Ruined Church Mordheim Terrain



My local gaming group started up a Mordheim campaign in early 2006. After playing for most of the summer we decided to use the optional encampment rules. Since I play dwarves I figured they'd want a good strong stone building as their base of operations so I set about designing a ruined church for them to live in. My main objectives were to make it defensible as well as functional. About a third of the time spent on this project was in the design phase, drawing sketches and figuring out dimensions. I can't stand terrain that's pretty to look at but impossible to play on. For that reason I didn't bother making a roof for the church and left one wall off of the tower for easy access. Once I had some basic drawings and dimensions I started by making a foundation out of high density foam. The building itself was made from black foamcore to save time and prevent any white showing through with the inevitable damage all terrain takes. The main windows of the building were made from a wedding cake topper.

Base Tower Second Floor 1 Second Floor 2 Windows Damage 1 Damage 2 Damage 3 Second Floor 3

With the building together I started detailing it. I took a heat gun to the section where the wall collapsed and melted a crater into the foam foundation. For the floor of the church I used scrap styrene sheet to make half inch tiles that I individually glued down(a little nuts, I know). I used more scrap styrene to detail the windows and doors. Once all that dried I painted the whole thing with a 1:1 mix of black acrylic paint and sand to add texture. I then gave the building 2 drybrushes with successively lighter shades of grey.

Tiles Tiles Installed Windows Tiled

With the building painted I started detailing with balsa wood. I installed flooring for other sections, built up the 2 sets of stairs, added doors and boarded up the first floor windows. I originally intended to add a number of "encampmenty" type things like a weapons rack, cook pot, work area for my engineer, etc but I dropped them for simplicity. I did add a small table and a rack of barrels. I found a cheap set of gargoyles on sale after Halloween and added them on along with some real bells in the bell tower.

Primed Stairs Balsa Barrels Bells

I went a little overboard on this project but it was a fun build. Unfortunately no one else in my group has bothered to make their own encampments and no one seems inclined to try now that I've shown them mine. Oh well.

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