Sunday, January 29, 2017

Setting the table for my space battles

With the version 2.0 of Pax Stellarum pretty much ready, I decided to improve the table and scenery I use for my space battles. 


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I do have a space mat, but it's a bit too blue, too full of nebulae, and I wanted something darker, so I just sprayed one of our gaming tables at our club black, added stars with the tooth brush technique and painted a few gas clouds to give it a bit of color. 

The result was a very convincing outer space background with little investment:

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I also worked on some pieces of scenery. Below are a couple of Hyperspace Rifts. In game terms, ships moving into contact with these risk getting randomly projected to a different spot on the table.

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On the back of these I painted Distortion Fields, which affect ships' heading when they move in contact with them.

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I also painted a trio of planets, much larger than the ones I previously had. These are styrofoam half-spheres that I covered with acrylic puty, sanded and painted.

First, a gas giant:

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Next, an Earth-like planet:

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And last, a barren planet or large moon:

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To come up with mines, I used sewing beads, they're pretty inexpensive, and already come with holes for the pins, so quite practical. I would prefer to have used the mines from Battlefleet Gothic, but they go for crazy prices on ebay these days, and I needed a lot to use in a minefield, as well as to represent mines laid out by ships while they move, so for now these will do.

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Below, I put some ships next to a mine token to give an idea of their scale:

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I already had several pieces of plasticard sprayed black which I use as area terrain to determine the boundaries of my asteroid fields, as can be seen on the pic below. Their underside is painted as nebulae, so I can use them both ways, just like my Hyperspace Rifts/Distortion Fields.

I'm now pretty satisfied with my gaming table. Looking forward to putting it to use soon!

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10 comments:

  1. Really nice work, love the planets!

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  2. Plenty there for us all to draw some inspiration. thanks

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  3. Very cool! I like the subdued space background.

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  4. So I guess this will be the final 2.0 rules?

    Still got the 1.0 version and the 2.0 alpha somewhere on my computer.

    Will we be able to download version 2.0 from this blog?

    And will there be an updated Design-Tool?


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    1. It'll be the final version of the second edition, yes, Herc. Still working on some minor editting on the rulebook.

      The design tool is fully updated to the new version, and already comes with several ready-to-play ship stat cards from famous scifi universes.

      The link will be available here on the blog once I'm finished with editting.

      Cheers.

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  5. Really great work! I've put space scenery off for some time now. Maybe this will inspire me to get back to work! Love the planets, and great idea for the mines!

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  6. Very nice indeed, the planets especially look very cool. What minis are in the second from bottom picture, by the way?

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  7. Hi, Trynda,

    The white ship is a Mauridian cruiser, from Ravenstar Studios. The green one is a Klingon bird of prey, produced by Studio Bergstrom, which is also the maker of the fighters in the same pic.

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