The Ravaged Coast, part 4

This is the last piece for this project that I'll be able to get finished before the narrative Warcry event I'm running at WHW takes place. There are more parts to come but they'll have to wait until next month, at least. I'll be posting about that event after the dust has settled.

I also added a little Aethermatic Blue to the metal sphere of the Charybdis Occulum, so the verdigris on it matched the new pieces a bit better. 

There's a lot of excitement among the AoS players at EWG for the new book; Path to Glory Ravaged Coast. 

A slow-grow narrative campaign is brewing using the rules from the book, starting with 1,000 point games. Over 20 people have said they want to be involved! So I'm planning to take a load of this scenery to game nights at the club, as well as my army, over the next few months.

The PtG book is absolutely fantastic, and it's built on my excitement and enthusiasm for the setting exponentially. Some of the prep I've done for Mutiny’s End will feed directly into the EWG AoS campaign, including the Emberstone tokens I bought for that event.

I'll put them on top of my 40mm based piratey objective markers to use as Emberstone Clusters. When they're picked up by a unit, I'll remove the objective marker and put the token with the unit.

The Ravaged Coast, part 3

Far to the east of the Great Parch where the land meets the Ocean of Tears - lies the Ravaged Coast. This vast archipelago now lies crushed between the Great Parch and the emergent Gnaw, and it has quickly become a battleground of violent seas, sand-blasted atolls and Skaven-tainted ruins.

Whether it's in the remains of an Age of Myth city, deep in the forests of the Harrowmark, or the Vermindoom-wracked Ravaged Coast of Aqshy, one thing is always true: where-ever a number of orruk sky-ships regularly gather (to hide, to make repairs, to sell booty, to buy booze, or just for a brief respite from a storm), a small but busy sky-ship harbour will spring-up in no-time. The ramshackle improvised port will soon be "improved" with timber piers and jetties added to whatever buildings were already there, and a layer of detritus will gather beneath and around everything.

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I've written in more detail about the whys and hows of building this scenery in the previous parts of this series, they can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2.

I spent a good deal of time thinking about what colour palette would work for the Dawnbringer ruins before I started painting them. I settled on making the metals verdigris copper, for a few reasons.

First, I just like seeing verdigris copper domes and roofs in real life.

Second, it will complement the teal I used for the worn paint on the wooden house.

Third, it will tie the new pieces visually with the older mausoleums, and other buildings, I've got in my collection, so I will be able to freely mix-and-match terrain components and still have coherent looking boards.

There are more parts on the way: the larger Dawnbringer ruin with added platforms in Part 1, and at least one other. Working on this project, even though it's been a very long and slow one, has given me ideas for more pieces.

The Ravaged Coast, part 2

Three grots lounged around the bottom of the crows nest while a fourth, called Fiddgit, took his turn on watch, on the step by the large brass telescope that was suspended by ropes from the mast.

He started as he suddenly spotted a distant ship lying in the roads outside the fogbank, he wondered why he hadn’t seen it approach? He grabbed the spyglass and turned it to the ship’s direction - he peered through it: it was the Ogresun… and it was hoisting a string of signal flags. The grot read the flags slowly and carefully, his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth in concentration. The ship was asking for a pilot to navigate them into port.  

He jumped down from the step and pulled the cord that sent up an acknowledgement signal flag. He quickly relayed what was happening to the others and tagged-in one of the grots to take their turn on the telescope. No-one wanted to take their turn when it came to it, but they all knew only the one on duty had a chance of claiming the rewards for spotting ships.

Fiddgit slid down one of the ropes that braced the crows nest, into the fog below. He ran to the nearest tavern. There were no pilots to be found drinking there so he carried on along the quay. The next building that was likely to be fruitful was Gurdrog Gaff’s house, a wooden shack made mostly from shipwreck timbers (like nearly everything in Gallowmire).

The grot knocked on the door and let himself in, he breathlessly passed on the news of the ship; its name, location, and request to the orruk harbour pilot.

“Beg pardon sir, but Ogresun is waiting in the north-east roads, asking for a pilot!”

Gurdrog grunted, put on his hat, grabbed the bag from the back of his door and gave the grot a farthing. He closed his front door and climbed the stairway to his roof, where his sky-cutter was tied up. The grot squealed to himself and ran back to his post, but via the tavern to purchase a tot of rum on the way.

The wind was abeam but the ethertide was against him, so it took longer than normal for Gurdrog to sail out through the fog bank to the outer roads.

As he emerged from the fog he saw the Ogresun - a slab-sided and slow flying ship, heavily armed with lots of guns - including an Ironblaster cannon in the focsle.

