On the Lodestone River

To accompany our newly-finished, oldschool Fantasy Battle armies we produced an entirely new wargaming theatre to deploy the regiments in. This would tie the campaign visuals together and partly inspire the armies' basing themes as well. We had been waiting for an opportunity to reuse some old Citadel plastic terrain parts and to make a mundane and "naturalistic" terrain set fitting for several game systems. Loosely basing the idea on the Border Princes countryside and adding a spice of ruined Arnor vibes - we now had a subject to approach.

In the centre of our entire build were the retro corner ruins, familiar from the Battleforces and Starter Boxes of Warhammer 40,000 third edition - everyone has seen these or the plastic jungle trees on the battlefields at some point! Back then terrain elements were modest, the line of sight blocking was not the most important aspect of a scenery piece, and any feature put together with care was enough to elevate the battles to another level of wargaming atmosphere.

In our heads our scenery was an ancient culture that had deteriorated into overgrown, mossy ruins over time. We used some of the corner ruins as they were, but some were elevated by assembling extra "floors". We also replicated sections of the plastic ruins with foam, while imitating the style of the architecture on these parts. This was a way to build a bit larger ruins that still resembled the classic designs, also adding scenic variety.

We intentionally built many ruins with smaller footprints, as this reminded us of our childhood terrain, and they're also more versatile to use between many game systems. Although the intended use for the new terrain was our Warhammer Fantasy campaign, we assembled all of our classic corner ruins - way too much for a standard WHFB battlefield but handy for other systems with bigger terrain requirements. This way we can get more use out of the scenery, for example as a feudal world setting in the coming Heresy events. 

The ruined chapel is the centerpiece feature for our Border Princes board, something solid to explore and fight over. Our smaller ruins use the classic 40K corner ruins but here the structure is mostly foam shaped to resemble the plastic terrain - our aim was to imitate the architectural style but build something larger and effective with gameplay in mind. Small details like the crypt can add massively to the narrative - we could see a treasure hunt or a last stand developing here!

The farmstead crops on the other hand are not particularly effective terrain, but really neat to have in the background for pictures! With these we combined the old Fantasy Battle wall sections with foam and natural pebbles to frame a piece of doormat on a plasticard base. The doormat is removable, so technically we could make an alternative version (burnt, with a path or with patches to place models in...) with specific scenarios in mind.

Thanks for taking a look! We're eagerly waiting for more Border Princes action already.