I'm lucky to have a nice, dry and pretty large mancave in our house, all to myself:
*fanfare*
The Linnmon table.
It is made from a mdf frame, filled with a honeycomb paper pattern, which means it is very very rigid and very light (11 kg). It is 200 cm x 60 cm (roughly 6,8 feet x 2 feet) so I figured that if I put two of them together lenghtwise, I'd have a perfect table, even with about of feet of sideboard for dice, casualties, etc. The best part is that the two table surfaces can fit behind the door to the cave, so it stows away easily.
As you can see, they are held together with a case lock on both sides. There is a surprising amount of torque in those little things, and they are held rock solid. They are resting on a couple of cheap sawhorses from Bauhaus (the danish equivalent to Home Depot) which gives the table a nice height (about 1 m). I always play standing up, and my back would kill me if I had to play 2-3 hours on the 60 cm tall tables many people build. It feels very solid and theres no chance of the table sliding off, thanks to some silicone antislip stickers I put on the sawhorses.
Man, I can't wait to try my first game on it - this really is a childhood dream come true. :)
The other project I've been working on is a magnetic carrying case. I've been searching for a transport solution, and I'm really tired of foam. Most of my miniatures are conversions, so no standard stuff fits, and bits keep catching in the foam and breaking off. So, I decided that magnets are ideal. However, I had a hard time finding a great solution, so I decided to put my woodshop teacher skills (my day job) to use, and build one myself:
On another note:
In the songs of the Sylvaneth, one Treelord Ancient is never mentioned. Not because he wasn’t a great hero. Not because he wasn’t fiercely loyal to Alarielle. But because the mere thought of what happened to him is to painful to stand for the Sylvaneth.
The Treelord Sternbark was one of the great old Ancients. He was rumoured to have been the ancestor of many a treeling and fought in the great wars in Ghyran against the rotbringers of Nurgle. In battle, he was faced against the gargantuan beast mount of the Witch King of Cankerwall, and fell. As much as it grieved his Wargrove, their grief turned to terror as they were forced to flee and saw the Witch Kings rotten underlings tow away Sternbarks remains - though they tried to ambush the Rotbringers, they were too few and their attempts were twarted. Great was Alarielles fury when she heard of his death, and even greater was her grief when she was told that his soulpod had not been saved.
The Witch King returned Sternbarks remains to the Garden of Nurgle where he dug deep into the bark, and found the Ancients Soulpod. He toiled for seven days, incanting the terrible rites he had been gifted by the Grandfather, in order to bind the daemonic essence to the soul pod. Once he was done, the once vibrant soulpod turned a brackish green colour, and boils started erupting on the surface.
A cry of anguish erupted from the Everqueen, as she felt the corruption across the realms.
Satisfied with his work, the Witch King put the soul pod back into Sternbarks corpse, and implanted scores of Rotwood Maggots into the now twitching limbs and branches of the Ancient.
With a flick of his wrist and a twisted invocations of words, the Ancient rose once again. As it stood upon the doorstep to his lair and gazed into the Garden, it realised what it had been and what it was now. And it screamed. It screamed in anguish at the Rotwood Maggots eating through it’s body. Moreso, it screamed because Sternbarks spirit was still alive and sentient in the soul pod, but he had no control over any of it’s limbs - that was the privilege of the daemon parasite the Witch King had bound to the soul pod.
A great thunder rolled over the Garden as the Grandfather himself chuckled.
Many years has passed since, and Sternbarks spirit has been utterly maimed, broken and ripped to shreds by what he has witnessed, as a passenger in his own body. The body has been twisted by the foul magics of the Garden as time has passed, and it is barely recognisable as once having been a native of Ghyran. The limbs have become twisted and gnarled, repulsive mouths have erupted across the bark, and terrible spiny growths have erupted from the body. The once glowing sigils of the Everqueen are completely overgrown, and pus, weeping sores and boils covers its surface. It shambles into battle, and as the splintered remains of Sternbarks spirit realises it is to be employed as a destroyer of life once again, insanity rolls over him and he can do nothing but scream. Thus, Sternbark is no more. The husk that remains is known to the Maggotkin as the Screaming Oak.
Yup - I've started work on the Screaming Oak/Corrupted Treelord. It's going to be a big project, but I'm pretty sure I'm onto something pretty cool and creepy. :)
