Craft Log #3: Plastic Toys, Future Ruins

I had resin work planned for the evening, but had some free time during the day. So I pulled out the big box of random plastic objects I’ve been hoarding from yard sales and toy sets, looking for anything I could repurpose as terrain for Mordheim.

Crossbow & Catapult Walls

First find: pieces from the Crossbow & Catapult board game (Arbalète et Catapulte in French). These show up at yard sales all the time.

The stone engraving is a bit rough, but could work as-is or be damaged further for a ruined look. The sides are slightly beveled though, which leaves a gap when you put two pieces side by side. Something to figure out.

The interesting part: once you remove the chevrons on top (which is hard, the plastic is very rigid), you get a flat surface about 2.5cm tall. That’s exactly half of a 5cm wall, which makes them perfect for building steps or staircase elements. The width is close to 5cm too, consistent with the dimensions I’ve been using.

Warhammer Quest Doors

I also found original Warhammer Quest door frames in the box. These are beautifully sculpted with a real Dark Fantasy feel.

My plan is to make silicone molds of these so I can recast them. Only one side needs molding. It would be a shame to lose that level of detail by using the originals directly.

Rocks and Boulders

Next up: some chunky plastic pieces that I think came from the same Crossbow & Catapult set. Good definition on the sculpt, but I have three identical copies, so I can’t just use them as-is.

The plan is to mount them on bases and pile rubble and smaller rocks around them to create quick scatter terrain. At about 3cm tall with an uneven top, they’re not suited for steps, but they’ll work great as rubble piles.

Green Hills

Still from the same set: green plastic hill pieces. These have a flat top where you could place a miniature, and they’re about 2.5cm tall.

I’m thinking I could keep the flat top and pile debris all around to turn them into scatter terrain mounds. The elongated shape is a bit awkward, but I have plenty to experiment with. The 2.5cm height is interesting too since it matches a half-step height.

Anthills

More from the same set: triangular anthill shapes, much taller than 2.5cm, with cartoon ants and spiders sculpted on.

No idea what to do with these yet. The shape is too specific and the cartoon details don’t fit the aesthetic I’m going for. Keeping them in the box for now.

Windows and Prison Bars

These come from a magnetic construction toy, the kind with tiles you assemble into little houses. I found squares with windows, small balconies, and prison bar designs.

The window scale actually looks right for miniatures, but the full blocks are 6.5cm tall, which is too much. I could cut them shorter and turn the window sections into balconies instead. The prison bar piece is the most promising: laid flat on the ground, it could make a great floor grate. Break a few bars and you’ve got a hole leading to something underground.

Cartoony Bushes

From the same lot, some plastic bushes. Way too cartoony to use as vegetation.

But I’ve been toying with the idea of a board overrun by giant mushrooms. Repainted in the right colors, these bushes might pass for oversized fungi. Worth a test.

Hay Bales

A bunch of identical pieces that look like hay bales, though I’m not 100% sure that’s what they are. They all have this slightly lumpy texture that looks almost like a molding defect, but since it’s consistent across all of them, it must be intentional.

Haven’t decided yet if I’ll use them as actual hay bales or try to turn them into something else entirely.

Mini Coffins

These are small soft plastic figurines I picked up at a yard sale, probably from party favor bags. I bought them mostly for the engraved texture, which could be interesting to capture, and because there were enough of them to build something.

They’re too small to work as actual coffins for miniatures. The tops have very cartoony engravings of bones, centipedes, and drool. But flipped upside down, the raised edges could work as buttresses along the sides of a building. At 2.5cm tall, they could be interesting architectural detail or the start of a step element.

An Orange Roof

This piece has an orange cone shape that could work as a roof, a small tower top, a hat, or a gazebo over a well. I’m leaning toward using it as a roof for a small building.

The gold piece attached to it is firmly stuck, but once broken off and flipped, it could pass for a chimney. That actually fits the broader aesthetic I’m going for: a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition vibe, brick and bric-a-brac cities in the style of John Blanche’s illustrations for The Enemy Within campaign. Steampunk-tinged, metal everywhere, chimneys on every roof.

For Mordheim specifically, I need buildings that are ruined and open enough for miniatures to move through. This piece is going in the “future building parts” pile rather than scatter terrain.

Gormiti Trees

Last find: Gormiti figures shaped like tree trunks with roots at the base and a globe on top. These would make excellent scatter terrain.

And this is where the table theme really started crystallizing. I’ve been thinking Frostgrave-style ruins, but instead of ice, the city is being reclaimed by nature. An abandoned, forgotten city with giant trees and mushrooms growing through the buildings. It explains why everything is in ruins, it gives me an excuse to build all the oversized vegetation I’ve been wanting to make, and it means my older terrain pieces with flocked bases would fit right in instead of clashing.

These Gormiti trees slot perfectly into that vision. Good session, even if nothing got built today. Sometimes sorting through the bits box is exactly what you need to figure out what you’re actually building toward.