Pile of rubble 3

Continuing with Necromunda, here is another scratch-built terrain piece... rubble pile 3!  As with my other recent builds, this is mounted on an old CD (topped with a disc of thing card to make it easier to paint/texture).  The mound of rubble began as lumps of polystyrene with broken bits of laser-cut MDF sprue jammed in.  This was textured with coarse paint thickener to disguise the polystyrene, & various other detritus was added (bits of drinking straw, cocktail sticks, washers, a pen tip, plastic 'flagstones', a bulkhead corner etc.)  Then a layer of sand was glued on using watered-down PVA.  Then a quick & messy paint job with basic drybrushing, followed by a little more care on the rusty metal spars.  I painted the large pipe as if it leads down to a lower level of the Underhive - could be a neat feature when using 'Tunnels' in the rules.  Or as the entrance to some nasty critter's nest...

Large containers

Just a simple terrain piece this week - some large containers for Necromunda.  These were really simple to make - the containers are Jessops SLR film packs that I've had in my bits box for many years, embellished with panels made from thick card.  They were stuck together & mounted on an old CD, to which I added a few small piles of debris to emphasize the Underhive / urban ruins theme.

I'll have to get all my urban Warhammer 40,000 scenery out of storage for a group photo soon, as I suspect I have more than I think by now - although I still need a lot more vertical pieces & platforms to get going with Necromunda again.

Pile of rubble 2

Yesterday I finished my 2nd pile of rubble for my new Necromunda scenery.  I was pleased with my 1st rubble pile, but even more so with this one.  Again, the base is an old CD, with various pieces of polystyrene, Airfix kit bits, sprue offcuts, a thread dowel, pen nib, & other detritus incorporated as junk.  I also used sliced-up parts of an original Necromunda bulkhead, & as grille flooring: the disposable 'rafts' left-over from 3D-printing projects.  The polystyrene chunk that dominates this piece has a nifty warning sign & arrow that I thought would look good when painted.

I really enjoy making free-form scenery pieces like this, as pretty much anything goes.  Once you've picked a few parts, they seem to fall together into a logical arrangement with very little effort, & almost take on a character.  I think this 2nd pile of rubble is more interesting & successful than my first one, which was more a vertical stack.  This one has more interesting angles, more variation in texture, & more contrast between rusted metal & plascrete.  The big pile of grit also adds more realism than blocks alone.

Guilder trade hall / warehouse

This weekend I finished painting a building that I've been working on for a while - a Guilder trade hall / warehouse for Necromunda.  It started life as two halves of polystyrene packaging for a handheld vacuum cleaner, onto which I glued 5mm foamboard walkways (with sewing mesh grille flooring),  cardboard panels (with plastic sprue-offcut rivets), doors, windows, & roofing.  The ladders & railings are laser-cut ply pieces from Fenris Games.  I added plasticard backing to the railings for a more defensible position.  I textured the bare polystyrene surface with coarse paint thickener.  Also added were aquila supports to the lower platforms, & a lamp, both from the GW Sector Imperialis sprues.

Walkways from adjacent structures can connect to the lower platforms on either side, whilst the town Watchmen can look out for trouble from the walkways above.  This building should be useful for Underhive wastes scenarios as well as settlement encounters like Shoot Out.  Think I should follow this up with some market stalls & a bar...

Raised walkways

This week I finished painting a pair of raised walkways for Necromunda, as well as adding ladders & a base to the small platform I made earlier.  The walkways & platform are part of the TT Combat Industrial Hive set of laser-cut ply scenery.  I filled-in the railings with plasti-card panels to improve the cover.  I used 3mm foamboard for the bases to make the structures sturdier.  Sewing mesh was used for the metal grille flooring.  The ladders that I added to the platform are from Fenris Games.  Various debris added using coarse paint thickener, sand, & sprue off-cuts.

My friend Tim suggested getting some raised walkways to interplay with the (ground-level blocking) electricity sub-stations that I built, & these should fill that slot well: allowing movement with soft cover at both ground & raised level.

Sludge jellies

This weekend I made six sludge jellies for Necromunda.  These are another weird critter from the Outlanders supplement.  They reside in the sludge lakes & industrial effluent pools found in the Underhive, & rise to the surface to ensnare passing creatures or gangers with their stinging tendrils.  Once paralysed, victims are slowly dragged into the sludge pool in a rule called 'Gooing Gooing Gone' in the book  :-D

Each of my sludge jellies is made from half a pistachio shell for the body, topped with a crest sculpted from Green Stuff putty.  The tendrils are from Black Cat Bases, & the laser-cut ply bases are from Fenris Games, textured with coarse paint thickener.

