Objective markers

In almost every game of Warhammer 40.000 you play you'll need 'm: objective markers.

Now I know Games Workshop sells some great looking boxed sets with objective markers, but since they aren't that cheap and I've already bought quite a lot of stuff since starting back into the hobby I had a look in my, rather modest, bits box.

I have some terrain kits that I'm still putting together, so after a quick rummage through them I had a handful of suitable bits I could get to work with.

An oil barrel, toolbox, small ammunitions crate and some piping was good enough for the first four objective markers. After glueing them to some round MDF bases and a spray of black undercoat I gave them a weathered rusted look by layering metal paints going from a deep gold to a gunmetal grey. Then started drybrushing a mix of orange paint, brown and a metal copper paint to achieve the rusted look. A few small details got a double thin layer of silver paint (like the tools in the toolbox) or gold paint (like the Imperial logo on the crate).

I did the same with another set of piping and a large ammunition crate, making six markers in total, before I went on to basing them.

After applying some watered down PVA glue to the bases I flocked them with sand, very small stones, a couple of larger rocks and some (very little) dead grass. Here and there I added some tufts of static grass and painted the rims of the bases black.

The round numbered markers with skulls are made out of MDF too and can be used as either markers on their own or as a means of identifying the markers I made on the tabletop.

With the six objective markers done, I still had some bits left over: a metal hatch and a fence like structure with a control panel on it.

The idea of some sort of entrance to an underground compound or network of tunnels I thought was really cool so I searched for a bigger round MDF base and glued them on. 

The hatch would not stay glued on very wel because of it being slightly raised and having very few contact points with the MDF base. I solved this by embedding it in a mixture of PVA and the texture paint "Astrogranite debris" from Games Workshop.

This gave the impression that the hatch sat above a concrete structure that's buried underground.  Opening the hatch would be done with the control panel on the fence, but only if you had the correct password! My imagination starts to take over here and I might try to make some sort of explosion marker that I can set up over the hatch giving the look of a boobytrap that went off .... project for another day!

I also found these handy little things online to keep track of the amount of command points, victory points and the current battleround. Still thinking about embedding these in some sort of terrain piece so that I can base them and dual use them on the tabletop as trackers and as a terrain feature.

Not sure on how to go about it though ....