He called out, “Ahoy Ogresun! Gallowmire pilot, asking permission to come aboard!”

“Took ya time didn’t you? Come up smartly now.” The call came back from the ship.

Gurgrog tied his cutter to the side of the ship and climbed up to the deck.

“Kaptain will want a discount cause ya late.” said Fishgutz, the deck-hand that met him there.

The pilot grunted at him but didn’t comment. His fee was between him and the ship’s master, not a swabbie.

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I've wanted to make rocky outcrops for a long time - I kept putting it off as I wasn't sure how to make them. But, after reading a few other people's articles about using cork bark to make cliffs, I decided to just give it a try anyway.

Sketchy ideas from the corners of my notebooks:

The first thing I needed was the wooden house to go on top, so I knew how big to make the flat area of the rocky "island".

I bought a Lake-town House kit (from GW's scenery range for The Hobbit), assembled it mostly straight-out-of-the-box and then added stairs from the Warcry bell-tower kit. To make it even more Warcry play-friendly I also added some of the Lake-town walkways (with old Fortified Manor joists to support them) and (an even older; Mordheim!) ladder to the roof, so the house isn't just a line-of-sight blocker.

I added a few other scenery bits-box extras too - a window frame, a lantern, etc. - to individualise it more. It's a really nice building kit, so I can see myself getting more at some point.

I've had some pink foam saved for making rocky outcrops for years and years and years (it has moved house with us three times, much to my wife's dismay). I started roughing out the shapes I would need. I will say that I wasted loads of (precious!) foam at this stage as I made all the chunks far too big considering they would be covered in thick pieces of cork bark! I ended up cutting off a lot more foam that I expected.

I bought a 500g box of cork bark from eBay for £8.50 (from a pet supplies store - it was intended for lizards or spiders!) and started experimenting with it.

And cutting off more pink foam...

I used PVA glue to attach he cork bark chunks, and elastic bands to hold them in place while the glue dried overnight. There is also a bamboo skewer that you can't see, impaling the pink foam diagonally from top to bottom! I sandwiched a torn bit of paper between the layers of pink foam, as in the past I found that foam doesn't stick well to foam but, with PVA on both sides, it sticks very well to paper.

I took this stage very slowly, over the course of several evenings, as the PVA glue wouldn't hold the cork in place on it's own and it would have fallen apart under it's own weight if I'd rushed it.

And I could only find two large elastic bands.

I kept putting the house in place so I could see how it was working, but it wasn't attached yet.

Viktor reminded me to add "rough hewn stone stairs" to the corner, just in time. I pulled off one of the pieces of cork bark while the glue was still wet and added some foam offcuts, carved into shape. I will add plasticard stone paving slabs to the steps later.

I started filling the gaps with pre-mixed Polyfilla by squirting it directly from the tube into the spaces between and behind the cork. I pushed small chips of cork and some Citadel Woods branches (that I'd saved when making the Hysh scenery I made a couple of years ago) into the Polyfilla in the gaps as I went along.

I was worried the branches wouldn't be attached strongly enough (they are really good at catching clothing during games!) so I dripped a little superglue onto spots where they touched the cork and sprinkled a small amount of baking powder onto the superglue while it was still wet - the combination sets like concrete!

More cork bark...

I began using smaller and smaller bits of cork bark, squeezing filler into the gaps between the larger bark chunks, then jamming in little chips of cork, and even smaller "crumbs" of cork, to fill and texture the spaces. I also played with the positions of some walkways (from the Lake-town House kit), to be added later.

Nearly there with construction. 

I added plasticard steps then sealed the remaining exposed foam with PVA glue and ripped up scrap paper, and more filler spread as thinly as I could get it. I sanded some bits down when it was dry.

I glued down the walkways with a generous amount of PVA glue and poured sand into the glue so the walkways looked like they had sunk into the ground a little.

I painted PVA glue thinly over the rest of the flat surfaces, and onto the top of the cork bark where it felt right, and sprinkled sand onto the wet glue. I did this on a tray so I could tip off the excess sand and pour it back into the tub.

It's ended up quiet a bit bigger than I imagined, and a hell of a lot heavier. I'm really pleased with in none-the-less.

On to paint next!

The Ravaged Coast, part 1

The Ravaged Coast is a new narrative Warcry campaign, set in Aqshy, published in White Dwarf #504 (September 2024). The full text has also been published on Warcrier.

[Edited Jan 2025: it's a Path to Glory campaign for AoS as well now!

See the later posts in this series where I talk about that a lot more... ]

And its great!

