How to… Ruins.

Initially, I laid out my five ruin pieces so that they fitted, made a single building, and looked good. That was purely for the purpose of making this ‘How to’, and all pieces should fit together once finished and blend into a solid ruin when laid out on your gaming table.

The ruins here are done to a wargame standard. Some might chose simply to paint, others might go the extra miles. Either way, DiD ruins offer an excellent modular option for your gaming needs.

I marked out the barrier between the intact grass and the scorched grass with a marker pen to ensure that my plan worked. You will get the general principle from the photo.

Most pieces can work in more than one way, so think about variety when deciding which is the inside or outside of your building.

Bear in mind that this was the first attempt and that you may wish to do things in a different order.

Playability is the key for these ruins. Gamers can fill them up with the detritus of war to their heart’s content, but you need to remember that your figures need to work inside them.

I knew I would be adding some furniture as well as rubble so tried to keep my ‘piles’ to a reasonable minimum.

After gluing the furniture and any other items in place, I used DAS terracotta clay to form the base mounds. I put a few dabs of superglue on the model and pressed the clay on top of them. This makes sure that they do not come off.

In this example you will also see that I added a simple chimney stack and a fireplace.

We are impatient people, but give the clay time to dry before painting the base. Black on the inside and scorched grass areas, Salisbury stone where the grass will be green.

I used an acrylic terracotta paint to colour the walls.

Paint the detail pieces and wooden frameworks around doorways and windows before dry brushing the walls and rubble.

I also added some larger pieces of rock/brick around this time. I think it was after dry brushing. On reflection I should probably have added them beforehand.

A definite mistake I feel here. I added the grass on the externals out of turn. On reflection, it would have been better to do the rubble work first.

Pro-tip [learned the hard way]. Make sure you remove as much excess flock or sprinkle as possible. When you think it’s all off, do it again. I tap heavily on the blank base and then use a large brush lightly over the flock to leave as little as possible to contaminate the flock I use. I actually had a waste pot into which I tapped all my excess flock and sprinkle which I subsequently used on the embankments as rough ground.

I put a good quantity of thick PVA on the top of each piece of wall I wanted dressed and sprinkled ‘brick dust’ along the PVA’d area. I left the area to dry before removing the excess. It sticks extremely well.

Obviously, because I did things in a cack-handed order, I needed to dry brush this latest application.

I then mixed up some standard grass with coal fragments, dark grey, and rubble fragments to create the area that I wanted to look scorched by the heat of any fire.

The internal area flock was black tarmac and brick particles. Important tip – the DAS clay can often lift up so make sure you use this flock work to fill any lifted edges.

I decided to dry brush the internal area and piles with a light grey acrylic. I think it lifted the whole presentation. Matter for you J

I have a large array of tufts and am always being accused of being a tuft hussy! Hopefully not too many but just enough to raise it all up that extra bit.

A few decal posters also added. Note on that. Make sure you understand the decal before cutting and applying. I should have trimmed more white off the edges before putting them in place; lesson learned.

Four eye-candy shots of the finished article. Apologies for the detritus in the background. Once I have time, I will post some shots of a larger installation of ruins in the gaming table.

Any questions, just ask.