Malifaux Terrain: The Swamp Lodge Part 1

This is a project I started with my brother when I was home last Christmas. He has a pretty active gaming group and wanted some terrain for the clubhouse. He plays piggies and thought some swamp terrain would be pretty sweet. We sketched out a couple ideas and set to work.

Here are the materials we used;
Foamcore
Wooden craft sticks
Wooden dowels
White glue
Pink foam
Drywall mud
Odds and ends from the bits box
A pair of side-cutters to chop the sticks
Ruler, knife, etc...

We would make several buildings on pylons, a wide dock, wooden bridges, and a few hillocks. We also made some "interest" pieces like a pig corral, still, and saw horse.

The basic construction was the usual- we cut strips of foamcore, scored them, and folded them into shape for the buildings.

We cut a bunch of wooden stips using the side cutters. These often come "popsicle" style, so the rounded edges had to go.

We sheathed them in wooden strips and worked around the holes we cut for windows and doors.

The buildings all have porches outside and small pieces of dowel used to lift them up out of the swamp. In order to attach them firmly, you should probably use a small nail or screw to hold them in since glue doesn't really do the trick.

The buildings would all be connected by walkways. These are simply made out of some long pieces and a number of planks. Be sure to leave them wide enough for a wide base to sit firmly on top. A narrow walkway might look better, but will dump your war piggy in the swamp every time.

Here are a couple of small hills. They are pink insulation form filed down with a rasp and covered with drywall mud. Once dry, we sanded the mud down to a smooth finish. When making these, keep a model handy and see if it can stand upright without sliding off. I have tossed a number of hills because they were too steep for a model to stand on.

The central dock/platform was made from craft sticks. We left a couple of small holes to increase the decrepitude and hacked off the ends of the planks with the side-cutter. Reinforce the bottom neatly so your models don't actually fall through when playing!

We hit everything with some brown paint and a quick highlight. Notice that the sticks covering the walls are uneven and completely cover the foamcore.

Mr. Jones approves the repair to his porch.


Next I will show some of the bits we made to dress up the board