My Kings of War Undead Army, Deadzone, Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps, 7TV: Beneath the Mountains of Madness, Cthulhu Wars and Other Tabletop Miniature Gaming
Episodes 1 and 2 of Beneath the Mountains of Madness (BTMOM) feature snow covered rock formations, roughly oblong in shape. Crooked Dice provided STL files for these as part of the BTMOM Kickstarter so you can 3D print them, but thanks to my friend Chris giving me a heap of XPS foam and loaning me his hot wire cutter (see Part 2 for details about this and the antarctic pressure ridges created) I thought I’d have a go at making my own.
I cut some XPS foam into blocks and glued them together to create the depth I wanted for these formations. You can see the horizontal join in most of them in the photos below. Here’s the illustrations for Episodes 1 and 2 , where these formations appear, so you can see what I was trying to create.
Image Copyright Karl Perrotton, Crooked Dice Game Design Studio
Image Copyright Karl Perrotton, Crooked Dice Game Design Studio
I used a hot wire cutter to carve them into the rough shapes required and then to detail the edges with as good a ‘rockface’ texture as I could manage. (I was enjoying my hobby time so much I didn’t think to record my progress with any photos.)
I felt pleased with the results and so after sealing the formations with a coat of Mod Podge, undercoated them in black with Colour Forge matt black spray and base coated them with brushed on Vallejo Model Colour 869 Basalt Grey. I washed this with Citadel Nuln Oil and when the wash had dried, dry brushed with a couple of shades of lightened Basalt Grey and a final very light drybrush of pure white.
I mixed up more of my snow gloop (wood glue combined with Colour Forge Super Fine Basing Snow powder, see the above to Part 2 for more details) and liberally daubed this over the tops of the rock formations, trying to coax it to hang nicely over their edges. I feel this worked particularly well on this formation:
I also plopped snow gloop here and there on the edges of the formations and it’s given a nice effect where you can see the basalt grey beneath the snow.
Here’s a look from various angles at the other formations:
I’m very much looking forward to sharing my continuing journey Beneath the Mountains of Madness with you. You can find out more in the other blog posts below:
I started my hobby journey Beneath the Mountains of Madness by jumping in with both feet preparing scenery pieces. Chris, my gaming amigo for over a quarter of a century (not quite ‘Strange Aeons’, but we’re getting there… ) has a hot wire foam cutter and experience in making great-looking scenery from XPS foam. This is a part of the hobby I’ve long admired from the sidelines, but never tried.
When I shared some scribbled notes outlining plans for the layout of the first episode ‘The Shadow on the Ice’ via Whatsapp with my ‘MEGAForce’ gaming group (Monday Evening Gaming Amigos) , Chris went above and beyond, checking some measurements with me and then promptly cutting several pieces of foam to size for the pressure ridges that feature in that episode, carving one of them into a pressure ridge as a test piece for me, which I thought looked great! He then very generously donated me a great deal of 3 inch and 1 inch thick XPS foam and loaned me his hot wire cutter. so I could have at it myself.
Armed with a good supply of foam, a hot wire cutter, words of advice, heaps of enthusiasm and zero experience, I secured some hobby time (not easy for me nowadays, with my beautiful 5 year old daughter) and set about carving the lengths of XPS foam Chris had prepped for me to resemble pressure ridges, or at least those in the illustration provided for Episode 1.
A pressure ridge is, according to Wikipedia “a linear pile-up of sea ice fragments formed in pack ice by accumulation in the convergence between floes” , with “the steep-sloped ridge rising up as much as 5 to 10 feet or more above the adjacent stretches of level ice” (www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic/)
As I understand it (possibly incorrectly) this is a little like when two tectonic plates meet, albeit with ice floes. Here’s a photograph of an actual pressure ridge:
Here’s the map from Episode 1 of Beneath the Mountains of Madness from the feature pack:
Image Copyright Karl Perrotton, Crooked Dice Game Design Studio
Looks cool, eh? And here’s my very rough layout for it, with various lengths of unworked XPS foam in place, against the gaming mat I’d bought (not sure I’m happy with it – too grey) and some stalagmites which you’ll read more about in a future blog post. It’d be nice to have a crashed aeroplane model and some rock formations too, wouldn’t it…?
Now annoyingly, I can’t find a photo of the test piece Chris carved for me, but here’s one of a pile of pressure ridges after a couple of hour’s work:
I found the hot wire cutter great fun to use. Chris’ is a ‘Hot Wire Foam Factory’ deluxe three piece set, which I found works really well. I only used the cutter shaped a bit like a catapult, as you can see below, as I found it did everything I needed. I didn’t use the other two cutters, which are variations on a spike.
There are many other blogs and videos on johnny interweb about how to use a hot wire cutter, so I’m not going to make this a ‘how to’ blog, but will instead describe my experience. I found the whole process very organic and intuitive, pressing the wire into the foam at an angle and then moving it down the length of the foam block in a wavy motion to create uneven edges. After the first pass, I’d go back and focus on a shallower 45 degree cut more along the top edge of the vertical face and then finished with a third pass where I’d cut deeper grooves here and there into them. Early on and purely by accident, I let the wire rest on the top of one of the ridges, resulting in a shallow, curving ‘cut’. I was initially annoyed about this, but then looking at it, I thought it resembled a fissure in the ridge and experimented with several similar cuts in random places, producing the following results, which I felt very pleased with.
