""Welcome to my evil underground lair!"" Topic

I've got an idea for a big project (I know, I know, always me with the ideas), and it involves an "evil underground lair" for a villanous mastermind. Think circa 1960s spy films.

A hollowed out dormant volcano would be ideal!

However, I'm totally at a loss as to how to construct it. Has anyone tackled anything like this? Any wild ideas or suggestions? Any custom terrain makers out there willing to tackle such a strange project?

-Aurelian

Something like this, perhaps?

link

I have never even gamed on this yet. Still sitting in a bin for possible future use. :(

CC

Check out the computer game Evil Genius. Building that base is half the game.

picture

link

In a bin since 2007, it seems . . .

TMP link

CC

Dwarven Forge makes some very nice painted sets that might do. And to top it off, I saw some of them on sale for $19 USD at Acme games in Anderson Ohio:

acmegames.com

Dropzone -

Evil Genius is precisely what I was thinking about in terms of layout. However, the problem still remains in building/commissioning it!

Cacique -

Very nice work indeed. Looks like you could use it for a variety of purposes.

I would go with the rooms cut out of the pink/blue styrofom with the outside edge cut to look like rock face.

I would print out the wallpaper and flooring and paste them to foamcore. Then add the foamcore to the inside of the Styrofoam to make square walls and rooms.

If you add flooring to it you can make smaller ones and stack them on top of each other to make each level.

Here is a really quick sketch to try and show what I mean.

picture

I would suggest blue polystyrene insulation. Depending on how large you want it to be, it could be done with the methods that I use in the following pages:

link

link

link

You want a base under a dormant volcano. That's 2 things built to go together: base and volcano.

Make the base like any of the other great 3-D interior floorplan projects out there, by laying out the floorplan with walls ranging from 1/2 inch to as high as practical to reach over and move miniatures. These can look like anything from clean interiors to high-tech walls.

Make the volcano as a tall 1/2 cone cutaway, with the opening centered over the main chamber. That allows you to fire your ICBM out the top, or launch helicopters out the top, and allows for the chance that Felix Lighter will arrive in the nick of time with commandos rapelling down from the top, guns blazing.

How's this?

link

CC

Check Mels stuff at: link

His derelict sets and the ambient element/objective stuff will give you some nice modular layouts for your agents to infiltrate.

Aurelian,

Would any of these suggestions be useful to you?

TMP link

CC

Preformed plastic pond liner turned upsoide down and sectioned!

I'd like to show you my cavern which sits under a Pyramid . I have been thinking about adding some modern equpment to use as a secret lair . (if I buy the KissKissBangBang figures) but Displaced minis seems to be down again.

building/commissioning it!

Build it yourself, that's what wargaming is all about. There are some great suggestions and guidance here.
--
Tim

The "Lair Cards" from Cheapass's old game, "Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond" (now retitled to prevent lawsuits) might be helpful in decorating your hideout. They include important items a lair owner might otherwise overlook, like atomic robots, a gift wrap counter, and an espresso machine.

For Superfigs, I built a lair for the Evil Dr. Simian. He is an ape with a Super genius brain transplanted into it. Anyway, I build his lair as a skyscraper. It had a main lobby with shark tank under it. There was a helipad on the roof. One floor was the innocuous office floor with cubicles. One floor held the computer room and death bots. The penthouse was the 'jungle' room where Simian hung out along with giant spiders, scorpions and tigers. (The choice of odd-ball critters in the Simian's tower was inspired by the choice of man-eating beasts in the pool of water from the ‘Bart the Daredevil' episode of the Simpsons.)

The tower was rather tall and had three sides. One side was left open for gaming. The front of the tower had an architectural feature that doubled as a dice roller. The dice would fall down the side of the building (in a tube) and come out onto an awning.

It turned out rather nice and I ran several demo games of Superfigs with it. The floors could be pulled out and the sides where hinged so it would fold up ‘flat' for easy transport. The floors and walls where foamcore while the scenery was a combination of manufactures including Armorcast. The only problem I had was that the 6 inches between floors still made it difficult to move figures around in the tower. So my one bit of advice when building the lair is to have such that no one enclosed level is under another. And if you have a multiple level area, make sure you can get at points from multiple directions.

Drop me a PM if you would like more info. I can try dig it out and take pictures but it is packed away and I am leaving for vacation tomorrow. So it would be awhile before I could email them.

BTW, I know you said underground. But if one takes away the external features of my tower, it could easily double as base built in a shaft.

Here is another example or possibility:

atlasmissilesilo.com

Click on the diagram for blowups of the control and silo portions.

I would go with what dropzonetoe suggested as well.
However, I would also combine it with the pond suggestion from boggler.

Then again, that's just me. I would also make it 4'x4', removable levels, looking like a volcano when all closed up, and have a 12" beach section around the edge.

And before anyone asks, no I don't have room to store something like that. It doesn't stop me from doing things like this though. Good think my Wife loves me!

This is great advice from everyone, and very good guidance. As you can guess, my own issue is trying to make it look nice while at the same time having something that is durable and relatively easy to store (that's the problem with elaborate terrain – never easy to store).

The upturned pond liner would certainly be an interesting "cover" for the thing.

Thomas, I'd definitely be interested in seeing some photos of your lair.

-A.

These could be used as the entrance to the base, right?

link

More recent discussions on the subject:

TMP link
TMP link

CC
PS. For figures of agents:
TMP link

Latest search for more recent terrain projects like those above:

TMP link

CC