Having spent the day at an X-Wing tournament, 10pm Saturday I finally got going on the last two pieces for the Medea Refinery. After cranking away through the night I managed to get them done just in time for our group painting session on Sunday…

Both came out pretty neat: A reservoir tank, and a processing site.

Reservoir tank.

Processing site.

Reservoir Tank

The reservoir tank was really fast and fun to put together. The core component is a great piece of junk plastic, half of a broken hot tub filter intake; the other half made the smoke stack on the furnace piece. This part though was actually the first bit I worked on for this build. Way back at the start I cut a chunk of foam to fill it as a quick test of a foam cutter I got, then put it aside until I knew what to do with it.

Cutting an insert to fill some junk plastic.

Picking it back up, I looked around my bits pile to see what could finish it up quickly. The big find was that the lid of the hot chocolate canister used to make the water tower worked really well as a top component, looking like some kind of access compartment. Unfortunately it had a significant undercut to slide into the canister that didn’t look good set directly onto the top. I’m not sure how I would have addressed this manually. Probably cut some foamcore to slide it into, but I hate cutting circles. Instead I 3D modeled a collar to fit exactly around the lid and fill out the undercut, included some bolts for detail, and printed it out.

Modeling the collar.

After that I built a ladder following the procedure I’ve used throughout this build, glued on a bunch of hatches and wall bits I downloaded and printed, and called it done. A simple, effective piece that’s a solid line of sight blocker at 4″ to the top.

Processing Site

For the final piece I wasn’t sure what to make. Pretty much out of time, I didn’t want to embark on a building or similar structure. I also kind of wanted a piece of just area terrain/partial cover, not a chunky line of sight blocker like the other pieces.

Rooting through my bits and supplies pile again I started looking at some large wood dowels I have. It got me to thinking about a collection of small tanks making up a little chemical processing site of some sort. In the end I only used the dowels for the tallest tank because it was unfortunately a hard enough wood I didn’t want to deal with cutting them all to size. But I started by designing caps to fit the dowels, and only at the last minute decided to print the barrels as well.

About to print the tanks.

One somewhat interesting modeling detail is that the caps have a concave underside so the barrels fit slightly inside the collar, rather than just surface mating. It seemed like it might be too much area for the print head to traverse in space without potentially distorting the shape of the cap by collapsing a bit as the underside hanging in open air sagged. The printer software I use can automatically add supports, but in doing so it would also unnecessarily support the bolts hanging off the side. The underside supports would possibly also be a hassle to cut off because the automatic supports would cover a lot of area. So instead I included the supports directly in the model as concentric rings of little divots that provide just enough support, but flick off with your fingernail. After doing a test print to check the supports and sizing against the dowels I decided to double the number of them to eliminate a few loose stringers from sagging plastic that had to be cut out. But after that these pieces required essentially zero post-print cleanup.

With some tanks in hand I played around a bunch with different layouts. Eventually I decided to make another component, some sort of mixer that they all feed into and then push out to a larger tank, or a splitter doing the opposite. In retrospect I wish I’d made the faux ports deeper so that the tubing had more length to sit in as it’s glued down, but I eventually managed to wrestle them into place.

Initial layout sketch.

Gluing in the tubing.

Done

That’s it for the construction of the Medea Refinery! In fact, as I’m sitting here it’s actually already entirely done; we had a very successful group painting day to knock it out. Pictures from that will be up very soon. All of the printed models for the processing site are up for free download on Thingiverse.

Two more pieces completed for the Medea Refinery board: A water tower and a resting place. I have two more in progress to complete tonight, and then tomorrow a group from PAGE is coming over to paint, paint, paint! With these last pieces the set will come out to almost exactly a 2’x3′ area and thus definitely cover almost precisely 25% of a standard 4’x6′ 40k board.

The water tower.

A resting place.

Resting Place

The resting place is straightforward, just gluing things together and onto the board.

Originally I had sketched out this piece to be based around a shipping container providing some heavy cover. But in the age of MDF terrain it has become clear that the worlds of the future will in no way want for shipping containers. There will be shipping containers everywhere, just laying around to be used for any purpose. So that wasn’t very exciting to get started building.

But then this truck model in my closet caught my eye. It’s a WW2 US Army Eager Beaver 2 1/2 Ton Truck 1/35 scale model from Monogram. That scale is oversize for 40k, which is closer to 1/48 as much as it has any scale (it doesn’t). But these older trucks and vehicles tend to have actually been a lot smaller and more frail than our modern mega-sized age conceives of them. To put it into some perspective: WW2 Jeeps had 4″ wide wheels. I have a mountain bike with 4.8″ wide wheels, and there are 5″ and 6″ models available. On top of that, 40k and many other miniatures games have an oversize aesthetic to accentuate (and render more easily paintable) guns and other equipment details. So, between our modern expectations and the dramatized aesthetic, many—though not all—1/35 model kits like this fit in just fine.

I’m not sure if this specific model is still in production, it’s no longer available on Amazon. But you can generally find 1/35 and 1/48 trucks like this for $20–$25US. Many of them, like this one, have been manufactured for thirty years or more. So some of the idioms and conventions are a bit different from a modern kit. For example, the front cab assembly on this one didn’t really lock into place, it all just sort of lined up and hopefully you held it in position long enough for the glue to set. On the flip side, these older kits are cheap, go together quickly, and look great.

Mod Podging the gravel into place.

Campsite details.

