How I Built My Mantic Battlezones for Deadzone

Who wouldn't love fighting through such a 3D nightmare?

     The recent inception of the new Deadzone: Infestation Kickstarter from Mantic has got me all jazzed up about that great game again, and reminded me of this blog entry someone at Mantic asked me to do back in November. Sadly, due to a series of personnel turnovers and a super busy publishing schedule, the blog post got lost in the shuffle. After several recent inquiries from listeners concerning the post, I decided to share my excitement concerning the new Kickstarter by finally posting the blog entry myself for those who might be interested.

     So, without further ado, here’s that entry, in its entirety, with lots of pictures. Enjoy!

     Sadly, I missed out on the <<first>> Deadzone Kickstarter. My first exposure to the game was when my friend and podcasting co-host Russ picked it up at our local store. He fell in love almost immediately. Soon after, we went to Adepticon 2014 where Russ picked up more models and a bunch of the terrain. I did a demo at the convention and really enjoyed it.

     I went home and ordered a copy of Contagion along with an extra set of terrain and some of the other cool components (resin cargo containers are GREAT for blinging out the game, if you can get them). I now had two full sets of terrain, but I was not done. Another local friend, Will, had endangered his marriage by going into the first Deadzone Kickstarter whole hog, resulting in far more terrain than he had time to play around with. He gave me a bunch of other sprues and I was off.

     I almost immediately gave up. The sheer versatility of the Battlezone Terrain was incredibly daunting. I did Google searches for other people’s layouts. I poured over the Mantic website and blogs. But I couldn’t find any concrete directions anywhere. I knew it COULD look great, I had seen examples, but I didn’t know how to get there.

My first Deadzone build. Spot the mistakes? They are many...

     I dove in with Will’s sprues, building a small landing pad connected to a watchtower by a bridge one panel wide and two panels long (Russ had been mocking me about my Teraton not being able to cross the standard ½ width walkways … and I had to show him, right?). In building this I made my first mistake: I painted the tiles first, and then put them together.

     In retrospect, I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a RIDICULOUS mistake. You’re working with hard plastic, so you paint it over and thereby rob yourself of the best adhesive to use when making models: plastic glue? I had been a fool; a fool with super-glue all over my fingers.

      I made yet another mistake by priming the stuff black, dry-brushing it with a bone color as a pre-shaded base (my usual technique), and then dry-brushing it again with the shade of blue I was looking for (and then, of course, bringing up further layers one or two times for shading). It took a LOT of time to do all that, and I was not super excited about the results.

     My next mistake: I had only played a few short games, so didn’t know how best to maximize what I was building. I used the 45 degree tilted paneling to border the landing pad. I also wanted to have some cover underneath, so I used four solid walls to build a pedestal. Sadly, this then meant that the amazing-looking pillars that come with the landing pad would not touch the ground. I had to cannibalize some other terrain to add little pads for each pillar so it would touch the ground and keep the consistent height of the Battlezone system. It looked cool, but in game play, the 45 degree panels mean that you’ve basically got 9 squares of elevation that are closed off from the rest of the board. You can’t place bridges on them, so you’ve locking out a lot of cool options for elevated cross-board maneuvering. Also, the build was so big it dominated the board, making itself the centerpiece of any setup that included it.

So, lessons from my first attempt: Build FIRST, with plastic glue. Paint AFTER, priming in your main color and then just doing a quick dry-brush to pick out the amazing details already included in the pieces. And most importantly: fight the urge to constantly close off your assembly options for rigid aesthetic value: You want to be able to create all sorts of scenes, territory, and terrain. In most (but not all) instances, flat tops are your friends.

     

My second attempt (in the center). More modular and uniform

     Next I needed to decide what to do with my two sets of standard terrain (and the various bits and pieces left over from Will’s gift). I decided, rather than make buildings which I REALLY wanted to do, I would design around cubes, for maximum versatility with Deadzone. I built 6 one cube elements, 2 two cube elements, and 2 three cube elements. I also built a platform/bridge 1 cube by 3 cubes, to give me some elevation. This would allow me to put these pieces together, side by side and/or on top of each other, in any number of ways. And with flat tops, I could connect them with the various 1 and 2 cube-length bridges I had made.

