The Road to Warhammer Fest 2023 - part 4, building the Gnarlwood Encampment Mini display board

• Part 1, Themed box for counters, ruler, combat gauges, cards and dice.
• Part 2, Themed Warcry Dashboard
• Part 3, planning the Gnarlwood Encampment Mini display board
• Part 4, building the Gnarlwood Encampment Mini display board
• Part 5, The Tangled Depths
• Part 6, The Warhammer Fest Warcry Rumble

I mentioned in part 3 of this blog post series that I had become a little hyper-focused on prep for the Warhammer Fest Warcry Rumble, as it was the only gaming I could be sure will happen in the near future. I was hoping to sort out more gaming before then but I had nothing lined up. well, I'm happy to say I have recently booked a ticket for The Tangled Depths at Warhammer World on March 18th.

I've been to WHW a couple of times, and I've played in a few tournaments, but this will be my first my first competitive event at Warhammer World. It will also be my first Warcry tournament - it might already be evident that I'm not big on competitive play, and I will be playing with a narrative mindset and not worrying about my overall score.

Anyway. With less than four weeks to go to The Tangled Depths (and then only 7 weeks after that until Warhammer Fest) and still no display base, I felt like I had to just pick an option and get on with it!

So I settled on the picture frame and got going. I had already taken the glass and the card mount out of the frame, and replaced them with two layers of 5mm matt black foamboard. The foamboard filled the space perfectly but it left the models standing a bit low in the frame. So I cut another bit of foamboard, slightly smaller than the two in the frame, cut the edges into a slope, and rounded it off. My plan was for this to be the base to attach all the scenic elements, and just blutac it to the foamboard in the frame. This way the display base can also be used as regular scenery later.

To keep close to my idea to make it look like part of an orruk pirate encampment in the Gnarlwood, I fiddled-about with positions for some barrels, a chest, an old Citadel Woods tree, and my warband for a bit, until I found one that looked okay, and made good use of the space. The one thing it really needed now was some height.

I cut a smallish slice of pink foam for one corner as the core of a rocky outcrop. Once it was roughly the right shape (and intentionally smaller than the intended finished size, so there was room for the cork bark around it) I covered it with a layer of PVA to seal and protect the foam from the spray undercoat that would come later.

I attached a load of small chips of cork bark around the outside edges and a slightly larger lump to the back-right corner. Once the glue was dry I filled the gaps between the cork with basing texture-paste.

I tore-up some 2mm-thick cork sheet and glued it down onto the flat surfaces leaving small gaps between them - this creates a good broken-ground texture while leaving the spaces for models nice and level. It also ties it nicely to my Warcry board and a lot of my scenery as I've used the same technique on them.

(The barrels and treasure chest are from the Ossiarch Bone-tithe Nexus scenery.)

I added a couple of "mooring posts" made from dowels lashed together with PVA-soaked string. One was secured by gluing it to the base and the side of the cork bark rocky outcrop. The other by cutting a hole in the cork sheet, pushing into the pink foam with a sharp pencil then pushing the dowel into the hole, with a big blob of PVA on the bottom of it.

I cut a small triangle of canvas to size (after roughly measuring the space for it and marking out the triangle corners with a pencil) and painted PVA onto one side. Before the glue dried I folded two edges back and shaped the sail to look like it was hanging, suspended from the corners.

The following day I painted the other side of the sail awning with glue too. I had weighted the base down overnight with some small glass jars with a stack of notebooks on top, to try to minimise the warping that had already started to show a little. I later painted the underside of the base with PVA to try and counter the warping a bit more. It was mostly successful.

Once it that was all completely dry I sewed the sailcloth awning onto the rigging at the front and the smaller mooring post at the back - I painted PVA onto the sewing too, so it won't come untied and would take paint well.

Then I glued the gaps around the cork sheet and sanded them. I also added a few more plastic bits at this point; skulls, bottles, planks, smaller barrels and chests, and a flintlock revolving pistol.

Ready for undercoat!

As I mentioned, the scenic part is not attached to the frame, so it was easy to spray undercoat it without needing to mask anything. As usual, I gave it a black undercoat all over and a grey "almost zenithal" spray from about 45° all round. This was selectively boosted a bit in some areas with a second spray at a lower angle (mainly on the underside of the sail).

The paint job was relatively simple as I wanted it to match the rest of my scenery, so it won't stand out on the table when it isn't being used as a display base. I'm very happy with how it looks though, so much so that I might make some more piratey "Gnarlwood Encampment" scatter terrain to expand this bit! Maybe a camp fire and some more sailcloth awnings.

My warband just about all fit in! They do make it look a little crowded, but I think I get away with it.

One of my favourite details is the barrel with a skeleton sitting inside it (from the Bone-tithe Nexus kit). It's hard to get a photo of it though.

I like to think it was a stow-away who was unluckily trapped when the barrel they were hiding in was placed at the bottom of a big stack of other barrels, on a long voyage. The orruk pirates were probably disappointed when they opened the stolen cargo - they were likely hoping for strong drink in there!