After doing some research online, I’d decided that I was going to paint my pressure ridges with a matt white Colour Forge spray as undercoat, brush on Vallejo Model Colour white paint and apply Citadel Pylar Glacier contrast paint on the edges of the ridge.
I knew thanks to advice from Chris and what I’d seen online, that spray paint dissolves XPS foam. So, before applying any Colour Forge spray, I brushed matt finish Mod Podge over the top and sides of each pressure ridge. I’ve seen advice suggesting that you should Mod Podge the underside of something too, so that it doesn’t warp when the Mod Podge on the top and sides dries (and presumably contracts a little?) but as the Mod Podge dried I didn’t find any warping occurred, so left the undersides alone, to save my supply of the ‘Podge.
In case you’re not familiar with it, Mod Podge is an all-in-one glue, sealer and varnish, made of PVA, water, acrylic varnish, and a flow improver. There’s a large range of variations available, but I went for a matt finish that dries clear. (I’m based in England and found that The Range sells Mod Podge at a very reasonable price). I understood that one hobby tip is to mix your base coat colour in with the Mod Podge so you seal and under/basecoat all at once. I read it was tricky to find the correct ratio of paint to ‘Podge to achieve a good opaque coat of colour and so decided for my first foray into the world of XPS foam modelling, to take the longer route of keeping each step separate and distinct.
So, painting the pressure ridges became quite a long-winded process of applying Mod Podge, then resting the ridges on lengths of scrap wood so that they wouldn’t adhere to the newspapers covering my work area as they dried. Once dry, I applied a spray coat of Colour Forge matt white. On one occasion I found that I hadn’t applied Mod Podge well enough and the spray ate away at the surface of a ridge. However, this turned out not to be an issue after I applied some snow effect, but more on that shortly. Then I brushed on a base coat of Vallejo Model Colour white. Sounds unnecessary with a white undercoat? Possibly, but I found the Vallejo gave a much brighter white finish. And then plonked the ridges back on the wooden slats to dry again.
It took several hobby sessions to apply these three stages to all the ridges I’d prepared, but the time felt well spent when I came to the fun part – slapping on the contrast paint. Again, you may not be familiar with contrast paint, but in short it’s different from standard acrylic paints in that it pools in recesses and pulls away from edges, so that it provides a degree of shading and highlighting in one go when applied over a light base coat. Citadel’s ‘contrast paint’ is the first range of these style of paints I became aware of, but you can now buy a similar product from several manufacturers, such as Vallejo’s ‘speed paint, now rebranded as ‘Xpress Colour’. I’ve only ever used a few shades of contrast paint and so can’t comment on any pros and cons when compared to other ranges, but I have found contrast paint works really well. Take a look at my Deadzone Enforceror Forge Father strike teams to see more of the effects it can give.
But back to the pressure ridges. I generously slopped Pylar Glacier blue over the edges of a pressure ridge – you don’t want to be too frugal when applying contrast paint. I was a little concerned that gravity would draw the majority of the Pylar Glacier down to the bottom part of each ridge, leaving the top of the edges looking a bit too pale and so I painted one edge at a time, then rested each ridge at a 45 degree angle with the painted edge facing upwards, so that paint would sit more evenly on the ridge’s edge and not simply run down and off it. I also added Pylar Glacier to any fissures carved into the tops of each ridge. And after much painting and waiting, painting and waiting, I had this:
Which I felt very happy with. I did give the edges a quick drybrush with some pure white, to help some of the sharp edges pop a bit more, but it took next to no time to do this, as the Pylar Glacier had done it’s job admirably. Finally I brushed Vallejo gloss varnish over the edges, to protect the Pylar Glacier Cue more waiting for things to dry.
Something I spent a few hours researching was different methods for creating a realistic-looking snow effect for 25-32mm gaming. There’s a great deal of advice and good effects out there, but to make a long story short I chose to mix ‘Colour Forge Super Fine Basing Snow’ (which I found a large tub of for a very good price at Barnsley Models and Games FLGS) with wood glue. I can’t tell you what ratio of each I used, I simply dolloped wood glue into an old paper cup and added snow effect until the consistency ‘felt’ right. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut in this hobby. The effect looked very promising….
So I the slathered the snow mixture over the top of each pressure ridge (guess that coat of brushed on Vallejo white was wasted there, then. Ah, hindsight, my old friend….) and waited until the next day for it to dry. The snow paste had a good consistency and would droop in a rounded fashion over any edges, much as real snow does. It was fun to apply and the next day this was the finished effect:
I was very pleased with the overall look of these ridges. However, as the snow mixture spent a second full day drying, something a little annoying happened. Small brown spots appeared in places amongst the snow mix. As you can see here.
