Old Hammer 40K – Let’s Pour One Out for Old School DIY Terrain
Goatboy here to talk about some the glory days of DIY terrain from the days of 40K yore. How many of you proudly played with these?
With the new shifts in Warhammer 40k 11th Edition, terrain might bring back some fun things. The small little spaces of area terrain shown are ripe for bringing back all the old favorites from the old times. Do you have a pile of old Xmas Trees laying around? What about all those dang pipes we got in old terrain kits. This new edition might breathe some new life in our other wise dull little table tops and today I want to talk about some of those old terrain pieces.
Forests – AKA – Xmas Trees, Evergreens, and Random Hobby Lobby Holiday Trees
I remember back in the day trying to source a ton of trees for Wargames Con & Bolscon. We would try to see if any overseas factory could ship us a ton of them so we could utilize them. If your event didn’t have a table with trees then what kind of event were you even running? Is this just a battle with your friends on table with textbooks under a green piece of fabric? Who in the right mine didn’t have a classy planet who happened to believe in Christmas and had to worry about Orks attacking them?
Hills – AKA Stacks of Books or Mounds of Foam Hills
I remember putting a lot of time and effort cutting foam hills out and making sure they looked “real” enough with their jagged edges. We would then proceed to cover them in a Glue like paste to ensure we could paint over them and then even dare to flock them with some cheap hobby flock in what looked like a restaurant sized Spice jug. The hills would get taller and taller to allow for units to actually hide behind them and even get as tall to hide a Rhino or too. We would make sure the edges were nice enough that driving a tank over it wouldn’t cause a dangerous terrain check. These rolling hills were perfect to house a few pretty trees on top and let your Devastators survey the field with their heavy weapons and dangerous attitudes.
Dangerous Pipes – AKA Home Depot PVC Pipes / Promethium Pipelines
Do you remember fighting over a dusty planet that somehow had pipes everywhere to deliver fuel? Or what is giant vats of Corpse Starch? Or how about blood for the Daemon engines? It always seemed to be a planet full of machinery and dangerous pipes. I remember we used to have rules that allowed you to reroll the amount of hits on a flamer as you somehow used the pipes to ignite dangerous gases into the enemy. Oh what a day it was to hide behind something so dangerous with your space warriors. Whaese most often were back in the day was a bunch of lawn irrigation PVC pipes cut up and glued together from the hardware store.
Industrial Storage Tanks – AKA Soda Can/Coffee Can Terrain
I remember at some point having giant coffee cans of terrain was the highlight of a table. In fact I remember making a ton of them due to my family loving a specific coffee brand that can in a nice small can. I would take those cans, throw on some colors, and dry brush metal to help sell them as an industrial complex. I also remember a few companies that would sell kits that would allow you to take your Tallboys and create some epic scenery to do battle on. Soda cans looked cool and were smaller, but coffee cans were flat on top – perfect for your Heavy Support troops to blaze away all game!
Memories…
Do you remember any old terrain? I know there was a time we played on old paper stock buildings and pieces? Or how about that old Battlescape crashed Rhino set… with old tree we all had on the tabletop somewhere? Or this ancient piece of 40K history now over 25 years old!
~We all have fancy plastic terrain now, but what did you play on back in the day?