Another Lesson Learned: when stacked upon one another, my cubes nest nicely, but there is nothing stopping them from sliding off if someone bumps the table (and sometimes it takes only the slightest bump). I need to add something for the cubes to rest upon. I learned to put right angle connectors along the inner walls of the cubes, and then clip off most of the downward facing prongs, so that they could sit into the recesses of cubes beneath them, but would be flush when placed directly upon the mat.

    

     I decided I liked the blue, but would rather go with a more uniform look for the rest of the table. I primed with standard retail light gray spray primer, and then highlighted with two coats of lighter gray craft paint. I pick out little details with a couple other colors to make the items pop, but I didn’t go crazy, letting the detail of the pieces speak for itself.

     I also decided I wanted things to look old and worn, so I used sea sponge for the first time, going for a rusty look. I used sea sponge to apply a stippled dark brown in patterns that made sense to me from a quick perusal of Google images of rusty industrial machinery. I then went over the brown areas with a great textured orange technical paint from another manufacturer. I finally used a fresh-blood technical paint to add splashes of gore, which I’m not entirely sold on, but they do blend in well with the Deadzone game mat.

      But now I was struggling under something I saw mentioned more and more online, the “Paintball Field” effect of Deadzone terrain. I love building tables that look real: you can see why things are the way they are and you can imagine fighting over realistic locations, real or imaginary. But I was limited in my Deadzone builds by these undamaged cubes, because if I put them back to back to make cool buildings, you wouldn't be able to get your models into them. I was left with some very cool looking terrain, but wanting something more.

More lessons learned: using the X-brace panel more liberally can give you a very cool open-concept industrial feel that breaks up the solid walls enough to mostly dispel the paintball field impression … but mine were all used up to make bridge/platform pieces and watchtowers.

     

     I had known there were ruin sprues coming, of course, and I knew that with these I could make awesome blown-out buildings that would look real AND allow for models to be placed within them. I could not wait for the release in the US, so I jumped on the Ruined Quadrant pre-order, and I never looked back.

The ruined fortress in two halves

The full fortress

     With the Ruined Quadrant I built a large fortress, four cubes by three. I built it in two halves, and made add-ons with the ruin sprues that I painted to match the fortress. I can field it as a whole fortress or two ruined fortresses separated by any amount of space on the board. With the fortress, I tried something I had always wanted to: I first painted the pieces to match everything else. Then I used masking tape to cover the entire fortress except a stripe running all around the outer wall. I used regular retail spray paint to add a bold brick-red detail stripe around the entire thing, as well as the barricades I had built to match (no matter what I do, I'm still terrified of delving into the use of an airbrush). I gave the stripe a quick dry-brush with lighter reds, removed the tape, and LOVED the result.

The full standard collection

I do love me my platforms!

       Then I went to town on my ruins. Again, I built in single layers so I could stack in a variety of different ways, this time building one 3x3 ruin, three 2x2 ruins, and several 1 cube ruins. I built a large 3x3 platform with two angled corners, another 1x3 bridge/platform, and a 1x2 platform to give myself even more height options (keep in mind, thought, that in Deadzone, this makes those stair and ladder bits even more important). This is where I figured out how to place the 90 degree connectors facing inwards, with the bottom prong mostly snipped off, along the bottoms of my pieces so they would stack more easily and stay put, but would also sit flush on the mat if I wanted to use them as a bottom level.

The ruins, with the platform in the upper right

     I painted these pieces up the same as the non-ruined elements, but dry-brushed blast damage with black, radiating outward from the damage points, and then lightly dry-brushed gun metal over the wrecked pieces (paying extra attention to the rebar) to pick out the awesome detail of the destruction.

