Background

My gaming group has been playing some Warmachine and Iron Kingdoms RPG lately, but as mentioned earlier, the man running the game is getting busy. As such, I’ve started to run some adventures set in Middle Earth. It’s a setting that everyone knows, and the published background and adventures from Cubicle 7 are excellent and easy to run.

Now with the Christmas season upon us, I knew that it was quite possible that I would need to run the next adventure in the campaign in very short notice. In that adventure, the heroes are supposed to find a ring fort, or at least the ruins of one. When I think of ring forts, Cahergall in County Kerry comes to mind.

While I do want to build up a ring fort like Cahergall eventually, there was no way that I was going to carve thousands of small stones, especially on a compressed timeline. Now, I could have simply drawn out the terrain on the whiteboard we use, but I figured that I could piece together something reasonable with limited effort. My intent was to finish this over the course of 3 dark and rainy evenings before the possible game date. I figured I could spare about an hour each night. This meant I had to keep moving and not let any roadblocks or mistakes slow me at all.

Step One: The Plan 

As I was putting my progeny to sleep, I drew out a very simple layout of a ring fort that I could build with some scraps of foam I had. This plan was drawn on my phone, so wasn’t detailed and was also limited by materials hidden away in my gaming supplies: some bits of extruded foam (that I had used under a terrain matt) that were small in size and I had some blue foam kicking around, but not a full sheet, in fact, merely off cuts. The plan was fairly simple. A way in, and out. Two layers of foam to make a hill, some bushes, and ruined walls:

Step Two: Rough Assembly

I started the clock and got to work.

First, the sheets of white extruded foam. Much smaller than I had remembered. My maximum base size was set. I knew that I needed to carve the sides down to make a somewhat gentle slope. That would also reduce the amount of space up top. 

With a rough shape for the top of the hill drawn out (and carved by pencil by my spawn), I took my hot wire cutter and started to cut away and smooth down the sides, checking to see if minis could stand on the slopes. There was no way that there was enough room to make a real ringfort, not by a long shot. I had to keep moving and roll with the punches.

The real premise about the ringfort was that it was an old ruin that was also a defensible strongpoint. This meant that as long as this was a ruin and met the criteria of having a way in and out I was good. A ruined tower or part of a larger, disappeared building would work. That allows me to have asymmetry – great, backstory for oddities. I cut up the blue foam into some simple pieces that I tried out against the basic shape of the hill I had.

I tried about 4 different layouts before figuring out which pieces I wanted on the ground where. The second layer and internal wall bits were moved around a lot, but despite difference in thickness and some awkward joins (I did not accurately measure my cuts to join the pieces together), I figured this was going well. I had a small area for a tree, and another for a statue, as per my original plan. There would be an entrance and exit, and the elevated walls would make this defendable. I used white glue and toothpicks to secure everything and called it a night.

Step Three: Carving the details and undercoating

I guess that is pretty much two separate things, but it took such little time that I lumped this together. I carved the walls while they were in place on the hill. I didn’t use a template at all, just free-handed it very quickly. In 15 minutes I had finished the carving (with some errors) and then threw on a burnt umber coat on the base layer and a strong black on the walls.

Step Four: Flocking

Flocking was next. I didn’t blend anything, or do anything fancy. Simply watered white glue, some flock, and some sand. I left some bare earth areas as well as I felt that it looked pretty good along the steeper edges of the build. I put in a cheap tree from an internet purchase.

Step Five: Grey for the stone

Next was a coat of grey paint. I applied it a bit too thickly in places, but it was another 15 minutes so the return of investment for the time was pretty good.

Step Six: Dry brushing the stone

I needed to lighten up the stone. I like using three coats of grey on top of black for stones, with the last being an aluminum white. For this, I only went with two. I simply lightened up the grey and threw another coat on, again a bit too thickly but I think rather effectively.

Step Seven: Hiding Errors

I stood back and then paused. There were some places that the two pieces of white foam were clearly separated. In other areas the walls were too widely spaced. I wanted to hide some of the imperfections. Mistakes! Never. Flock that! I figured. So I did.

As you can see, the result is pretty good, especially in comparison to a whiteboard. This will hopefully make the combat around this terrain piece be a bit more dynamic and memorable.

Step Eight: Sprucing it up with a simple statue

I really enjoy having the statue detached, as it allows me to change the piece up.

There are always flaws in a work, and I can clearly see where I went wrong, and there is also a lot more I could do to make this piece perfect. I will likely work on the flock a bit, maybe add some rubble and some more small plants. But for now, I’m extremely pleased with how this has turned out. It’ll move to a shelf in anticipation of a Yuletide goblin killing with friends.

Time Breakdown: Did I finish it in time?

The total time I spent on this project is roughly as follows (I looked at the time after each bit but I was hardly scientific about it):

• 25 minutes of drawing on and cutting the white foam
• 20 minutes cutting the blue foam into wall segments
• 15 minutes choosing the layout and gluing in place
• 15 minutes carving relief into the walls
• 20 minutes painting the undercoat for the ground and walls
• 20 minutes flocking (hard to say, I was on the phone as I did this and but it was shorter than the call)
• 15 minutes painting the first coast of grey
• 15 minutes on the second coat
• 15 minutes to put on the foliage

So, a total time for the project of 2h40 minutes over 3 evenings (not including the blogging and picture taking/uploading/editing). I would say that doing this in 3 hours of building is reasonable. I did start with a plan, and did think about how I was going to approach each step during the day so there was no delay in getting things done once I repaired up to my hobby room.

Lessons Learned

1. You can do a pretty good build of terrain in 3 hours if you have a clear plan and aren’t too focussed on making it perfect. Perfection is absolutely the enemy of good enough for fast builds. 
2. Small errors can be covered up and corrected easily at later stages. Like Bob Ross says, there are no mistakes, just happy accidents.  
3. Despite number 2, if you are joining 2 layers of foam, it is very difficult to correct once you start flocking.
4. Simple trees can really balance out the look of a piece and make it look complete.
5. Statues and the like, if left unattached, add versatility to the work

Overall,

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I mashed this together. I really enjoyed building this and it was quite something to see it take shape so fast. I have a feeling that once I finish off painting my 28mm WW2 buildings I’ll be getting some foam and making some more terrain.