Hey everyone, Guy from Midwinter Minis here. One of the things that really hooks a lot of people in this hobby is the immersive universe of Warhammer 40,000 but when you're just starting out you might not have access to loads of cool buildings and terrain, and while there's no harm in filling up your battlefield with books and bottles you'll probably find it way more enjoyable to play the game if you've got some suitably grimdark bits of scenery to make it look the part. In this video I'm gonna show you six easy, cheap and beginner friendly ways to make your battlefields look more impressive.
First up: barrels. Store-bought scale model barrels are often pretty expensive or only available in sets with other stuff you maybe don't want, so an easy alternative is to use 15 millimeter brass couplers. The banded detailing is already there, they're the right size for the scale, and you can buy them literally from any hardware store, and they tend to be really cheap: about a quarter of the price of barrels you'll find in kits.
If you want any of them to be closed, cut a little circle of card and glue it onto the end before you paint and prime. I'd recommend putting one on the bottom of each barrel either way. To make them fit in the world of Warhammer 40000 give them a blast of metal spray primer, the plastic primer I'd usually use won't adhere to the surface so well, and paint them up in any color you like or a mix of colors.
Barrels are a good way to use your spare water transfers too, so apply some if you want to add quick easy detail. Stipple on some dark brown paint and silver chips using a sponge or stiff brush to simulate a little damage and then give them a go over with your favorite shade wash to bring the colors together. Give them a quick coat of varnish if you want to protect them and you are done.
If you've left any of them open here are a few ideas of how to fill them: toxic sludge using a hot glue gun and Nurgle's Rot paint from Citadel. Crude oil using hot glue and really any dark blue or brown paint, and finished with a gloss varnish. A burnt-out bin fire using a packaging chip to fill up the space PVA sand, a few broken sticks, paint it black and dry brush slightly lighter shades of grey and you're done.
Next? Junk barricades. A great way to block line-of-sight restricted vehicles and offer some cover and just make your battlefields look a bit cooler to make them you'll need something rigid like MDF to construct the base, lolly sticks to make the frame and basically just any junk you have lying around to make the barricade.
Cut up food containers, mosquito mesh, plastic canvas, corrugated card, hobby offcuts pretty much anything you were probably just gonna throw out. The first step is to build your basic structure make a few 1 by 3 inch shapes out of the MDF to act as the base, bevel down the front and back with a knife believe the edge so they can be placed edge to edge nicely. Now cut some lolly sticks in three inch lengths making sure to cut off their round edges, use PVA to sandwich the two sticks at each end and try to keep the angles straight as much as you can, it might help to place an unglued stick underneath them to keep them level while they dry and when that assemblies dry, stick it to the center of your MDF sheet and now have fun filling up the gap with your random with junk bits, it might be helpful to fill up that space in the middle with a bit of stiff card but I don't want to stifle your creativity.
