in the repertoire! What other builds would you like to see us incorporate in the future? Let us know in the comments below!