Irritating, but not the end of the world. I’ve decided I’ll dab a little wood glue over each of these spots and sprinkle some ‘neat’ basing snow over them. The basing snow has a subtle sparkle effect to it, which is mostly lost when mixed with the wood glue, so this should give a nice bit of extra twinkle to my my pressure ridges.I’ll add photos here once I’ve made time to do this to all the ridges.
I’m not going to post any photos showing all six completed pressure ridges until after my gaming group have had chance to play through the episode, which I think is still several months away. So please feel free to bookmark this blog and revisit it in the summer, by which time I’ll hopefully have played through the episode and be able to present many photos showing in full my realisation of the map above on the tabletop. I’ve plenty of other things to show you between now and then.
If you’ve enjoyed this blog post, you may enjoy othmy er posts chronicling my journey Beneath the Mountains of Madness:
My amigo Chris has his own blog ‘The Periodic Painting Table’ and I heartily recommend you get the kettle on and settle down with a cuppa for a good look at it here.
This is a project that grabbed me for the first moment I saw it, hard, and hasn’t let go since.
Beneath the Mountains of Madness (BTMOM) was kickstarted by Crooked Dice in February 2024. Over the years I’ve seen Crooked Dice’s stand at gaming shows such as Vapnartak in York and admired and purchased several of their miniatures and scenery pieces, without having ever played any games using their ‘7TV’ rules set.
Crooked Dice bring teatime TV to the tabletop, with miniature ranges representing various genres of cult TV and movies, such as Space 1999, the Avengers (Peel and Steed, not Marvel’s team of superheroes), Flash Gordon, folk horror and more. Rather than trying to explain it all myself, you’ll find a link to the Crooked Dice website at the end of this blog post and I encourage you to take a look. If you’re unfamiliar with their work and I think you’ll like what you see.
But back to the Mountains of Madness.
At the Mountains of Madness is, of course, a short novel by H.P Lovecraft and one of the key works in what is now referred to as his Cthulhu Mythos. It’s an epic tale of discovery and terror set in the Antarctic, telling the tale of the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition of 1930-1931, which sets out in search of new discoveries and finds instead horror, tragedy and a great and ancient secret.
It’s one of my favourite Lovecraft tales and its very immersive, aptly chilling and tells a truly epic story spanning aeons. I also love the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game sequel, ‘Beyond the Mountains of Madness’. So when I saw a link to an upcoming ‘Beneath the Mountains of Madness’ Kickstarter by Crooked Dice, I was immediately interested. Investigating further I saw the bare bones of the story this new ‘Feature Pack’ would tell and one key image and right there and then, I knew I had to back this project and bring it to life on my tabletop.
Image Copyright Karl Perrotton, Crooked Dice Game Design Studio
The basic premise of the campaign is this, as described in the Kickstarter: “Players can play a cast of heroic Occult and Science Reserve agents and scientists or the demented Nazi servants of Hitler himself and their mutated allies. See terrifying aliens wake from their millennial slumber! Gasp in awe at the vile machinations of the Nazis! Tremble in fear at the unhuman battles that raged on the primordial Earth! Will our heroes be victorious or will the Nazi jackboot stamp forever down on the free world!”
Lovecraftian horrors and Nazis? In the Antarctic? Interesting. And an image of the table layout for the final scenario (or Episode as they’re called in 7TV) is what absolutely sold it to me. 100%. A huge 28mm U Boat in a subterranean frozen pen with the description:
“With the Elder Things and their monstrous allies in pursuit, the OSR forces flee for their lives! The only way to escape the dreadful metropolis is by capturing the Nazis’ König U-boat, Fatherland, moored in a semi-frozen subterranean lake beneath the city.”
Image Copyright Karl Perrotton, Crooked Dice Game Design Studio
I had a vision of being able to run this campaign for my gaming buddies to enjoy, (humorously dubbed by me as ‘MEGAForce’ – Monday Evening Gaming Amigos Force – guess which evening of the week we usually meet on…?). Over the years my gaming amigos have run roleplaying or wargaming sessions that had a real “Wow!” factor when I walked into the room and saw the set-up we’d be gaming and I’d love to be able to return the favour.
BTMOM also tapped into my fondness for films and TV series such as Das Boot, Where Eagles Dare and John Carpenter’s The Thing (the latter being one of my Top 3 movies of all time). So, I jumped in and backed it as much as I could afford to. Since the Kickstarter delivered in July 2024, I have been working on collecting appropriate miniatures to depict the OSR, Nazis and the various Elder horrors and Nazi experiments such as mutated huskies, giant albino penguins, Elder Things, Shoggoths and Brain Spiders and purchasing and building scenery and terrain to represent the Antarctic setting.
I have had IMMENSE hobby fun with the latter, borrowing a good friend’s hot wire cutter and making my first steps into the realms of creating scenery from XPS foam. I’ve also had my first experience of 3D printing, through purchasing STL files and having them by an excellent third-party printing service. More on both of these in future blog posts.
I’ve also purchased the 7TV core rules and various accessory cards, tokens and templates and I’ve got learning how to play the game to look forward to as well.
