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!

Lustria scatter foliage

Back to the steaming jungles of Lustria in the Warhammer world now - this week I made four pieces of scatter terrain for my Lizardmen collection.  I've never had any interest in playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles (& even less in having anything to do with 'Age of Sigmar'!), but I do like a bit of Warhammer Quest, & I've always wanted to have a little Lizardmen collection for the awesome combination of dinosaurs & Aztecs!  So I while back I started a slow-burn project to create a 3D dungeon set with a Lustrian theme.  Having been hooked by Osprey Publishing's 'Ronin' rules recently, I also thought I could use my Lustrian figures to have a few small skirmish games between these cold-blooded ancient ones & a band of marauding conquistadors from the Empire.

I built up small mounds of polystyrene on laser-cut ply discs from Fenris Games, & they textured them with coarse paint thickener.  I also pressed some stones into the mix.  After painting the bases, I flocked them with a mix of Gale Force Nine dirt & summer meadow, plus summer static grass & a few Gamers' Grass summer tufts.  I them carefully painted the 'rocks' in a few different shades of ochre grey & blue-grey, & then highlighted them.  At this point it almost seemed a shame to add the plastic aquarium plants...


..The mass of aquarium plants that I have collected over the years came in handy as I snipped pieces up, & glued them into holes that I poked in the polystyrene mounds.  I'm quite pleased with the end result.  I will do some scattered pots & vases & ruins for this mini-project next I think.  Looking forward to doing the highly-stylised Aztec block-work.

Ruined apartments

Here is a block of ruined apartments that I made for 15mm-scale modern Crossfire.  I used foamboard, textured with coarse paint thickener & sand; along with bits of cocktail stick, Gale Force Nine concrete chunks, & bits of plastic sprue for debris.  As this structure is mostly intact (the walls are still standing at least!) In Crossfire rules terms I will treat this as a building complex of two blocks, without roof cover, rather than 'ruins' (which don't block Line-of-Sight in Crossfire).

I have numerous other miniatures projects on the go, but given the hot sunny weather at the moment, I haven't been finishing much to post it lately.

2 IDF infantry platoons

This week I finally finished my 2nd IDF infantry platoon, for 15mm-scale Crossfire. All the figures are from Peter Pig's AK-47 Range.  These represent a force of the Golani Brigade - the 1st platoon (on the right) is intended to be a mechanised infantry platoon, armed with Galil assault rifles.  I've posted photos of them with their M113 APCs previously.  The 2nd platoon (on the left) are intended as Sayeret Golani (the brigade's elite recon), armed with a mixture of Galils, M16s, & AK-47s.  In the background is an attached squad of combat engineers (centre), 3 sniper teams (left), & a .50cal HMG team, Military Working Dog team, & Forward Observer (right).  Looking forward to getting these on the tabletop battlefield!