Making of a Desert Gaming Board - Part I

I wanted to build a new desert gaming board for myself. But I will not build it from scratch. Rather I will revert to my old Citadel Realm of Battle Game Board. It was painted as a gray ash desert and I was honestly fed up with it and wanted to do something about it. On top of painting the board, I will also build some suitable terrain.

1. Coloring the gaming board

This was the easiest and fastest step. I bought some brown wall paint in my nearest hardware store (schöner wohnen - karamellbraun) and painted it directly on my old roughly cleaned board. Then, I mixed the brown color in a ratio 50:50 with white wall paint and drybrushed it on the brown board. Finally, Agrax Earthshade was applied into the recesses using a fine brush.

2.  Carving Hills/Rocks

But what is a real gaming table without terrain? So, I used my hot wire cutter on some glued together foamboards to create some rough hill shaped objects.

Later on, I carved more details into the foam blocks with a utility knife. This video tutorial here helped me a lot to get things right:

Adding some final touches with some fine gravel and cork board:

Painting my first hill in the same manner as the board:

Tallarn Desert Raiders: Ogryn Bodyguard

As I studied the new Astra Militarum Codex and watched the one or the other youtube video, my attention was drawn to the Ogryn bodyguard. I would like to give it a go in my next games and therefore bought an old pewter Ogryn on ebay. A fitting Slabshield was quickly tinkered and the Blood Angels helmet on the chain acts as the "Deathmask of Ollanius". Hope you like him.

Talons of the Emperah and Friends in Action

Last Saturday evening, my Talons of the Emperah had the opportunity to fight against Funky Bibers Tyranids. Since I could build a 2000 army with the Talons alone, they took some friends with them.

We played a standard kill point match because it was my second game in the eighth edition, therefore we wanted to keep it simple. However, I did not expect any great chances versus as Funky Biber's army, when he placed five times more miniatures on the table than I did.  

I had the first turn and managed to decimate the Tyranids quite well from afar. The Tyranids, however, seemed to be relatively unimpressed as they stormed forward. Close combats erupted everywhere, quite early in the game. My troops, however, were able to stand their ground. 

At the end of my fifth turn, only three Termagaunts and one Harpy were left. In contrast, the Talons "only" lost the Custodes Guard, the Sisters of Silence and a Contemptor Dreadnought. My MVP was clearly the Contemptor with the Multi-Melta, who shrug incredibly much damage off and also dealt much damage to the Tyranids.

Overall, I am positively surprised by the Talons and I am curious how they will do in the next games.