Rubble/half wall bits

Rubble w/half wall and non-ruined cube

Makes ruined cube!

Another cool trick I stumbled upon: pair the half-rubble piles, meant to sit flush against walls, together with a single ruined wall piece on only one side. With these I can make non-ruined elements ruins simply by butting them up against any non-ruined wall.

The two platforms used in a standard layout

     I broke my own new rules only twice: I built two ruined landing platform pieces, each two cubes high. I COULD have made the landing pad parts separate, but I really wanted to give them a ruined appearance, and so needed to build them up to provide the support necessary to make them sturdy enough to use in the game.

     In the end, I’ve had a BLAST making, painting, and playing on this great terrain. It goes together like a dream, paints up fast and beautifully, and looks phenomenal on the table or the Deadzone mat. I’ve got more than enough to fill 3 mats to ridiculous density already, and I can’t wait to build more!

The Rebs scout out the new territory

Summary:

·         Put your pieces together BEFORE you glue.

·         Spray a colored basecoat and then dry-brush for detail.

·         Build in single layers with an eye to combining, stacking, and bridge access.

o   Don’t forget the 90 degree connectors along the bottom to keep the upper levels steady.

·         Include details like hazard stripes, rust, etc. to really make these great kits pop!

·         Don’t let anything go to waste: make scatter terrain with anything you have left over!

·         The stairways that come with the Landing Pad are AWESOME for adding realism and further cover. Beg, borrow, or steal as many as you can get.

Kit List:

·         1 Deadzone: Contagion box

·         1 Scenery Upgrade Pack

·         1 Ruined Quadrant

·         A random bunch of sprues that at my best guess would add up to:

o    1 Landing Pad

o    1 Watch Tower

·         I also got a couple extra sprues from Mantic CS when I pre-ordered my Ruined Quadrant.

Craig is a teacher, author, and co-host of the general gaming podcast The D6 Generation, universally acclaimed as Not-Too-Horrible. His latest novel, Bastion, is available now through Winged Hussar Publishing, as well as online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can also follow his exploits on twitter: @d6gcraig.

Dwarven Forge Dungeon Tiles Finally Done!

So, without a doubt, the Dwarven Forge Dungeon Tiles Kickstarter was my LARGEST pledge on the crowd-funding website so far. I have always loved Dwarven Forge's stuff, but always from a distance due to the ridiculous cost of any of their sets, and the sheer, daunting number of said sets needed to do a layout of any size. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying those resin, pre-painted, AWESOME looking sets are unfairly priced AT ALL. Just that they were WAY out of my own reach, especially for something whose usefulness would be questionable, at best, with my gaming activity.

And then along came the kickstarter . . . I jumped right in. I went for the unpainted option, so I could get more stuff, and I knew that painting the terrain would be no big challenge for me. Of course, I was thinking skill-wise, not time-wise, but more on that later. I pledged for 5 sets, plus 4 add-on sets, for a total of $400 even. I figured, that would be about what I would pay for 4 sets of the previous Dwarven Forge stuff, but I would be getting basically 9 sets, plus whatever stretch goals were unlocked. I was good with that deal from the beginning, considering how long I had drooled over DF's stuff, so I was content, out of the gate.

Of course, the the kickstarter went crazy. Goal after goal was shattered, and because of the (ingenious) structure of the stretch goal rewards, I ended up with FIVE more sets that contained a ton of other bits and pieces, all of which complimented the basic sets amazingly well, and gave any sets a nice variety. So, for basically the cost of four of the original sets, I was getting FOURTEEN sets! That was awesome, with awesome sauce added, with a little sprinkling effing awesome on top.

Then I forgot about the kickstarter. My experience with these projects has been . . . spotty. Everyone seems to run a month or two behind their announced delivery dates AT LEAST, and I'm still waiting, more than a year later, for some stuff. And then, RIGHT on schedule . . . BAM! Two HUGE boxes showed up on my doorstep. Two huge HEAVY boxes . . .

