Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Recent Terrain Production

 Most of my productive hobby time in the last few weeks has been devoted to adding to my rather minimalist collection of terrain - primarily ruined multi story mdf buildings purchased quite recently from Australian supplier Dark Castle Terrain Dark Castle Terrain

I am about 75% of the way through these now, so I thought it was about time for a small "show n tell" post, or, as Stew might term it, "a PJB. lookit, I made something" post!


3 x 3 story and 2 x 4 story ruins, plus 4 of the 10 skeletal winter trees from Temu.  



I added a couple of 28mm figures to give a better idea of scale


Inside 3 story building, and .......


..... inside a 4-story version!


A Luftwaffe eyes view of the buildings




Together with the bulk of the trees (I realised afterwards there are actually 10 of them, not 8)


And from the other perspective


4 story building number 3 under construction


It was completed tonight - two more to go!


And finally, I took the group opinion on board and added the two Soviet flags to the front of my steam engine!


Thanks for checking in and here is hoping you leave a comment. As others have noted, it appears the various AI trawlers have finished learning about strange men (and a few ladies) who get their jollies playing with toy soldiers, and my view count has dropped back from 12-1500 per post to the more normal 1-200!

38 comments:

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    1. Thank you Michal, I am happy with how it has turned out!

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  2. You’re going to get a lot of use out of those buildings Keith so it’s time well spent. They look ace but for some reason the flags on the loco are the real icing on the cake for me. Very Dr Zhivago. lol.

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    1. Thanks JBM, hopefully, you are correct re the usage!

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  3. You continue to build a vast urban infrastructure. Stew would call this a “PBJ” post not “PJB”.

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    1. Oh, my page view counts have returned to more normal levels as well. Recent activity has certainly distorted my Top 10 Posts tracker. Will it last?

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    2. Oops, thanks for spotting the typo Jon!
      I have not noticed any impact on the Top 10 tracker....have you been manually editing out the AI hits in the background or something ?

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    3. Top Commenter widget has seen no change but the Top Post tracker has seen movement of late. I did no manual editing. The chips (counts) fall where they may.

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    4. Ah yes, of course....I was confusing the comments counter with top post tracker....duh!

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    5. It would be extra freaky if the AI Bots started leaving comments on your posts!!

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    6. yeah, it's PBJ, or more formally known PB&J. But the point is that everyone likes it. except weirdos or those with a peanut allergy.

      I'm a big believer that time spent on terrain is at least of equal importance to time spent painting miniatures. and so much more fun as well. 😁

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    7. Thanks Stew and sorry I mangled your acronym!
      Given your intense dislike of painting figures and your recent large scale Quar building projects, your feelings re terrain construction make perfect sense!

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  4. Great looking terrain, the flags work really well, almost finished my locomotive, well among other things!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain....look forward to seeing your completed loco!

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  5. Great work on these! Being able to put on a dense urban table is a really satisfying feeling!

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    1. Thanks Bill....it feels like I have bought and built quite a few, the, when I lay them out together, it doesn't seem as many! I may be looking at further purchases....

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  6. Devastation every where. Nice.

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  7. Those turned out great. My post count has also returned to normal levels

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    1. Thanks Scott, I like the look of them too!

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  8. Great work on the ruined buildings, a good collection of them now Keith and the hive mind was right, the flags set off that lovely engine nicely.

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    1. Thanks a lot Donnie, pleased you like my recent output.

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  9. The flags on the train really set it off Keith. The Dark Castle buildings do look great and he has some interesting stuff on his site. My presumably AI count from the US has dropped in the last few days as well, but the Chinese count has suddenly gone up which is strange as I know from first-hand experience the internet was all but blocked when we were there.

    I'm fairly sure I did get an AI comment on one of my posts. I thought it best to politely reply so that it remembers me fondly when it becomes our master.

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    1. Haha, thanks Lawrence and glad you like the flags!
      I made no effort to use the internet etc when we were in China but my wife bought a SIM card originating in Hong Kong that enabled her to use FB, Snapshot etc the whole time we were there.

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  10. Great looking terrain Keith. And the train looks extra Soviet with the flags.
    I find that you do need a lot more terrain than you think you will need as filling up the table takes a bit more than expected.
    My post count has gone down as well. I don't mind the AI stealing it as it is of little value, my big concern is it using it for a response to someone's AI prompt! More Artificially Stupid than Intelligent.

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    1. Thanks Ben, glad you like the look of the train. Agree re the terrain, although when combined with my hand crafted cork board stuff. I might be able to fill my own 29 inch square table!
      I must test AI on Google to see if it links up to anything unexpected...eg enter Bydand or rross and see what it comes up with!

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  11. Nicely done Keith modelling a ruined city is a real challenge you need a lot of stuff 👍

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    1. Thanks Matt - that is what I am finding, no doubt about it!

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  12. Those buildings look great Keith and well worth the effort with the brick, wallpaper and floor board additions. The train definitely looks better with the flags IMHO. Oh and my spike of hits on the recent Eckmuhl game has dropped back to its normal low levels. Maybe the Bots are on reduced hours due to the Federal funding being stopped;)!

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    1. Thanks Steve, I agree re the buildings, after the first couple I thought I had had a mistake, as cutting the brick paper etc to match the mdf is quite time consuming, but now most of them are done, I think it been time well spent !
      Glad you liked the flags on the steam engine too.

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  13. Nice buildings. Not sure that I would stand on those floors though. They look ready to collapse with the resy of the block. Are you going to do rumble etc for the collapsed part?

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    1. Thanks Richard, and yes to the rubble question...I will probably put a bit on each level and intend to base the buildings as well, so some rubble will be added to the bases too

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    1. Thanks Ray, they are getting there, slowly!

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  15. Very effective looking terrain Keith.
    JBM's comment about the engine has just set off "Lara's Theme" in my head as an ear worm.

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    1. Thanks a lot Chris, and I apologize on behalf of JBM!.

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  16. Nice work Keith…
    I wonder how AI deals with the abstract concept of ‘Building’ Ruins.

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly....interesting question, maybe you could ask ChatGpt to suggest ideas for making ruined buildings for 28mm wargaming?

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