I joked with my friends immediately that it felt like it was written especially for me. The campaign rules feels slightly more deadly than the Gnarlwood campaign, and there seems to be a section or two missing - maybe things were dropped from it between writing and publishing? A lot of the artefacts have a [Corrupted] rule, and there's a mention of a way to purify them and how that changes their special rules. But the actual rules to purify artefacts are missing. There's also a mention of other [Rewards] to be found through exploration rolls, but no [Rewards] in the Exploration tables!

But leaving that (honestly, very minor) editing issues aside, the setting is littered with nautical references throughout the new Heroic Traits, Quests, Exploration, Encampments, Lesser and Greater Artefacts, that replace the Core Book versions. As a result I'm very keen to dig into it.

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There wasn't much solid information on exactly where the Ravaged Coast is in Aqshy. This is all we get in the article:

"Far to the east of the Great Parch, where the land meets the Ocean of Tears, lies the Ravaged Coast. This vast archipelago now lies crushed between the Great Parch and the emergent Gnaw, and it has quickly become a battleground of violent seas, sand-blasted atolls and Skaven-tainted ruins."

I looked through all the books I have and I searched online a lot, and as far as I can tell no published maps of Aqshy have it marked.

Then a month later, in another Warcry article in White Dwarf #505, there was another Ravaged Coast reference!

"On the very edge of the Ravaged Coast lies Hel's Claw, a city once dominated by Khorne's Bloodthirsty warriors and then reconsecrated by Sigmar's followers. Since the emergence of the Gnaw, Hel's Claw descended into wrack and ruin, its streets overrun by the Skaven of the Vermindoom who look to harvest both warpstone and emberstone that have been disgorged by the cataclysm."

That actually gives us a usable reference point! Hel's Claw (Ruined) is marked on the new maps of the Great Parch in Aqshy:

So maybe "the Ravaged Coast" isn't a specific place's name, but more of a general description of the south-east coast of the Capilaria. Honestly, I can live with that!

As I said, the whole thing is riddled with piratical goodness: shipwrecks and peg-legs and coastal locations. For example; the exploration and encampment locations include:

Desolate Beachhead - the default encampment when starting a new campaign in the Ravaged Coast, instead of the ‘Outskirts of the Gnarlwood'.

A Watery Grave - A multi-limbed deep-sea monster bursts from the water. Your fighter must battle for their life or risk being dragged beneath the ocean to be drowned and devoured.

Flotsam And Jetsam - There is plenty to find along the Ravaged Coast, but much of it is merely the scattered debris of disaster and death.

Washed Up Treasure - Whether it was washed ashore in the wake of some terrible battle at sea or fell from the hands of a dying adventurer, this half-buried artefact radiates power.

Wrecked Hulk - You discover the shattered wreck of a sea-going vessel that was sunk or abandoned following the Vermindoom. It might provide a place of safety - or danger.

Smuggler's Cove - A series of inlets dot the coast, where smugglers or pirates used to hide smaller ships. If you are lucky, you might find someone's abandoned stash.

Lightglass Tower - This ruined tower with its aetherquartz lens was once used to keep the coast lit in order to prevent shipwrecks. These seas are home to more monsters than fleets these days, but the watchtower is still a fine place from which to survey one's surroundings and illuminate potential hazards.

Ship's Graveyard - Redolent in the magic of endings, this cove is full of shipwrecks. Giant nautical castles with vampiric heraldry, mechanical ironclads and sleek aelven vessels alike share a common grave. Deathly beings can draw energy from this place, while the living might find treasure amidst the wreckage.

Secluded Inlet - Sheltered from the ravages of war and Skaven malevolence, this inlet provides a perfect location for warbands to recuperate. Yet there is no such thing as sanctuary in the wild realms, and soon enemies or predators will also stumble upon this place.

All this sounds exactly like my kind of place!

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So this, and the forthcoming pirate-themed Animosity Campaigns "Weekender" in January 2025, means I'm making some more Pirate Encampment scenery:

Ruined buildings, partially rebuilt or modified with shipwreck timbers and surrounded by nautical detritus. This will mostly be things like wooden barrels, treasure chests, and coiled ropes. But also, if I can find them, things like bottles, floats/buoys, buckets, anchors, bill-hooks, muskets and pistols, cutlasses, hats, fishing nets, hammocks, maps, lanterns, fish and sea-shells, etc. Basically any vaguely nautical bits that I can get my hands on!

With three fairly big pieces of scenery built it's probably time to get some paint on them. Although... I might add just one or two more bits from this box of Kraken-eater spares...

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Edit, 12th November:

I managed to get the 3 pieces undercoated and zenithal primed.