And that's when I started to doubt the wisdom of going for unpainted . . . because that was a LOT of stuff to paint.

But I buckled down and started to paint as best I could. I had opted for the specially-designed Pokorny paints and brushes, so my stuff would match any future painted pieces I bought, and I spent WEEKS of my vanishingly miniscule free time at night painting the tiles, the Dungeon dressing, etc.

Because, you can't have a dungeon without dressing, right? So, I got one set of the DF stuff, jumped in on another kickstarter for dungeon dressing (sadly, far more commonly, currently 2 months late, with no immediate signs of fulfillment), I bought a ton of scrap dressing from Iron Wind Metals at GenCon, and I found a company, now sadly out of business, that sold GREAT dressing online. They said, when they announced that they would be going out of business, that they would be selling their molds, but I have not found them available again yet.

Similar models are available Armorcast. And of course, I'm a big fan of Armorcast, always have been. And of course of course, they were, briefly, an advertiser on the show before they decided, with no hard feelings, that their advertising dollars were better spent elsewhere. Like I said, no hard feelings . . . but if you go over there to check it out and end up buying something, be sure to let them know you heard of them from us. :)

Anyway, so I finally finished painting (everything but the stuff that hasn't arrived yet, sadly), and as Russ says: Pics or it didn't happen. So I put together a layout, using slightly less than 2/3 of the tiles I now own, and took a few pics.

And so now, without further ado . . . my first Dwarven Forge Dungeon Tiles layout!

Here is the full layout, on my coffee table. I tried to get some of the variety allowed by the stretch goal sets in there, as well as some of the add-on sets additional pieces. So, you'll see a couple of the 'big' floor tiles, 4x6 inches. Following the example of the GenCon layouts, I opted to do the center 2x4 sections as a mosaic, but actually spent the extra time to paint a pattern within the existing mosaic structure of the models.

The lower right hand corner shows the pool from the special Chamber add-on, as well as some of the braziers currently unavailable.

I did run into some trouble trying to tie the two parallel structures at the bottom together, which led me to think that I might have to take some of my MANY MANY 2x2 floor tile pieces and cut them into 1x2 pieces to fix such an issue.

Here we have a vault, or treasure room, featuring the piles of gold from the stretch goal sets, the barrels from same, a table, a couple of boxes, and then some more treasure, some from Iron Wind Metals, and one piece from the Dungeon Dressing set from the Reaper Vampire kickstarter . . . sadly, the only pieces I have painted of that voluminous haul.

In the corner outside is a fountain from the Reaper set, and in the background can just be seen a skull detail, again from Iron Wind Metals, that gives the room a creepy feeling.

Down the hall from the vault is this crypt, built into a jink in the hall rather than within its own chamber. All the bits here are from the Reaper Vampire kit. I primed all my Vampire pieces with acrylic black paint, then used the Porkorny paints so they would blend with the rest of the dungeon.

The candelabra were painted gold and inked brown. I decided to provide what continuity I could by using my diminishing Dark Angels Green paint for most of the details, including these candles and the gems in the stands. In the corner is a 'treasure token', exactly an inch square, from Iron Wind Metals.

These pieces here were from what I think of as my Throne Room collection. The barbarian throne and the braziers are all from the now-defunct company. Too bad, too, because they had some AWESOME stuff.

Here again you can see that I continued to use the Dark Angels Green to provide some continuity, both on the stretch goal pillars, the details on the throne, and the floor mosaic.

The demon-head door at the bottom of the picture is an example of GW's new oxidized bronze technical paint. Watered down a little, it worked GREAT.

And here we have a whole bunch of my dressing from what I'm calling my 'Wizard's Room' collection, including the desk, bookshelves, a mirror, globe, even a coat rack with wizard's hat and robe. Again, you can see the same green.