I’ve got a LOT of new hobby material to share as I close in on being able to bring BTMOM to ‘life’ on the tabletop in Spring or early Summer and here lies a bit of a quandary for me. If I show off everything I’ve done so far here on my blog then I think it’ll spoil the “Wow!” factor for my amigos, as instead of having the impact of how everything looks for the first time when they turn up to play, they’d already be familiar with the terrain and miniatures from reading my blog. So, I’m going to drip feed things here over the coming months with posts relating to each of the BTMOM Feature pack’s five scenarios:
Episode 1 The Shadow on the Ice
Episode 2 The Rising Fear
Episode 3 The Dread City
Episode 4 The Waking Doom
Episode 5 The Terror Out of Time
There’s also a bonus ‘interlude’ episode ‘Gateway to the Past’, which with the benefit of my collection of Cthulhu Wars miniatures and my Rolling Fields tablescape tiles, I think I can bring to the table too.
I’ll number my BTMOM posts for ease of reference and tag each one for relevant BTMOM Episode it relates to, so hopefully, as this collection of blog posts grows, it’ll be easy to follow them in order or view the posts relating to any one particular episode.
’You can find out more about the 7TV cinematic skirmish rules and Crooked dice’s range of miniatures and sceneryon their website.
I’m very much looking forward to sharing my journey Beneath the Mountains of Madness with you. You can find out more below:
As much as I love Combatzone Scenery’s ‘Hanley’s Hope’ Office Set , I think that this Deluxe Science Lab just pips it to the post as my favourite of their sets. This is because of the clear plastic Specimen Tubes that come with individual Facehuggers. The standard Science Lab comes with solid resin specimen tubes, which paint up nicely enough but just don’t have the ‘wow’ factor of the deluxe set.
We’ll take a look a these Specimen Tubes in just a mo’, but to set the scene, here’s the board section from Aliens A.G.D.I.T.C as it comes out of the box:
Pretty nice as is, but then with the Deluxe Science Lab pieces in place:
So much more immersive and visually pleasing! And when I add in a desk and chair from the Office set, some doors and a couple of miniatures too:
Well, judge for yourself, but I think the scenery looks SUPERB and adds immeasurably to the gaming experience. Before we look at the individual Science Lab components, here’s another, top down look at the ‘fully loaded’ board:
To make the most out of the specimen tubes, I wanted to use some resin to fill them and immerse the Facehuggers in. The thing was, I’d never worked with any kind of resin before and the desire to not foul up these excellent little bits of kit in my first attempt at working with it meant that I kept putting off even trying.
After painting up pretty much all the rest of the Hanley’s Hope scenery I own, the Science Lab was left looking at me dejectedly, so I finally plucked up the courage to crack on with it. I found a reasonably-priced resin jewellery kit on Amazon (£14.99) that came with several pigments, all the necessary tools and a promise of a simple 1:1 mix of epoxy resin and hardener. (Look up the ‘Ink Lab Resin Kit for Beginners’). Feeling optimistic that mixing up the resin wouldn’t be much different from the two-part epoxy resin glue I’ve often used in the past, I ordered the set and got on with painting the Tubes.
I painted them in a simple bare metal colour (Army Painter Plate Mail) and painted the interior base of the tubes with a blue/white light effect. This ended up being mostly hidden by the coloured resin, but happily still shows up in some of the following photos. I painted the Facehuggers in suitably fleshy colours, varnished everything bar the transparent plastic tubes and then hoped that the resin wouldn’t react with the paint or varnish in any way.
As it turns out, the resin was simple to use. I poured equal amounts into a mixing cup that came with the kit, added a single drop of blue pigment and slowly mixed them together, to try and avoid creating many bubbles. Just one drop of the blue pigment produced quite a strong blue colour, but It looked acceptable, so I carefully filled three quarters of a tube at a time and then pushed a Facehugger in to the desired depth using a cocktail stick, before topping up the resin, leaving enough space for the lids to fit on.
And that’s when I saw how many bubbles there were in the resin. LOADS. My first reaction was one of dismay. I know from seeing videos on Youtube that my good lady watches about creating fancy poured resin tables, that you can remove bubbles with heat, but didn’t fancy the chances of the plastic tubing if I applied some heat from say a creme brulee blow torch. I wonder about a match? Nah. A hairdryer? Maybe. But then I looked at the six Specimen Tubes again and discovered that I didn’t mind what I saw. If anything I thought that the bubbles added a sense of scale to them. I decided to leave the resin to dry overnight, thinking that perhaps some of the bubbles may disappear as the resin dried. They didn’t, but the next morning, the resin had set hard, no paint from the tubes or Facehuggers had bled into the resin and the tops of the tubes fitted on just fine. So I called it a win, glued the tops on with PVA and here they are:
You can see that my efforts to create some kind of OSL light effect from the bottom of the Tubes wasn’t completely in vain. And yes, it annoys me too that they aren’t all quite filled to the same level. Despite me taking pains when pouring in the resin to see that they were, it just seems that in some Tubes the resin has contracted as it’s dried a little more than in others.
The other pieces you get in the Science Lab sets are three work tables with various bits of scientific equipment, papers, cups and a dissected Facehugger on them. I painted these in the dame Plate Mail colour as the Specimen Tubes, with off-white counter tops and Skeleton Bone and Blue Grey as base colours for the in-trays and central work areas.