Most sludge jellies are around 1-3ft across, like these ones.  But some that live in the sump sea, or have been growing in stagnant ponds for centuries can be very large... I am working on a couple of larger ones currently...

Rubber moss

This week I made two small patches of rubber moss for Necromunda.  Rubber moss is one of the more unusual lifeforms found in the Underhive - like the ash clams in my previous post, it is not directly lethal, but has the bizarre defence mechanism of being extremely unstable & bouncy :->  If a model moves faster than 2" across rubber moss (or falls onto it), it is sent D3" in a random direction (potentially off a ledge/into a wall/into something nasty/onto more rubber moss!)

I made my rubber moss by sculpting a thin layer of Green Stuff putty over some urban debris bases, letting it tear in the middle to expose some of the base.  When I started painting, I wasn't sure what colour it should be, but my friend Tim suggested a lurid mix of blue, green, & red.  I began with a sea-green, & it quickly developed into what you see here, fading from turquoise at the edges, through sea-green, to ultramarine.  I gave the moss a coat of gloss varnish to emphasize it's rubbery-ness.  I imagine it as slightly bioluminescent in the gloom of the Underhive.

Ash clams

This week I made some ash clams for Necromunda.  The Outlanders supplement for the original version of Necromunda expanded the already evocative Underhive setting wonderfully, adding new gangs, gear, scenarios, treacherous conditions, & a bestiary of bizarre flora & fauna.  Ash clams are one of the few non-lethal critters to be found in the Underhive - native creatures who somehow found their way inside the hive cities.  They lie half-submerged in the rubble & detritus at ground-level, waiting to snare & devour passing creatures such as giant rats, spiders, milliasaurs etc.  Ash clams are non-lethal to humans, but can still pin them in place until their victim struggles free or manages to kill the clam.  In scenarios involving ash clams, there is a chance that one will strike any time a model moves across the ground-level.

For these ash clams, I used small empty limpet shells that I collected from a beach (specifically for this purpose) several years ago.  They got my usual urban rubble basing, using sand & tiny bits of sprue

I spent far too long deciding how to base my Necromundan flora & fauna, but eventually decided that if it moves, it will be based using conventional GW round bases, but if it is stationary (usually a plant), then it is essentially part of the scenery, so should have a thinner 'scenery' base.  As ash clams are essentially temporary stationary markers, I opted for the latter.  Next up, I'm working on some rubber moss & wire weed!

Small platform & long walkways

Next up is the 'Small Platform' set from the TT Combat Industrial Hive laser-cut scenery set.  This consists of a small platform & two long walkways.  I added tiny discs sliced from plastic sprues as rivets, & also used matchsticks & a piece from the GW Imperial Sector set to give the bulkheads more relief.  Also, I sliced edges here-&-there to lend a more battered, dented look.  I painted the paneling like the saturated light-blue, & the bulkheads as bare metal, like the original Necromunda terrain & Imperial Firebase.  Then I attempted some basic rust effects & added slime & grime to give it all a proper Underhive look.

On one of the walkways, I added barrels & a crate (from various suppliers) for a bit of cover.  On the other walkway, I accidently snapped one of the railings, but decided to work with this by adding a fallen girder from the GW Imperial Sector set, as if it had crushed the rail.  Also shown here is a view of the platform prior to painting.

Short walkways 2

This week I painted some more short walkways for Necromunda / Inquisimunda.  I decided to give my Underhive terrain collection a big boost by buying the 'TT Combat Industrial Hive Mega Complex' set (for ~£30), which is a bundle of five laser-cut ply terrain packs.  These are three short walkways / ramps from the Industrial Walkways pack.  You can never have enough walkways in Necromunda!  I am considering adding card panels to cover the gap in the railings, to provide more cover for moving gangers.

The TT Combat industrial scenery is nice & sturdy & very easy to glue together, but a little lacking in detail compared to similar manufacturers like 4Ground & Sarissa Precision (let alone the classic plastic bulkheads of the original Necromunda boxed set), but it is functional, mimics the original boxed structures well, & paints-up smoothly.  I have been adding rivets using discs sliced from plastic sprues, plus other details such as parts from the GW Imperial Sector buildings set to increase the detail.