You can also see another of the treasure tokens, and one of several floor tiles with built in details, in this instance, scrolls and books. In the forefront you can see one of the alternative doors that were available in the stretch goal sets.



And that's just a little bit of what I was able to do with my pledge for 5 sets of this awesome terrain, and not even using 2/3 of it! I intend to try to use this with our Iron Kingdoms Role Playing campaign if it ever gets up and running again, as well as, with a little tweaking, hopefully some Malifaux, and maybe even some futuristic minis games, with different dressing packs that I've got from Antenoceti's Workshop.

And of course, I might just be forced to come up with my own RPG opportunities to use this stuff, because it's just TOO DAMN COOL not to use! And as @TylerTinsley said on twitter . . . "until you game with it, it's just a creepy dollhouse." Which, to be honest, I think I'd be ok with . . .

Until I write again, thanks for checking in!

~Craig

Distant Thunders

The next book in the Destroyermen series (I believe this is book 4 of 5). Still my favorite time-travel/alternate world series. Great characters, great stories. One of my go-to Audible selections.

My Grade: A

The Horns of Ruin

Finished this book awhile ago, and REALLY liked it. It starts off . . . different than you'd expect, because it's setting up a more intricate world than you'd anticipate, and the fact that it's a totally different world, and not a 'steam-punked-up' alternate reality, there's some static at the beginning as your brain takes time to adjust. But once you do, it really does a good job.

I particularly liked the end, where a lot is implied, and mostly left to the reader to fill in on his or her own. An entire mythos is created, a unique magic/godhead formula over-arches the entire story, and seems to be ripe for future expansion.

I'd give this book an A-/A for myself, mainly because it took a little while to engage me. But that could easily have been my own brain not conforming to what the book was throwing to me . . .
Slainte

Ghost Story

Jim Butcher's latest: Ghost Story. Great book. Not as good a story as Changes, I think, but it's all classic Butcher, and that's all good. Great banter, and emotional investment, and all wrapped up in the end with a nice diving board put on their for momentum into the next book . . . which promises to be spectacular! I am always amazed at his ability to bring all of his plot and subplot yarns together in a really satisfying bow at the end of each book.

My grade: A, because everyone needs to have room to grow! :)

Slainte!

Black Library Reading Recommendations

Over the course of the last several years I've had many people ask me for recommendations from the Black Library, Games Workshop's fiction publishing arm. Now, Black Library has a whole slew of novels in their catalog, some among the best sci-fi you'll ever read and some . . . not so much . . . And because of the richness of the 40K Universe, the range of topics/characters/themes covered is immense as well.

So I came up with this basic Black Library 40K Primer, to help folks choose where to start when faced with this daunting edifice of Dark Gothic fiction. It's not comprehensive, by any stretch. New books are added every month, and I'm woefully behind. Also, this is just the 40K side of things. I don't read as much BL fantasy stuff, but what I have read I've enjoyed immensely.

If you're interested in . . . :

Large noble genetically-enhanced warrior monks, start with Graham McNeil's Ultra Marines (Greek hero based) or William King's Space Wolf series (viking based), or Dan Abnett's Brothers of the Snake (more standard and only a single stand alone novel).

Super secret espionage organizations, start with Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn Trilogy

Average grunts fighting a frightening array of bad guys across a war torn universe, start with Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series.

Evil bad guys dark-crusading across the universe, start with Graham McNeil's Storm of Iron series, or Anthony Reynolds' Dark Apostle

Average grunt combat aircraft crews fighting evil mutated humans or alien menaces, start with Dan Abnett's Double Eagle

Space combat between huge, gothic star ships kilometers long start with Gordon Rennie's Execution Hour and Shadowpoint (not sure which is first)

Very funny anti-heroes with a touch of poignant emotion, start with Sandy Mitchell's Caiphas Cain novels (caveat here: these are some of my all time favorites, but you MAY need to know more about the universe than they directly convey to really appreciate them)

And finally, if you're really into amazing epic expositional historical sagas that will show you how things WERE 10,000 years ago, and thus how they got to be how they are in the year 40,000, you've GOT to start with the Horum Heresy series, starting with book 1: Horus Rising by Dan Abnett. Same caveat as with the Caiaphas Cain novels, though.