The little details like the sheets of paper and coffee cups really help to bring these pieces of scenery to life and I’ll be able to get lots of use fro them and the Specimen Tubes in my games of Deadzone too.
If you’ve enjoyed this look at this scenery, you may like my other blog posts showcasing the ‘Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps’ board game miniatures and the range of great resin and plastic scenery that’s available for it:
I’ve amassed 128 Zulu Warrior miniatures from across two ranges; Warlord Games and Perry Miniatures. Far fewer than the 3,000 or so actual warriors who took part in the engagement at Rorke’s Drift, but enough to provide me with a practical and visually striking army to use on the tabletop.
I intend to use ‘The Men Who Would Be Kings’ (by Osprey Publishing) rules to recreate the battle at Rorke’s Drift. To fit in with that ruleset, I’m assembling the Zulus as eight units of 16 miniatures (or four of thirty two) allowing me to proportionately represent the four Zulu regiments present at the Battle with a rough degree of accuracy:
iNdluyegwe (unmarried regiment) named after the spotted coat of a leopard, a regiment of men in their early 30s’ bearing black shields with white patches on the lower half.
uThulwana (married regiment) named after a Sotho Chief and King Cetswayo’s own unit, a guard regiment of men aged around 50 years old bearing white shields with ‘red’ (brown / black) patches.
iNdlondlo (married regiment) ‘Crested Mamba’, a regiment of men aged 47-48 years, bearing white shields with ‘red’ patches.
uDloko (married regiment) ‘Young Crested Mamba’, a regiment of men in their mid-40’s bearing ‘red’ shields with white patches, or white.
Warlord Games produce boxes of Married and Unmarried Zulu regiments. Most Zulu warriors went into battle wearing nothing more than their loin coverings, a few perhaps retaining padded headbands of leopard or otter skin and arm or leg ornaments of cow-tails.
Warlord Games Unmarried Zulus
Broadly speaking,the miniatures for the Unmarried regiments come with more ornate battle dress than the Married Zulu miniatures. The latter feature the head rings married Zulus had woven into their hair. These simple visual cues, along with the colours the regiments’ shield’s will eventually be painted, will all help serve to distinguish the four different regiments on the table top.
Warlord Games Married Zulus
Perry Miniatures provide a box of ‘Zulus!’ that have options to assemble Warriors as either Married or Unmarried.
Perry Miniatures Zulus
Whilst the Perry Miniatures offer great flexibility in the assembly of Zulus, I prefer the Warlord Game miniatures, as I find them simpler to assemble and think they look more dynamic.
After some contemplation of my existing stock of miniature paints and research into what colours other painters and miniature manufacturers have recommended, I’ve selected the following colour palette for painting my Zulu warriors (all paints are Vallejo Model Colour unless otherwise noted):
Skin: Army Painter Fur Brown Spray basecoat, washed with Army Painter Dark Tone quick shade
Hair: Black 950
Sheilds: White 951
Assegai/Spear/Knobkerry shafts & muskets: Flat Brown 984
Cowtails: White 951, German Camo Beige 821, Black 950
Animal Skins: German Camo Orange Ochre 824
Bases: Miniature Paints Terracotta #85, edged with Vallejo Khaki Grey 880, Phoenix Games studios ‘Meadow 4mm’ static grass.
I spent the longest time deciding on the base colour for the Zulu’s skin. I considered using Vallejo Charred Brown or Colour Forge’s Hyrax Brown in the first instance and bought both of them to try out. However, I found them to too dark as a base colour. Washes applied over them to create shadow and depth weren’t especially visible. In the end I decided on Army Painter Fur Brown, as it’s a good mid brown colour, available in a spray can (making base coating quicker) and to me, looks great after a dark wash has been applied to it.
The Miniature Paints ‘Terracotta’ is a particularly vibrant, perhaps almost ‘Martian’ colour for the earth, but I’ve read how the soil in Africa can have a strong red tint to it and combined with my desire for my miniatures to be visually striking once painted, I’ve chosen it as a bold colour for my bases.
This was my ‘proof of concept’ painted Zulu warrior:
I felt happy enough with how he looked and have gone on to paint my first regiment of 16 Unmarried warriors of the iNdluyegwe regiment:
With 120+ Zulus, 48+ British Line Infantry and all the scenery for the Mission Station at Rorke’s Drift, I’ve got a LOT of painting ahead of me, but I feel happy that I’m off to a good start.
I intend to make regular updates on my progress with this monster-sized project under one of three headings:
Rorke’s Drift, 1879: Outpost – detailing progress on scenery such as my MDF buildings, resin barricades and other scenery involved in recreating the defence of Rorke’s Drift, such as carts and trees.
Rorke’s Drift, 1879: British Garrison – detailing progress on miniatures for the British garrison.
So if you’d like to follow my progress you’ll be able to filter for each or all of these three headings by using the categories and tags on this blog. Or even better, please subscribe to my blog to receive email notifications when I’ve made new posts.
