Vehicle Destroyed – Explodes (Crater)

Since I play almost entirely tournaments I feel the need to bring my own craters with me. Reason is the vehicle damage table. I thought about it some time now and came to a decission of what I wanted to have.

It all comes down to the following rule taken from the 5th Edition 40k rulebook:

Destroyed – Explodes
The vehicle is destroyed, as its fuel and ammo detonate, ripping it apart in a spectacular explosion. Flaming debris is scattered D6" from the vehicle, and models in range suffer a Strength 3, AP– hit. The vehicle is then removed and is replaced with an area of difficult ground representing scattered wreckage or a crater (if you have one).

 Image taken from www.tsoalr.com

So the tank fflew away and is to be replaced by difficult ground (and not exaclty a crater.) This is important since putting doen your models in a crater is always difficlt (I think because of the strange real liffe efect called "gravity"). So my approach is to keep it simple and this is how I did it.

This is my approach:

You need styrene, PVA glue, water, toilet paper, sand and paint

Measure your tanks and draw the outines of your terrain on the styrene. Afterwards carve in the PVA with a hobby knife. This is important, so you can break it easily later on.

Take some PVA

 Mix it with water

 roll out your toilet paper

 and apply the watered down PVA to it

Looks like this when you are half- way through

 Add more paper

and cut off at the border

 All covered

And glued to the styrene.

Take some sand- I have a mix of different grains form the beach and other locations ready in a glass.

 Aplly carefully - not too thick so it can soak up the PVA/water

Let it dry for a day and then break it apart at the earlier carved lines.

 Here are my paints. I primed it with gesso(white with added grey since I had no black gesso around) which I deluted with water 50/50 again.

 Looks like this.

 As you can see it is quite wet so again let it dry for a day.

Here you can see some of my more elaborate versions (the ones for the Landraiders) Since I have more place for putting down the models, I decided to allow for some wreckage on the base.

Last step is a drybrush with another color and maybe seal it with some varnish- and you are ready to go. Have fun. Mabye I will add more pictures later on of them in play- time will tell.