Chopper Down! Specialty Terrain Piece

    A helicopter has gone down in a ruined cityscape - a specialty terrain piece for an upcoming scenario

I was trying to think of something to lure my post-apocalyptic survivor gangs back into another free-for-all after their last cooperative scenario. Someone on the excellent Lead Adventure Forum suggested a downed aircraft in the city. Each gangs wants to scavenge ammunition and tech from the wreck before the others. Since my campaign is based around the Terminator concept with the apocalypse being the war between the sentient Machines and humans, this fit in well. I decided to use as my wreck a helicopter, with the story being humans fighting back were using it against the Machines when it was shot down.

`The chopper wreck lies partially on its side, having crashed into a building and mostly destroyed it

The helicopter in question is one of the $2.99 ones in the bins at Menards home improvement store, where I picked up many of my die cast vehicles. I also decided this would be a perfect time to tinker with the pack of flickering tea candles I'd bought a couple months back. My idea would be that the chopper came down in an urban area, so I'd have a shell of the walls holding it up and it would be resting on the tea candle. I broke out the plastic windows (except for the front) and used wire cutters to trim away the bottom and one of the sides of the helicopter. The candle was still too large (or the wreck too small) for the candle to be essentially inserted into the underside. I decided to try slicing away the top of the candle, and that worked. I found out that really you need only the bottom half of a flickering tea candle for it to remain intact and keep flickering.

    The brick pattern base and the ruins were painted and readied before gluing the chopper into place

I used some Acheson Creations stone and wood post fence pieces to create "U shape", then added more bricks to enclose the wreck on three sides. The base was a piece of brick-patterned styrene plastic from Hobby Lobby. I cut a hole out for the candle to pop in through the bottom (so I could replace it if and when the battery died). I also added in lots of coarse ballast painted black and dry brushed gray like the rest of the stone walls to represent rubble and debris. I even recycled a few slivers of the tea candle's top as pieces of the helicopter torn off onto the ground.

    Two rotor blades were "snapped off" and embedded in the walls, the others bent by the collision

I had fun with the rotors, too. First, I trimmed off two of them and then embedded parts of them in the fence. The other two were bent at an angle to give it even more of a wrecked look. I had painted the walls and bricks first, then glued the spray painted black chopper in place. I used Tacky Glue and hopefully it holds. It seems pretty secure. I added some dark olive to the chopper here and there on the parts that would be furthest from the flames. Finally, when I was satisfied with how it looked, I stuffed in batting (pillow stuffing) and teased it out through the open windows. Then I turned on the candle and was pretty happy with the look of flames still flickering inside the helicopter.

    A final look at the downed helicopter, which you will hopefully see in a few weeks in a scenario!

All in all, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I won't win any contests with it, but it should add to the "cool" factor of a nicely set up tabletop! What's next, terrain-wise? I have several corner wall sections primed that I bought from Diabolical Terrain at Advance the Colors 2023. I also am getting ready another 3-D printed ruin from Jarls Workshop. So, stay tuned...more on the way!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures purchased in 2024: 15
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 21