Finally, a statement of intent. As my interest in the battle at Rorke’s Drift was inspired by the 1964 film ‘Zulu’, I’ll be leaning my painting and modelling in a more cinematic direction over realism – so expect more gleaming white helmets and bright red British uniforms over tea-stained brown helmets and faded, dirtied battle dress. If you’re reading this and your passion is for the near-total accurate reflection of military history, then please understand my passion is miniature painting, scale modelling and the film ‘Zulu’, Whilst I welcome constructive criticism of all kinds, please don’t nitpick about any perceived lack of historical accuracy, as I’m not going to attempt to be 100% historically accurate with my painting and modelling.
Here’s something different for the Vault of the Undead – my first foray into historical wargaming!
Year after year, I’ve attended a great little gaming show called Recon, which takes place each December at Pudsey in West Yorkshire. And, year after year I saw a fantastic looking item up on the stage are where Warlord Games products were located – the Rorke’s Drift battle set. I’d always pick it up, admiring the weight of it, look at the dozens and dozens of miniatures, the superb-looking scenery and say something to my friends along the lines of “One day I’d love to have a crack at this…”
I first saw the film ‘Zulu’ back in the 80’s and it had a lasting impact on me, with the breath-taking scenery, stirring soundtrack, the vibrant colours of the British uniforms, the incredible-looking Zulu warriors with their mesmerising singing and chilling battle cries and of course the exhilarating story.
I picked up a second-hand copy of Zulu on blu ray just a few years ago and revisited the film for the first time in well over a decade. I was blown away by the quality of the print, the colours more vibrant than ever.
Suddenly the possibility of painting the British line infantry in their resplendent uniforms and the Zulu warriors with their ornate battle dress seemed more appealing than ever, on top of my natural interest as a wargamer in how I might be able to recreate the battle on the tabletop.
After viewing an advert for some Warlord Games products on Facebook, an advert for the battle set kept cropping up in my feed. After looking at the contents of the set many times over several days, I decided that if I could find a copy at cheaper than the retail price of £260, I’d treat myself to it.
The next weekend I went with some friends (whom I always attended Recon with) to another gaming show, Chillcon in Sheffield. The very first stall I laid eyes on was selling a lot of Warlord Games product and there on the shelves was the Rorke’s Drift battle set. For £179.
I turned around and a staff member from the stall was approaching me to see I’d like any help. I held the battle set out to him and said “Sell me this before I change my mind!” Two of my friends were also buying items at this stall, so I got to wave the set at them and exclaim “I’m finally doing it!”
And I’m so glad I did. No post purchase dissonance here. This is one heck of a good set.
What’s in the Rorke’s Drift Battle Set
The retail price of £260 (as was, it’s now £276 at the time of writing, I believe) isn’t cheap, but you certainly get a lot for your money:
20 hard plastic multi pose British Line Infantry
40 hard plastic multi pose married Zulu warriors.
Metal sculpts of British Victoria Cross winners Lieutenant Chard, Lieutenant Bromhead, Colour Sergeant Bourne and Private Henry Hook.
A metal mounted Zulu Induna and Witch Doctor.
Metal British and Zulu casualties.
MDF Hospital and Commissariat Stores.
Resin barricades (mealie bags, biscuit boxes, combinations of the two and a wagon) and Kraal walls.
I’m under no illusion that it’s going to take me well over a year to assemble and paint all the components I now have (and will no doubt go on to acquire) but I have the vague ambition of eventually being in a position to enjoy recreating the Defence of Rorke’s Drift on the tabletop on 22nd January 2025, 146 years to the day after the actual battle. I’m far from certain I’ll get there in six months, as hobby time is very limited due to the commitments of my young family, so January 2026 may be a more realistic date.
Well, let’s find out together, shall we? I intend to make regular updates on my progress under one of three headings:
Rorke’s Drift, 1879: Outpost – detailing progress on scenery such as my MDF buildings, resin barricades and other scenery involved in recreating the defence of Rorke’s Drift, such as carts and trees.
Rorke’s Drift, 1879: British Garrison – detailing progress on miniatures for the British garrison.
Finally, a statement of intent. As my interest in the battle at Rorke’s Drift was inspired by the 1964 film ‘Zulu’, I’ll be leaning my painting and modelling in a more cinematic direction over realism – so expect more gleaming white helmets and bright red British uniforms over tea-stained brown helmets and faded, dirtied battle dress. If you’re reading this and your first love is military history and the accurate capture of it, then please understand mine is miniature painting, scale modelling and the film Zulu, so whilst I welcome constructive criticism of all kinds, pleas don’t nitpick about historical accuracy, as I will not be beholden to it in my painting.
After all the time I’ve spent painting USC marine camouflage and doors (after doors, after doors…agh) I decided I needed a little palette cleaner. I decided the Alien eggs and the Facehugger miniatures would be perfect for this:
These were nice, simple paintjobs. I undercoated the eggs in black and the ‘Huggers in white. The bottom third of each egg was painted a dark green, the top third a lighter shade and the middle section with a combinations of the two. An Army Painter strong tone wash helped blend the three colour ‘bands’ together and once the eggs had been dry brushed with a lighter green still, the colours blended together well. I decided they looked a little too vibrant, so added a black wash to the lower third of each egg and the nest of tubes that they sit on. The egg’s ‘lips’ were painted with a flesh tone, highlighted with a lighter shade and I then dribble some Strong Tone wash into the crevices to give more definition. I added a few dabs of yellow here and there at the tops of the eggs to accentuate the scaly texture there. A coat of gloss varnish later and done. Well, almost.