Short walkways

More underhive scenery for Necromunda / Inquisimunda - some short walkways.  These were very easy to make - a strip of 5mm thick foamboard, with three beams of foamboard underneath, the two end beams allowing each walkway to rest neatly between structures.  I added panels snipped from cereal box card to the sides to conceal the exposed foam, & covered the top with watered-down PVA glue before laying a strip of sewing mesh over it, to represent wire grille.  I learned about sewing mesh as a metal grille effect from a YouTube terrain-making tutorial recently, & it's excellent - cheap, so easy to work with, & very effective!  The mesh needs a spray-paint undercoat as it doesn't take brush paint well straight-off.  I 'pre-damaged' the mesh prior to sticking it down, & painted these 'corroded' areas as rusty.  For variety, I added some hive-quake grit & stones to two of the walkways.

Electricity sub-stations

This week I have been blitzing a new generation of Necromunda terrain for my collection - here are a trio of scratch-built ancient electricity sub-stations.  I still have a lot to learn about painting rust effects, but I'm very pleased with these.  I made them from empty plotter & printer cartridges that I had been saving, & detailed them with wooden lolly & toffee apple sticks & BBQ forks.  The 'lights' are the caps from the little soy sauce fish bottles that you get in supermarket sushi packs.  Having been inspired by the truly awesome Necromunda/Inquisimunda scenery that can be seen on the internet, I really want to capture the utterly decrepid, rusted-through, & caked-in-grime look that the Underhive should 'realistically' have - the subterranean bowels of Hive Primus date back up to ten thousand years to before the Great Crusade.  I want that complete industrial waste-zone look on my tabletop!  Hence I textured these sub-stations with coarse modelling paste to help with the rusted look.  This machinery will have been non-operational for thousands of years, but I imagine arcs of blue-violet electricity would have originally passed up & down those vertical prongs when functional.

I'll need to add a lot more vertical scenery with aerial routes & line-of-sight yet, but as basic blocking terrain which captures the right feel, I think these will see plenty of use.  I used PVA glue to secure the bits, strengthened with hot glue gun in places.  They have a nice weight to them, & seem very durable.  A black matte spray paint undercoat was essential as the plastics of the cartridges wouldn't take brush paint without it.


Lastly, here is a photo of these pieces prior to detailing & painting, where the components are clearer to see  >

Pile of rubble

To celebrate the forthcoming re-release of the legendary Warhammer 40,000 gang skirmish game Necromunda, I completed this rubble pile that I built from various bits a while ago - perfect for the crumbling urban chaos of the Underhive.  I used an old CD as the base, & added chunks of polystyrene textured with coarse paint thickener, Gale Force 9 concrete chunks, plastic lolly sticks as pipes, corrugated card as sheet roofing, plus a spare bit from an Imperial tank sprue, & a metal cable clasp as other junk.  Then I added grit using PVA & sand.  Only a quick & dirty drybrush paint scheme, but it'll do for tabletop gaming.  I added various hints of green-wash in places to suggest grime / slime / pollutants, but maybe it could do with a bit more.

Here is a WIP photo, before I painted this piece  >

The Underhive has long been one of my favourite settings - so evocative & full of unexpected variety.  I'm looking-forward to adding more urban / industrial scenery to my collection, for Necromunda / Inquisimunda gaming.

Lustria-themed 'Ronin' markers

This week I painted some test markers for the Ronin Lustria side project.  This would be using custom Lizardman & Conquistador warband lists & the Osprey Wargames Ronin rules for skirmishes of 8-or-so figures a side.  First I painted these Fenris Games Ø10mm laser-cut discs in the same slightly-slimy stone style as I have been painting my Lustrian rocks & flagstones, & then I tried freehanding some symbols that hopefully lend a Lustrian feel - One blood drop signifies a Light Wound, two blood drops a Frievous Wound; one 'Aztec spiral' indicates a Stun, two 'spirals'  equals two Stuns.

I'm a bit divided over whether I should drop the 'Ronin Lustria' idea & focus on my original Lustrian Warhammer Quest project - especially because I am a big fan of classic Samurai & chanbara films, so maybe I should use actual Ronin figures & play the game as intended (I would choose the late Edo period & create a little Yakuza gang & an honourable katana school to oppose them).  One of the reasons that I am considering 'Ronin Lustria' idea is to give me a reason to scratchbuild jungle & Lizardman building pieces.  But perhaps I could simply expand upon the standard subterranean Warhammer Quest tiles, & have some open areas for that.  Shown here is one of my test dungeon tiles for Lustrian 'Quest.  I'll probably add human-height sections of block walls to better capture the claustrophobia atmosphere, & allow all sorts of Lizardmen totem & skull decoration!

Any suggestions or recommendations welcome!