It has been another taxing week, mostly due to work being busy but postal service woes have been an issue too. Not unlike the previous time I complained a few months ago, I have multiple things in the mail that I expected to receive during the week and have not received and now have to worry if I will ever get them as the tracking is wildly misleading. The notable thing in terms of hobbying is that the ultramatte varnish which should have gotten here on Thursday is still not here on Saturday so that sadly means the diorama is unfinished and some other stuff I had hoped to show off today is not done either. While this is disappointing, I will share what hobby progress I can.
Instead, all I have is a ghoul that I finished painting this week as I wanted to focus on some “easy wins” to try and reduce my backlog a bit. It only took three days to finish him and while he look very similar to the previous ghouls, I do like how the toaster came out on his base. As time goes on, I appreciate the resin Fallout bases more and more. They are more interesting than if you got the standard flat base that you have to create yourself.
This means I have three of the five ghouls done and the remaining two are glowing ones which will look quite a bit different than the first three and should be a nice painting challenge. At some point while working on the latest ghoul, I realized that I never added any grass to the previous ones’ base so I added that and touched up the grating with rust because I didn’t think the rust effects stood out enough. The rust is brighter and not as well-blended as on the super mutants but the rust didn’t really come through previously, because the enamel paint is so thin, it acts like a wash and doesn’t stay on top of the curved grating. So I’m glad I made some touch-ups to these as they look formidable next to each other. I’m not sure when I’ll get to use them in a game but I do really look forward to that as well.
And that’s all the hobby progress I can share for now. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what terrain I should be working in in the near future as I know I need to improve that part of my collection. I looked over all of the scenarios I currently own and looked for specific pieces of terrain that are required so I could start planning that out too. Here is what I came up with for required pieces of terrain:
Crops
Highway Overpass
Radio Tower
Radioactive waste in barrels
Cave entrance
Subway entrances
These may seem eclectic and they are in many respects but outside of the cave entrance, I’m aware of products you can buy to make all of these things which is great. The only one that I’m not sure about is the highway overpass which is a very large piece of terrain that is used in one scenario so I don’t know if I’ll ever get that one but the rest of those, I can definitely see myself getting and some like the cave entrance and crops will take some more thought on how I want to tackle them but at least they’re on my radar.
There’s plenty of more generic terrain that I can stand to get one day too including ruined streets and sidewalks, houses, businesses, and manufacturing/industrial buildings. These are useful for a number of scenarios and would be good for making up my own scenarios as well. These will definitely take up more room and are something I will be cautious about buying until I have more storage space but I do look forward to adding a house or two to my collection.
The thinking did not stop there either though. I also started thinking and researching what kind of “boards” I could make to try and capture some locations of Fallout as well. I thought I’d throw in some pictures to help those of you who don’t know Fallout as well, visualize what I’m talking about.
Sanctuary Hills – Much like the Shire in LOTR, I find this to be an iconic setting for Fallout that would be really cool to own. I don’t know if it is practical to build and have this but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to!
A Vault – There are MDF kits to make different rooms in a vault out there. Modiphius has teased a future release with rules for dungeon crawling in the vault setting so this is one of the bigger pieces of terrain that I can certainly see myself committing the space for.
Abandoned Boat – There is a big shipping boat that raiders take over in Fallout 4 somewhere but I can’t remember the name of it and truthfully, I think this is probably one of the more unlikely “boards” I would make even though it would be cool and there is MDF kits out there for this sort of thing.
Downtown Boston – This is another iconic part of Fallout 4 and in some capacity, I will definitely make terrain for this type of location as there is a lot available and it is flexible for scenarios too.
Trailer Park – There are a couple of locations similar to this in Fallout 4 and they fit a couple scenarios well. They wouldn’t be too hard to make so this is certainly a possibility.
Salvage/Junkyard – There is a scenario based on the above location so I could see this one too. Storage containers are the main thing you need and I anticipate getting those in the future as is.
Train Depot – While not as iconic, it could be a fairly easy location to make so this is a certainly an option.