I decided to try and add some goop to the tops of the two eggs that are opening. I slopped some UHU glue onto the tops of these two eggs and drew strands of it across from one peeling section of egg to the other. You can kinda see them, but the effect isn’t as pronounced as I might have liked. Plus it’s pretty fragile, so I anticipate that as the eggs rattle around in their foam storage and are handled during setting up and gameplay, these strands will get worn away.
The two Facehuggers were next. Again, nice simple paintjobs. Base coat of Citadel Cadian Fleshtone all over, a darker shade of the same in the very, er, (eww) feminine looking underside where the ovipositor emerges. An Army Painter Strong Tone wash all over then drybrush and highlights applied with a lightened shade of the Cadian Fleshtone.
Here’s an (unfortunateely blurry) closer look at some of the above:
If you’ve enjoyed this look at these miniatures, you may like my other blog posts showcasing the ‘Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps’ board game miniatures and a range of great resin scenery that’s available for it:
After painting the United States Colonial Marines for the Aliens: Another Glorious day in the Corp boardgame, I got on with Ripley, Newt and everyone’s favourite dogmeat: Carter J.Burke.
First up, Ellen Ripley:
Ripley was pretty straightforward to paint, other than those custom Reebok boots. I wanted to get them as close to the movie as possible and it took a while before I was happy with how they looked, not to mention some serious searching for reference photos.
Newt next:
This is a simple, but characterful sculpt of Newt, wearing a USCM helmet and giving her “Ay-firmative” salute. There’s some nice detail with the creases in her dungarees, and drybrushing has given them a nice, worn denim look.
Lastly, Carter J. Burke:
This is a very mice sculpt, with Burke’s pose and raised eyebrow helping to convey his arrogant demeanor. The pattern of squares on his bodywarmer is finely detailed, so a wash helps define the pattern nicely. It took me several attempts until I was happy with the look of the chequered pattern on his shirt. It doesn’t hold up to very close scrutiny, but from three feet away looks just fine.
If you’ve enjoyed this look at these miniatures, you may like my other blog posts showcasing the ‘Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps’ board game miniatures and a range of great resin scenery that’s available for it:
After some intensive internet browsing for reference photos I’ve finally taken the plunge and painted my United States Colonial Marines for the ‘Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps’ board game.
I’ve been putting off painting these miniatures for a couple of years now as I didn’t feel confident in where to start with the two different camo patterns. Now, being into miniature painting and wargaming since I was little; ever since I first saw ‘Aliens’ aged 14, I’ve thought that I would love to have some US Colonial Marine miniatures. Now that I actually have, I wanted to be able to get them looking ‘right’. I wouldn’t have been able to bear looking at them and thinking “…Nah, messed that paint job up.”
I’m not 100% happy with them, as after the wash went onto them, I realised the base colour for their cloth battle dress uniform (BDU) was too ‘warm’ and should have had more grey to it. But I wasn’t ready to go back and paint over all the camo patterns i’d just done, so the slightly off colour BDUs are something I can live with. Anyway, here’s the Marines, with a look at the front and rear of each and some notes . Further down I’ll talk about the recipe I used to get these results.
Let’s start with Sergeant Apone:
This is the only Marine I tried to paint eyes on. No matter what method I try, it appears I’m just not a good enough painter to get eyes looking right. Apone doesn’t look too much like a frog/squid but I was unhappy enough with the final result (after several attempts) to forego trying to paint the eyes on any of the others. If you look close enough you may be able to see that I was able to paint his moustache and cigar, complete with glowing orange tip. Plus a red dot for the ammo counter on his pulse rifle.
Next up, Corporal Hicks:
Not that you can see it too well in either photo, but I painted an approximation of the heart symbol on Hick’s breastplate. There’s a surprising amount of personalisation on the Marine’s armour and weapons, a lot of it I had never noticed before doing my research. Hicks also has a ‘bullet’ hole on the left shoulder of his armour, with “Born Again” written above and below it, which I never noticed until recently (and didn’t try to recreate at 28mm!) Hmm, looking at these photos, maybe I’ll try and drill out the barrel of Hick’s shotgun…
Hudson:
Hudson’s armour has a skull and crossed bones with a dagger on the right of the chestplate and a red ‘bow’ above the word Louise on the left (I understand Louise was the name of Bill Paxton’s wife.) Something I had NEVER noticed in all my viewings of Aliens were the cartoon eyes on the rear of Hudson’s right shoulder pad and the words “Contents under pressure, dispose of properly” written on right of his backplate. I’ve tried to give an approximation of all the above when painting him.
Next up, Crowe:
Not a lot to say about Crowe as he doesn’t get much screentime, but I understand Tip Tipping, the actor who played him, was ex SAS. This is the only miniature with the infrared eyesight ‘down’ and is a nice pose.