Hopefully that helps a little bit. There are other books in the 41st Millennium  that are good, also, but in my opinion these are the best, capable of entertaining anyone, not just fans of the game and the universe. Of course, if there are any questions, or you don't see something you feel should be on this list, feel free to shoot me an email at craig@thed6generation.com!

Slainte!

Adendum: New Books

Aaron Dembski Bowden, a relatively new writer in the Black Library stable, rose quickly to the heady heights of one of my favorites. I have only read two of his books so far, but they were both fantastic. He wrote one of the Horus Heresy books, The First Heretic . . . awesome.

And his own series:
If you like books from the point of view of the bad guys . . . showing an excellent differentiation of the shades of grey within the spectrum of bad guys . . . his Night Lords novels, starting with Soul Hunter, is a great place to go.

(Good catch, Vincetegator!)

A Dance With Dragons

So, I listened to Feast for Crows early in the summer to get ready for this book . . . forgetting that it only really updated me on half the characters . . . >:( But I did it, and then, finally, got a chance to start reading the new hotness in fantasy novels!

As you probably know if you're reading this, I'm a big fan of GRRM, and although I was annoyed with the delays and the eternity it took to get this book out, I wasn't in the tar and feather or draw and quarter camps. And I am LOVING this book . . . mostly. The fact that the POV characters' names are starting to shift, and the focus seems to jump too quickly from the stories I'm interested in (Tyrion, Daenerys, Jon) to characters I care less about (Reek/Davos/Bran/Asha) is annoying, but I can take it. More annoying is the excessive descriptions of places, food, and flags . . . but again, I'm willing to live with it, as the story is progressing VERY nicely!

So, for this book, I'm going to pull a Russ and say 3+ with a Re-roll, +1 if you are already a fan of the books :)

Update: The book ended very abruptly, and my disatisfaction grew with each chapter about half way through. A chapter by chapter breakdown, looking at the story arc of each POV character, would show VERY little development in almost all the major characters. A great deal is promised, and massive forces are put in motion . . . again . . . but no grand culminating battles take place . . . at least, not on stage. And one of the last moments of the book is a sad rehash of a trick he's already used once . . . it's just a question of which of two tricks he's using.

As the book came to a close I found myself just wanting it to be over as it became painfully clearl, as each POV character made their final appearance, that nothing much was going to get resolved . . . except that one bit mentioned above.

My Grade: B his writing is still excellent . . . but his pacing and his plotting is sorely lacking here. If I wasn't already THOUSANDS of pages invested, I'm not sure if I'd be moved to read the next one, given how little happened this time, despite 6 years and 1000 pages . . .

The Lost Fleet: Victorious

Currently listening to The Lost Fleet: Victorious, by Jack Campbell nee John G. Hemry.

Very, very disappointed. Wasn't a HUGE fan of the earlier Lost Fleet books, as there just seems to be something that smells a little funny to me behind the author's world view (at least how it's presented in the books). That was forgivable . . . the repetitive nature of the action, however, as the fleet kept meeting Syndics, killing them, and moving on . . . that was not forgivable. And this new book reads like Campbell or Hemry or whatever has gotten tired of the Syndics and wants to clear them from the stage for some new bad guys. No suspense, no real sense of mystery. Just jumping from plot point to plot point, seemingly trying to move on . . .

So, wasn't a big fan before, and this book is not helping that any. It's got some decent space battles, again, and I'm ok with some of the characters . . . but then, other characters are really sadly flat, and some of the command decisions Geary and the other characters make are so 'speed of plot', and would get them SO court-martialled in any logical military.

So, Lost Fleet: Victorious . . . I'm going to give it a 5+ with a re-roll.