Around the truck I wanted to suggest a little story vignette of a team of refinery workers, scouts in the ongoing conflict, or vagabonds driven on by the war to have roughing it here overnight among some cover, but having to hurriedly abandon the position for whatever reason. The bags and small drum are from a Tamiya 1/35 Allied Vehicles Accessories kit, a great source of these kinds of bits. The rifle is from a Space Marine Sniper Scout box. The wood oil drums are from CraftParts. You can find them at Michael’s and other arts & crafts stores, but usually only in bags of ~2.

The rocks are some kind of chalky, very light material that I stole from a friend’s miniatures basing kit while we were working on a project. Rather than using my limited supply of them to build up the pile in the corner, it’s cut-up scrap foam under a single layer of rocks. The small gravel is affixed by brushing on a layer of Mod Podge and then sprinkling it around, as I’ve done with all the pieces in this set. The primer to be used for the ground is a texture paint that will provide some smaller grained variety, though in the future I have to restock on a larger variety of gravel sizes and mix them for this sort of thing.

Water Tower

The water tower is a more elaborate scratchbuild, much of it digitally. I started with some inspiration from a canister of hot chocolate powder and wooden dowels. From there I modeled some feet for the legs and an insert for the bottom of the canister.

Working up some inspiration.

Modeling an insert for the bottom of the canister to position and hold the legs.

Prototype foot printed out for testing.

The canister I wrapped in cardstock and tape, then added Plastruct struts regularly around it for texture and to mask its identity. The outlet pipe I modeled as parts to be assembled, to be printed without supports.

Modeling the outlet spigot.

Assembling the outlet spigot.

Assembled outlet spigot.

Throughout all this modeling and building I try to think a bit about how the terrain structures and represents the gameplay on it. For example, most people play a piece like this in 40k such that models on the top of such a structure would get some kind of cover. That’s kind of funny seeming thematically if it’s just a bare roof or top. So I like to have bits around to give a suggestion of the kinds of things the figures are hiding behind. For the bits on top here I used some of the generic 3D printed bits I’ve designed, as well as some I downloaded. Of course then the soldiers need a plausible way to get to the top, so a ladder was constructed as in this tutorial and hung off the side.

Beyond that, I was thinking a bit here about the story image of the civilians who operated this tower. Specifically, I thought about the engineer having to climb up this somewhat perilous ladder to turn the wheel controlling the outlet, and then the even more dangerous task of climbing up to replace the small fuel tank powering the machinery on the roof and inexplicably hung off the side. So there are a couple real design details, like they ladder has been placed in reach of both, and the fuel tank hanger designed with a bottom insert and a backing cage with rounded edges such that you could plausibly hang by the ladder and throw a tank on. That said, it’s important to not worry too much about the story. For example, how does this water tank get refilled? Don’t know, don’t care.

The train track is a random HO scale piece I had laying around, cut down a bit with a Dremel. The scale of it works much like the truck discussion above but in reverse. HO scale is actually much too small for 40k, being 1/87 whereas 40k is around 1/46. For train cars, buildings, and equipment, O scale at 1/48 is much more appropriate. However, set on their own, I think HO tracks like these work visually. People underestimate how wide train tracks are in reality. Plus, in a use like this it’s easy to imagine the tracks being for very narrow gauge rail or even just small material hopper carts such as is used in mines.

A recognizable tower, but still a work-in-progress.

Details added to the top, and a ladder to get to them.

The feet in place along with some surface texture.

The assembled water tower.

Models

Both these pieces were a lot of fun to put together, in different ways: One very old school modeling, and the other very futuristic high-tech crafting. The 3D models developed so far are available for free on my Thingiverse account. More to come as the remaining Medea Refinery pieces get completed and painting begins!

Another weekend’s progress on the Medea Refinery terrain set. These two buildings go with the previous builds:

• Primary Pump Station A1
• Smelt Furnace #17

I’ve got 4 square feet covered with this set now, so two more large pieces or three smaller ones should cover a standard 40k table very well.

Initial layout sketching; the piece on the right has not gotten more attention yet.

Building a ladder.

I have a tutorial here on how I’ve been constructing ladders for this set.

Printing some doors and other pieces (not all for these builds).

I designed the majority of the 3D printed pieces used here, half of them specifically for these buildings and the others as generic bits. The other three printed pieces I found on Thingiverse (the door hatch, ground hatch, and small circular hatch).

Gluing on rivets and widgets.

The green aquila is an acrylic cut from Greenman Designs. I picked up a bunch at NOVA a few years back specifically to use like this, as details above doors.

The silo (left).

The silo (right).

Outlet valve piece, shaped to fit the silo.

I designed each of the bright orange 3D printed bits on this silo. The mechanical box is a generic bit I’m using in a couple places. The other three were specifically designed for this piece, they’re shaped to fit the curve of the silo. I’m pretty happy with how the output pipe in particular came out, though I need to work on the valve handle. Fortunately it’s very identifiable as-is. The silo itself is half of the main booster fuel tank from a space shuttle model I’ve had kicking around forever, with the cap from a jar of Gatorade powder providing the pedestal base.

The pipeworks (front).

The pipeworks (back).

Details of the pipe and tank tubing.

The pipeworks building came out very well. I changed the composition at the last minute as this diagonal layout just looked more interesting. The change cost me the space for a little fenced-in mysterious patch of grass I was going to have, but was definitely worth it. The pipe itself is just PVC plumbing pieces, with some Plastruct bits glued on and tape wrapped around to add detail. The green barrel is from a Tamiya 1/35 Allied Vehicle Accessories kit. I was glad I had that on hand, as the wood barrels used on the other pieces are much larger and would distract from the building. I especially enjoyed designing a printed part to be a collar ring and arm holding the nasal spray bottle as some kind of tank hanging off the side.

Just a couple more pieces to make, and then a couple guys from the club are coming over this weekend to hopefully get it all painted!