Subway Station – There are large MDF kits you can put together to make a subway station. Not very practical from a storage perspective but it could be cool and a fairly flexible location for battles as well. Anybody could squat in the subway after all!
Atlantic Ocean coastline – This would be good for using Mirelurks whenever I get around to buying them. There is also a Children of Atom base in an area like this. Creating the water would be the hardest part for me as I have almost no experience with resin water products.
Super Duper Mart – Not very practical from a storage perspective to make but there are MDF kits for this out there and I love this location for some reason in Fallout 4 so this could be one of the large projects I take on.
The Glowing Sea area – You can’t really capture the radiation fog in this area but the bare rocky ground is easy and the destroyed trees would also be fairly easy. If add some ruined buildings, a cave, and radioactive ponds, you can pretty much nail this one.
Raider “Settlement” – Crooked Dice make some good shanty terrain and while the picture above is in downtown Boston, there are other places you could make this one. Super Mutants could easily reside there too so it has some flexibility.
Needless to say, there are tons of possibilities and it reminded me how versatile and cool the Fallout 4 setting is for wargaming. One thing Fallout 4 shares with MESBG is that there are locations which feel iconic and really spark my imagination and desire to create. Though truthfully, I still believe that making terrain for Fallout will be more enjoyable for me as a fair amount of LOTR terrain is only usable for a scenario or two and there is a lot of repetition in what you have to make as you tend to need lots of trees and hills in your collection to recreate the various locations in Middle Earth. I think with Fallout, I can get some iconic locations but also create some generic ones too which will be really useful for gaming. I’m not sure exactly which of these projects I’ll tackle in the near future but I will be giving it some thought as I’d love to bring some of these ideas to life and use them for gaming as well. All of this brainstorming was a really useful exercise for me and should help me carry the current enthusiasm I feel for painting and gaming in Fallout to tangible terrain in the future.
Kuribo's Painting 
Great job on those Ferals!
Seeing those location images and thinking back to how immersed I was “back in the day” I am reminded just how great Fallout 4 is, even with its flaws. Trying to consider how I would go about building a tabletop version of all that truly boggles my mind.
I look forward to seeing your vision of it come to life.
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Thank you, sir! 🙂 I couldn’t agree more about your comments on Fallout 4. It isn’t the best game that came out in that era of video games but there is something special about it at the same time. Perhaps one day, you’ll dip into your Fallout minis and join me in the Wasteland? 😉
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Awesome work on the ghouls, I must get back into Fallout 4, I restarted it and all of a sudden got hooked on War Thunder, so haven’t played for a while. You could always go for a church, they pretty much all have the same design they would then fit most locales.
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Cheers, mate! I will never argue against playing Fallout 4. It is so much fun! Thanks for the suggestion on a church as well. That is a great idea for a building that I should make. I’ve seen some great MDF kits for them so I will definitely pick one up in the near future 🙂
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Nice work on the ghouls. Well when it comes to terrain and board ideas you have no shortage of options that’s for sure. Will be interested to see what you end up doing.
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Cheers, TIM! There are almost too many options to know where to start but I’m sure I’ll get it sorted out eventually 🙂
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You’ll get there mate, better that the problem is that way round. 🙂
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Nice work on the ghouls, I like how they fit in with your other Fallout miniatures (in terms of painting style). It feels very cohesive and am looking forward to seeing them pop up in a battle report at some point.
Lots of nice ideas for terrain! All of them sound cool to recreate on the tabletop.
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Thank you for the kind words, as always! I’m planning on playing Fallout Wasteland Warfare again soon over the Thanksgiving break and your words of encouragement are getting me even more excited to play 🙂
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The ghoul looks great, like he is running to come eat something/someone. Though he is coming so fast that even if you shot him 4 times he would still be headed towards you and die with a hand on your sneaker… 😀
So is the idea to get those scenario specific pieces (like the radio tower) and somehow incorporate it into a board set at a specific Fallout 4 location? Could be a challenge but certainly doable. Skirmish games always seem to be terrain heavy so I think one usually starts as generic as possible just to kinda bulk up the terrain before being really specific. But your right that we are lucky in this day and age we can get almost anything as a kit, so it’s more a question of what is cool and what is affordable rather than is it available.
