Terrain 4 Cake

Ok so this blog doesn’t look pretty yet and there is a distinct lack of pages, photo’s and well content… so plenty to work on, but bear with me and it’ll be looking the mutts nuts in no time.

However in the meantime let me outline what I intend for this blog:

• Work in progress – I make alot of terrain, no really you hadn’t guessed yet! And as i’ve used other peoples work to inspire me in the past I intend to give the same back to the community with lots of pics of finished and in progress work to inspire others.
• Tutorials – The most common thing i hear is ‘wow i could never do that’ and i find it frustrating as terrain isn’t difficult… just bigger! So i intend to do a number of tutorials on basic terrain pieces (the first one being ‘the hill’) to show my techniques and materials of choice.
• Toys & Cake! – There may also be occasional pictures of my miniatures, and some of my baking… otherwise a blog title of ‘terrain4cake’ would be weird ;D

Cheers

Nick

*TAP TAP* testing testing 1 2 1 2… okay here we go.

So after a number of years posting my thoughts, in progress work and finished terrain on a number of forums and [elg]’s blog i’ve finally bit the bullet and started a blog of my own so I can post up my work and only bother people who are actually interested in it ;)

Anyway so my quick gaming CV: I got back into Wargaming thirteen years ago picking back up with a Warhammer 40k Space Wolves army, this was just before going to Heriot Watt University where I joined the gaming society Watt Gamers and found that although there were 40k players there wasn’t any terrain or boards to play. Here began my love affair with making and painting terrain and boards, and soon our society had painted boards and layered card terrain *shudders slightly* not the best materials but a first step.

Over the next five/six years I refined my techniques, explored better materials and cajoled funds out of the society and made a bit of a name for myself and a terrain maker. This came to head when Edinburgh University hosted the Student Gaming Nationals in 2007 and I was asked to oversee the sourcing of enough terrain & boards for 100+ players. May i interject at this point with *ahhhhhhh* I must have been mad, however six months in the planning and making later it all came together with the help of Watt Gamers, Euwar, our local gaming store Black Lion and this new fledgling independant gaming club [elg] or Edinburgh League of Gamers.

So shortly after I had recovered from the Student Nationals 2007 I went along to [elg] to thank them for there assistance and got chatting to there club secretary (nee president) Andy Meechan and the conversation rolled around to terrain making. Woo first ever commision, making a set of mordheim terrain that although looks a little tired now is still in use at [elg].

And once this was delivered to [elg] I decided that this would be a good place to game more regularly (as wargaming at Watt Gamers was sporadic at best) and so in my second time at [elg] was there AGM. This was the end of there first year and they had gone from nothing to a regular mid twenties attendance which was respectable, and it turned out they were short of someone for the Caretaker position (*facepalm* here we go!). So predictably I went for an got the position.

Over my first year as Caretaker I managed to turn over, repaint, remoldel [elg]’s entire supply of terrain and boards (about twelve tables worth!) to a better standard than I had ever managed before, a feat which I’m still proud of and thankful for enthusiatic encouragement offered by Andy M.

So the next thing on my gaming horizon was the Student Nationals 2010 being run by Watt Gamers at Heriot Watt (Sideline: usually the winner of the previous stud nats hosts the following year. Note: No Edinburgh University has ever won we just keep volunteering to run it… fools!) and again I was asked to help, but this time to organise the entire wargames category (see previous *ahhh*). However for the previous ‘some’ years I had been attending the nationals and been frustrated at the mince terrain provided at such a large event so I was happy to throw the hammer down and started early with a week by week constuction plan to cover the next eleven and a half remaining months upto the event weekend, and came up with a teaser construction thread which I posted on warseer: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?208594-Student-Nationals-2010-%96-Terrain-amp-Boards-Log and again i’m quiet proud of what I managed as I made everything myself for 130+ players.

So shortly after the 2010 student nationals finished [elg] decided to get into blogging which I used for more new terrain teasers but now for my club mates: http://elgamers.org/

And so to skip ahead early last year I decided to become old & boring and got a house & mortgage with my partner (gaming room for the win!) and decided that after six years as Caretaker of [elg], taking our regular attendance from mid twenties to low fifties and becoming the name for gaming with quality terrain & boards in Edinburgh, to step down and let new blood pickup the baton.

…well that was about six months ago and a terrain comission from [elg] for two tables of Bolt Action terrain later here I am :)

Cheers

Nick