Train Tuesday P63: Roof Me

One might think a DnD blog post about Hovertrain roofs will be a snoozer, but not so fast! Let us show you the way.

Turns out Aether Studios has all sorts of different modular roofs for its Hovertrains, and after an in-depth, hands-on approach, we now see why. Time to check out these tops!

Today, we’ll focus four Hovertrain Roof STLs. We’ll also share our very easy-to-follow paint schemes. Here’s a quick look at their STL names and what sets each one is in (while matching the pic above from left to right).

• Simple Carriage Roof: Orc City Express
• Rounded Panel Roof: Fairhaven Line and Onasan Line
• Thatched Roof: Fairhaven and Onasan Line
• Plated Fighting Roof: Onasan Line

Side note: The Yardworks Industrial set even has half roofs, but we haven’t had a chance to try those (yet).

Let’s start with the Simple Carriage roof. It’s uncomplicated yet elegant. Minis can stand on top of it. What’s not to love? Having the ability to place our 3D-printed miniatures on a roof without them falling over means we’ll be printing a lot of these. This roof seems like a good fit for some of the more elegant, high-end Hovertrain cars.

If you’re looking for a more industrial look that would fit cargo-like cars, this Rounded Panel Roof is our top pick (pun intended). Miniatures won’t rest on this one very well without Sticky Tack assistance, though. The silver bolts really pop on the overall paint color, too.

Next, we produced this Thatached Roof on our Prusa XL FDM printer. The name descriptor implies a straw-style roof, but we think it looked more like shingles (like something you would see on a home in the television show Cabin Masters). So, we picked a simple paint scheme to reflect that. We plan on utilizing this roof type for the steerage and riff raff passenger cars.

We’ve saved the best for last with the Plated Fighting Roof. One of the best parts of The Forgotten Rails will be having some crazy encounter battles take place on top of our Hovertrains. These flat roofs give use d20 squares and plenty of space for multiple miniatures and larger monsters. We also like the idea of putting some nifty scatter terrain on top, like some cool cannons.

Next, let’s talk paint jobs. These couldn’t have been easier. All were primed in black and slap-chopped. For the Thatched Roof (which we think looks more like shingles), we started with a drybrush of Liquitex Basics Primary Blue. Then we went back over it with lighter drybrush passes of black and then white. These steps give it a darker teal-ish color (just like our previous farm structure).

All the other roofs have a layer of Citadel Basilicanum Grey Contrast Paint applied. That’s it. We pondered going back over with a lighter shade of blue or gray from the Army Painter Fanatic line, but it just doesn’t need it.

Besides a bunch of cool-a$$ fighting encounters, the roofs provide critical fog-of-war functionality. Naturally, DM Ben doesn’t want his players to know what awaits them as they move from one Hovertrain car to the next.

We won’t be covering our Hovertrain cars in a single roof style. Instead, we will mix them up because most trains are a mishmash of car types and designs. So, we’re looking forward to that first scene of like eight hovertrain cars with different roof types. It should be a cool pic. 😉

Until next time!