I wish you better luck with the post office. 😀
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I couldn’t agree more with you about the ghoul sentiment. That is what I really like about the minis too 🙂
It is challenging to think about terrain that can be used in multiple ways for me anyway. I do think the radio tower could be more flexible than you would initially think since there tend to be multiple radio towers you can find in a Fallout game. If I remember correctly, there was even one in Fallout 4 that Raiders used as a base/shantytown so its possible to use it in a few different ways. The trick is focusing on stuff that can be used in a variety of ways though. Often times the coolest and most fun pieces to own are the least practical 😀
Thank you for the kind words on USPS. I think this is only going to get worse for the rest of this year with the holidays upon us. I’ve heard a lot of people speculate that the post office will be overwhelmed and people might not get gifts delivered on time. I hope that isn’t the case but I can certainly see it happening at the same time 😦
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Nice work on the ghoul, Jeff! 🙂 And certainly a lot of good locations to work with there! I’d probably be thinking about smaller scenery bits that could be used across a few settings and then adding bigger, more specific, ones as required.
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Thanks, John! I think there is a lot of wisdom in that idea. I have some smaller scatter pieces to work on (when the post office delivers them) and I’m hoping they’ll add even more life to my table 🙂
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The imagine boggles at the terrain options for Fallout 4!
Like maenofferen22 mentioned, there should be buildings/terrain that would be common across several environs. A small building can be the office in a construction yard or part the shanty town etc. I guess identify which environs you really want and identify which buildings are specific and which ones can be used interchangeably.
Looking forward to this!
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There are definitely a lot of options and plenty of opportunities for variety which I really like. I think the approach you’re suggesting is what I will try to follow too. I’m sure I’ll be looking for feedback from you and others who are more skilled than I with terrain so I’m glad to hear you’ll be following along 🙂
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You’ve got my sympathy re the postage situation. My Necromunda orlocks and their new book are sitting in a warehouse somewhere and God only knows when I’ll get my hands on them. :-\
Nice work on that ghoul, looking forward to seeing the glowing ones, that’ll be interesting. And good luck with the post apocalyptic terrain, that sounds as though it’ll be right up my street so I’ll be watching your progress with particular interest.
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I fear that many of us are dealing with or will be dealing with postal woes in the near future sadly but I hope that both you and I get what we’ve purchased soon! I’m on my fifth straight day without any mail delivery unfortunately.
Thanks for the kind words and I’m glad to hear you’ll be interested in what could be quite a lot of future terrain projects too 🙂
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Good work on those Ghouls; I can’t wait to see what you do with the glowing ones.
For themed boards, the ruined trailer park is surely the most modular one in the sense that the same combinations of trailers can be arranged in endless permutations. From a gaming perspective it has the large advantage that trailers are probably big enough to block line-of-sight.
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Thanks! 🙂 The glowing ones should be a bit of a challenge but I look forward to it all the same.
That is a great point about the trailer park! They would be more flexible than your typical house since they are smaller so I will certainly keep that in mind for a future terrain project.
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Those would be some awesome boards to game on. I like the miniatures you painted, particularly the bases. I agree they are more interesting than the “standard flat bases.”
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Thanks for the follow and I look forward to reading more of your updates as well! Thanks for the kind words on the painting. When I started painting Fallout, I wasn’t sure I’d like the resin bases because I thought they’d end up looking the same as everyone else’s but it is nice just having to paint them and not worry too much about being consistent with flock and tufts for example like you do with many bases from GW for example. I was pretty used to those bases so this has been a nice change of pace 🙂
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Certainly, you have some interesting stuff on going. 🙂
Yes, I can imagine that the different, busier bases are a nice change of pace from always have a to work with a blank canvas.
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