Dietrich:
The squad’s medic has some nice personalisation on her BDU. A red cross and teardrop (I think) tattoo on her right forearm and a love heart (again, I think) on her right wrist bandage(?). I tired to represent these, but they look a bit ‘meh’. I felt more successful in capturing the red lips on the right buttock of her BDU.
Frost:
Another really nice sculpt. Again, I’d never noticed before doing my research for this painting, but Frost has a love heart containing the name “Heath” pierced by an arrow, drawn in white on his chestplate, but that area is obscured on this miniature by the flamethrower.
Wierzbowski:
Although not a particularly dynamic pose, this is by far my favourite of all the Marine sculpts. I can’t really explain why, it just looks… spot on to me.
Drake:
I thought Drake’s smart gun had “TCM” written on it , but after another viewing of ‘Aliens’ I realised it says “Bitch”, so I need to go back and try to write that on instead. It also says something like “Chhrrtttt” (which I assume to be a written version of the sound the smart gun makes when being fired..?) on a handle/hand guard on his gun, but that’s way too small for me to try and recreate at 28mm. I only noticed after somebody pointed it out on Facebook that neither Drake nor Vasquez wear leg armour in the film, so the leg armour on their sculpts shouldn’t be there. I can live with it though. Plus, there are other sculpts available online from Etsy if I ever decide I need a more screen-accurate and dynamic sculpt for either Drake or Vasquez.
Speaking of Vasquez:
Ugh, wish I’d noticed the mold line down here left leg before painting her, but hey ho. Again, I might drill out the barrel on her weapon. Vasquez has “Adios” written on her smart gun and “El riesgo siempre vive” (Risk always lives) on her chestplate. I managed to kinda write the former and added some white squiggles to suggest the latter. (ugh, mold lines again…)
Which brings us to Lieutenant Gorman:
Another sculpt I like and phew – no camoflage to paint!
I also have Ferro and Spunkmeyer to paint from the ‘We’re in the pipe, five by five’ expansion and am currently on with Ripley, Newt and Burke with Bishop and enraged Ripley to follow.
These are the recipes I used to paint the Marine’s BDU and armor, including the camo patterns. All paints are Vallejo Model Colour unless otherwise noted.
BDU
Base colour: Buff 70.976
Camo pattern: Olive Drab 70.887, Flat Earth 70.983 Vallejo Game Colour Glacier Blue 72.095
Washed with Army Painter Soft Tone quickshade
Armour
Base: Olive Drab 70.887
Camo pattern: Ochre Brown 70.856, Uniform Green 70.922, Chocolate Brown 70.872, Vallejo Game Colour Glacier Blue 72.095
Other Gubbins
Webbing: German Grey 70.995
Pistol Holsters: Uniform Green 70.922
Pulse Rifles & flamers German Grey 70.995, Olive Drab 70.887
Pistols & Smart guns: German Grey 70.995
Pouches: 50/50 mix of Olive Drab 70.887 and Uniform Green 70.922
Washed with Army Painter Soft Tone quickshade
Skin
Base Citadel Cadian Fleshtone, highlighted with 50/50 mix Citadel Cadian Fleshtone and Citadel Rakarth Flesh.
I found these reference photos online (with apologies for not noting where, in order to be able to give credit for them here) which were extremely helpful when painting the camo patterns and equipment.
I’ll add Ferro & Spunkmeyer to this blog when they’re done, too. After some kind comments online about this blog, I’m working on a step-by-step painting guide for how I applied the camo patterns on the Marine’s armour and BDU.
If you’ve enjoyed this look at the USC Marines, you may like my other blog posts showcasing the ‘Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps’ board game and a range of great resin scenery that’s available for it:
Doors are important in games of Aliens: Another Glorious day in the Corp (AGDITC), helping to determine line of sight for spotting blips and blasting bugs. The doors produced by Combatzone Scenery are great to help you remember which doors are open or closed, but I particularly like the sets of Barricaded Doors they produce.
The design of the doors is great, as the items piled up against them are bits and bobs you find across the rest of the Hanley’s Hope scenery range, such as barrels and crates. The two sides of each door sculpt are different too, giving some nice variety on the gaming table.
Combatzone Scenery produce barricaded versions of all three sizes of door. I purchased discounted ‘factory second’ sets of the small and large doors, which have a few small holes from air bubbles. These holes are quite obvious now in these close up photos now that the models are painted but far less so when you’re looking at them from three feet away on the gaming table.
These were good fun to paint. I undercoated in black and used my airbrush to layer on some mid tone grey and the a lighter grey highlight for the actual doors and frames, before painting all the junk piled up against the sides of each door, which did take a while. After shading and highlighting the barricade items, I did my best effort at some edge highlighting on the door panels and frames. I’m still not great at this. I understand how I’m meant to do it, but every time I try I end up with uneven lines . You can see how blobby and rough they look in these photos, but again, from three feet away on the gaming table they look much better.
If you’ve enjoyed this look at some of the Hanley’s Hope scenery, you may like my other blog posts about it and the Aliens: AGDITC game too:
The Other One's Vault of the Undead 