The building of a TempleCon scenario table

[PG_Nicodemus]

My brother (Rassilon) and I had the idea of this 'table' at Templecon 2010. While I admit we procrastinated for quite some time, it still took us a number of months to get the scenario rules down pat, not to mention building the model itself.

I put 'teable' in quotes be cause as it was, our inspiration was not to make one giant table full of nifty details to look at, but a concise rule set and a single cool piece of terrain that worked with the game and didn't neccessarily steal attention from a game being played.

As many of my old art teachers and professors would often say, "Less is more!"...so we made a single piece of terrain to sit in the middle of everything to look pretty...as well as cause a ton of havoc.

So here are the pics I took as I was building this monstrosity.


I'm not sure of the company, but we used some sort of generic terrain pieces for the boiler. The body is just foamboard and plasticard.




Built a quick hip unit. More foamboard and plasticard.




This is beginning of the legs. The 'bones' are plastic piping. We bought this stuff special because it nested to give that sort of piston look. Hip, knee and ankle joints are plastic (nylon?) spacers and whatnot that we bought at a Home Depot.




Beginnings of the feet. More plasticard and foamboard.

[PG_Nicodemus]

More foot work.




Not sure what happened to the pictures of when I started building the arms. But i used the same basic materials as the legs. The upper arm was actually half of some sort of pipe coupling...again from Home Depot.

Colossals are ancient of course, so we figured one broken arm would be pretty sweet.




Starting to glue everything together. Added some foamboard shoulders.




Arms and legs now glued on. Added some pistons to the legs (more nylon spacers).

[PG_Nicodemus]

Smoke stacks and head added. The head is once again foamboard and plasticard.




Built a plasticard faceplate to give some depth. Also adding some armor plates and a big ol honkin mace. I should have taken some pictures of the hand as it was being built. Its actually made from just some round plastic rods for knuckles and glue from a glue gun. REALLY! Basically, I needed something that was soft enough to cut to make the fingers fit just right. Also added more pistons.




At this point I decided that mace didn't look angry enough, so i added flanges.




Back shot.

[PG_Nicodemus]

It was at this point of time I turned the model over to my little brother (rassilon). He is notorious for excellent details and paint work. We started adding rivets and armor plating.




I loved the top hatch he added.




Close up head.




Close up armor plates.

[PG_LonelyMonk]

I hope you have more to show us... That THING is just so much fun

[PG_Nicodemus]

And the painting has begun! Not much to the paint job really. Lots of drybrushed silver. Some brass and copper. the rust effect is actually from 'weathering power'.




Side view.




Back view.

[PG_Nicodemus]

And the final product as it was seen at Temple con. note the added detail of an entire tree on the base!




Rassilon's Circle vs my Trollbloods.




And then lets eat some Protectorate! (Not sure whose army this was)




Some stompy goodness right there!




Now thats what *I* call a... :Puts on sunglasses:

...Colossal build

YYYEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!


To see the entire photo album: Go Here!

[I-am-robot]

That guy is fantastic! What kinda rules did you use for him as a terrain piece? Does he attack things?

[PG_Nicodemus]

That guy is fantastic! What kinda rules did you use for him as a terrain piece? Does he attack things?

Essentially he was a mega solo. So yes, he did move around and attack things. Each player also had the option to control him somewhat. Basically, he'd trample things, knock them down, then thresher with a PS 19.

I'll post the rules for the entire scenario eventually.

[PG_Lankira]

I want to bake you a giant cupcake for making that awesomeness. And letting folks play with it.

Colossus-cake, anyone?

[PPS_Jen]

I'm sad I didn't play on this table.

I'm even more sad that Nicodemus' Sevvy 2 beat Vyros to death.

[PG_Nicodemus]

I want to bake you a giant cupcake for making that awesomeness. And letting folks play with it.

Colossus-cake, anyone?

Damn those things were good...

You do understand we'll be expecting one of these next year, right?:

I'm sad I didn't play on this table.

It'll be there next year! And I think we've already come up with a concept for our next table! It'll be tough of course...I mean its going to be hard to top this bugger.

I'm even more sad that Nicodemus' Sevvy 2 beat Vyros to death.

Bah, it was all luck

[bigbarry99]

This was actually the very first table that my models hit upon arriving @ templecon. It was an absolute blast to play on, however with the rules set it added a lot of time onto the game. Possibly removing the trample effects would have helped. don't get me wrong though, i enjoyed every carnage filled turn and I won overall cooking Baldur with the Thunderhead under epic Nemo.

[Defenstrator]

Cool. Very cool. Looks like he's ready to step on one of the new battle engines.

[PG_Rassilon]

This was actually the very first table that my models hit upon arriving @ templecon. It was an absolute blast to play on, however with the rules set it added a lot of time onto the game. Possibly removing the trample effects would have helped. don't get me wrong though, i enjoyed every carnage filled turn and I won overall cooking Baldur with the Thunderhead under epic Nemo.

That was a great game btw. I managed to make scrap out of the majority of those Cygnar jacks, which was very satisfying. I love the smell of smashed jacks in the morning.

I believe we were also playing a 75 point game, which tends to take longer, especially with so many models trying to take the center. That adds to the number of models that get trampled. I think the ideal game size for this table was 35 points or 50 points. All the play-testing we did were 35 point games. Over the weekend, I did see people I know from The Whiz Store in Westborough, MA playing a 4 person game on that table; must of been 100 points on each side. I'm kind of curious how long their game took. I'll have to ask them the next time I see them.

[SnapCracklePop]

Amazing build, and what looked like very cool play effect from the collossal.

Bigbarry99 being my brother the first game and table I witnessed at Templecon was with this awesome piece of work. Great way to get me all psyched to play on that and the other scenario tables. Regrettably things did not align for me to get on that table, but I always enjoyed watching that big guy go all stompy on people's armies as I walked by.

Kudos and thanks from bringing that to Templecon.

[PG_Lankira]

Damn those things were good...

You do understand we'll be expecting one of these next year, right?:

So, I s'pose I should add this to my wedding registry?

[PG_Nicodemus]

So, I s'pose I should add this to my wedding registry?

Heck yeah!

[PG_Snoitpo]

Please tell me this comes with a custom rules set as a Rhulic Battle Engine.

[PG_Nicodemus]

Please tell me this comes with a custom rules set as a Rhulic Battle Engine.

We were actually thinking of that at one point...

[PG_Nicodemus]

Rassilon and I were featured on Lost Hemisphere's most recent radio broadcast because of this crazy thing. If you havn't discovered Lost Hemisphere yet, its time you did:

http://losthemisphere.com