Necromunda - Terrain

For sci-fi skirmish games like Necromunda and Infinity, you need a LOT of terrain. Otherwise, people will just hunker down their models in cover and blaze away at each other from across the table, with hits coming due to sheer luck. As someone described it, "Yahtzee with toy soldiers".

I have managed to add to the terrain to be used in the continuing Necromunda campaign.

I watched the Ghost in the Shell movie trailer. There are several vertical elements in The Major's New Port City skyline. Years ago I had painted up a KFC Col. Sanders piggy bank for a themed 40K mega game I ran at Campaign Outfitters ("The chicken shack at the end of the universe," or some such thing). I dug it out, fixed up some scratches and dings, and "Voilà", a tribute to an unnamed despot from Necromunda's ruling planetary elite. Any resemblance to certain Asian dictators is purely coincidental.



Anenoceti's Workshop had  Kickstarter last year, providing lots of different kinds of terrain elements. I picked up a tall, Blade Runner-esque video billboard. It's also a dice tower; the top comes off and one of the benches pulls out, with the dice falling through baffles on the inside. They offered several different optional ads. Unfortunately, this piece is not yet on their website for sale. It's basically ready to play; I only had to affix the ads, assemble the parts, and paint the benches, I think I and local Infinity gamer DerekY are the only guys in Western Canada with this kit.



They also made several different types of scatter terrain useful for roofs. A quick black primer, aluminum spray, and GW Nuln Oil washes provided three air conditioning units to break up the roof areas of some retail establishments.



Awhile ago I had got from Conscript Byron several MDF kits. The guard tower below is one of them. The roof comes off, allowing figures to be placed inside the structure.



Byron also made a few types of billboard that affix to 3mm MDF terrain. I found the Imperial recruiting poster online and printed it out.



A couple of years ago I picked up some holo ads from Micro Art Studio. These are beautiful pieces, with clear acrylic "holograms" with translucent printing on them. Fair warning: the kits themselves are bears to put together. You cannot add the acrylic after assembly and painting, because of the way the pieces fit together. Also, the pieces are a tight fit without paint. After painting with just a layer of spray paint, I had to use a claw hammer to drive some of the supporting pieces into the frame.






From Conscript Kevin I received a painted resin ruined building and several pieces of roadblock scatter terrain (tank traps, piles of tires). Below are some photos of the Necromunda table, in medias res. From pretty much any point on the table, a model can make a Run move and get behind cover.

Necromunda - House Delaque Gangers

It's been awhile since my last post. Good to be back in the saddle again!

I have enjoyed being Arbitrator (game master) for the ongoing Necromunda campaign we have been playing. I wanted to get another gang to go with my Spyrers, so I could always have a game with someone who doesn't have the figs, and to provide a different set of opponents for "bye" games in the campaign.

I liked the look of Dallas' gangers from House Delaque. So, I have started collecting a Delaque gang of my own.

In the photo montage immediately below are the first 6 models I painted. All but the flamethrower dude are old GW figs I got from an eBay seller in Serbia. The flamer guy is from Heresy Miniatures.



For the purposes of Necromunda gaming, the models are being used as (from L to R below), a Juve (probationary gang member) with an autopistol (i.e. machine pistol), a ganger with a lasgun, the gang's Leader with a shotgun, a Heavy (specialist) with a heavy stubber (think MMG), another Heavy with a flamer, and finally a second ganger with a lasgun.







I weathered the fuel and propellant tanks with various dings and rust stains.







After the first batch of 6 were done, I painted another Heavy (armed with a lascannon, he was the last figure from the fellow in Serbia), and another lasgun guy (from an eBay seller in Spain). In the 40K/Necromunda game background, laser weapons are very reliable. However, a lascannon is very expensive, and such an antitank weapon is likely overkill in an environment where just having a decent basic rifle is a big deal.





Painting:

I started with my usual zenithal highlighting, airbrushing Testors Acryl Flat White over a base coat of P3 Black Primer. I then used the Vallejo Face Painting acrylic set, followed up by artists' oils for their faces and hands. Citadel glazes and Vallejo Black and White set was used for clothing.











For the steel and brass bits, I used the Vallejo NMM set. I find that NMM for me is just as fast as painting with actual metallic colours (metal powders in a suspension), which I would highlight and shade anyways. The plastic 25mm bases are from the GW Sector Imperialis set. Lots of Vallejo Rust wash for the bases. The figures were sealed with Tamiya Semi-gloss spray.



Below is the palette of oil paints I used for painting the flesh tones of the lascannon guy and a long-primed tank crewman I had sitting around. Various Winsor and Newton, Schminke, and Sennelier professional artists' oils in tubes. Also there is a splash of Winsor and Newton Liquin medium, to aid paint flow; I sometimes also use some walnut oil.



Below, after painting the Delaque lascannon guy and the GW tanker, the palette now shows the colours I used to blend and glaze flesh tones.

Necromunda "Not-Delaque" Slicks from East Riding Miniatures

As readers know, Conscript Dave has organized a Necromunda campaign that's now in full swing. While I already had a ton of painted Cawdor/Redemptionist gangers, a campaign always provides a nice impetus for a new painting project.

As far as Necromunda factions, I always thought that the Delaques were super cool, what with their trenchcoats, shaved heads and John Lennon glasses. However, when I looked into getting the GW models, I got a bit of a shock... prices have increased quite a bit on that OOP stuff. So I looked around for some alternative models, and found these: the "Slicks" from East Riding Miniatures in the UK. 

ERM actually sell a pack of all 7 variants of Slick for the low price of 7 English pounds. A veritable bargain compared to Delaques from GW that might exceed that amount for a single figure!

The Slicks are cool, but I did do a bit of conversion work to make them my own. For the gangers above, I added extended barrels and flash suppressors to their autoguns.

The juves in the gang are equipped with pistols, of course. The ones provided by ERM are rather weedy and lacking in detail, so I swapped in some more impressive shootin' irons for them as well.

Juves are identified in this gang by the large probational "J" on the backs of their coats. Once they're promoted to full ganger status they'll be entitled to wear the plain black PVC version.

For the "heavy" with flamer, some more extensive conversion was required. Both of his arms were cut off (!) and arms from the GW Astra Militarum heavy flamer model were grafted on. I think it turned out rather well.

This is the base model for the flamer conversion above, which I also use for juves. Again, weapon swaps are done with GW weapons. The fellow on the right is a new recruit to the gang; he joined to seek revenge for the death of his brother (a full-fledged ganger) who was killed by Spyrers in the first campaign game. He carries his late brother's autogun even though he's not able to use it!

I kept the painting very simple for the gang, both because I needed to get them into action in short order and because I'm lazy ;-)



Flesh was painted a bit lighter than my normal mix, with a slight reddish undertone cast achieved with a wash of diluted Chestnut Ink. The PVC trenchcoats have Leadbelcher hardware washed with Nuln Oil, and highlighted with Leadbelcher and Mithril Silver. Weapons are done with Leadbelcher/Nuln Oil as well. Finally the coat and eyepiece lenses are given a generous brushing of GW 'Ardcoat (gloss varnish).

The gang leader, Slick Plashkin (each gang member has some not-so-clever punning name - Slick Derringer, Slick Astley, etc.). He carries a boltgun that he's used to good effect in the first two games.

These guys have been quite fun to play with so far and my only regret is that I didn't buy more - I might need to hire more gangers. Oh well, ERM's still in business and the postage charge wasn't outrageous. They also have some other cool stuff that can bulk out an order...


So many thanks to Dave for providing the impetus for this fun project. It turns out that the boys are doing OK on the tabletop as well so that's always a bonus!