Doc Ock is alive and well - and living in the under hive

I've been adding to my necromunda collection lately, including more eschers, and a delaque gang.

The eschers are all bare metal, and will be painted when I feel the inspiration, but that will have to wait as I plan to get a set of bases from Iron Halo and refit all my Eschers to that set.

The Delaques were a sight to behold. For a gang that is supposed to be sneaky, and hide in the shadows, they stood out a bit. They looked more like hippies with tie-dyed overcoats, and guns. Soon to be stripped, and repainted when the urge takes me.

I've also acquired a couple of  hired guns for my collection, in the form of two scummers, and a second beastmaster Wyrd.

On to the subject of the title. With the small necromunda kick happening I finally got around to building my Spyrer patriarch. It changed a bit from my initial plan as I looked over what I had ready, and made a few observations. A pair of  catachan lasguns had their stocks removed before being added to pipes, and the powerclaws were made from offcuts from a space marine backpack, and the talons from a set of lightning claws

As you can see, the figure came out looking a bit like Doctor Octopus, hence the title. It still requires some work with greenstuff to fill in some gaps and sculpt on a few extra details

From ship to shore

My plans to build Osgiliath have altered slightly. Osgiliath will now be incorporated into a more ambitious project - a modular city. A city that includes intact and ruined Osgiliath, an imperial sector, and a harbour/dock section. My intention is to use this project as a battlefield source for a variety of games. Warmachine/Hordes, Warhammer, 40K, Necromunda, and Lord of the Rings/War of the Ring.

I've looked at starting this project several times since I got some tiles cut for it (63 so far), but had no clear idea of where to start. After providing a friend with the materials to build the Worldworks kit Maiden of the High Seas, and having visions of Necromunda Gangers running riot below decks I had the starting point. Sea tiles, and the dock for the maiden. Of course this also works well for Warmachine, with either Cryx or pirates raiding a port.

All tiles are 1 foot square for this undertaking, and I began with 8 of them. 4 were painted with a blue poster paint that I've used for water before, as it tends to run to slightly different shades of blue depending on the thickness brushed on. I deepened the blue by adding a wash of Tamiya Smoke (X19).

The other 4, I didn't give a full coat, but left 1 edge unpainted. These tiles will form the dock frontage. To build up the dock I trimmed popsicle sticks for planks and glued them in place. I still need to add an edge to the dock, which will probably be made from balsa, and sit slightly higher than the planks. And of course I still have to come up with something for bollards

For those who are interested, I'll add a link for Worldworks in the side bar.

Finally back to this

It's been a while.
In the time between this post and the last I have ventured into TAGCon with my uruk-hai.

My best result in that was a draw (due to time) trying to break into Helm's Deep. Despite all the losses I still walked out with two prizes from the LoTR tournament - Sportsmanship, and (big surprise to me) Painting.

Both prizes were $20 gift certificates from Comics Compulsion in Christchurch, and I spent them recently, expanding my Menoth army by a Reckoner, a Devout, and Amon Ad-Raza.

Just over a week ago I started a new terrain project, which can be applied to most of my heroic 28mm armies. From the LoTR magazines I am building Osgiliath, with a mix of ruins and intact buildings. The way I see this, it serves as - Osgiliath for LoTR and the War of the Ring (if I decide to get into that), - 40K as a ruined Imperial City, - Fantasy as a ruined city (if I continue my VC army and fantasy becomes a game at TAG, and finally - Necromunda, as part of my own campaign setting (Cutters Canyon)

Hive war at TAG

Last wednesday, Ash began a Necromunda Campaign down at the club. I decided to run my Eschers on the first night, but for most of the campaign I will be running a Spyrer gang as I will not be able to make most of the game nights.
I've also purchased the first miniatures for a new project for my Necromunda set. It's been on my list of things to do for a long time, and was originally going to be a WH40K project. Now, the idea has been scaled down to a Necromunda project as I don't really want to build another 40K army, and Necromunda seems like a good place to begin this type of project.
We spent the weekend in CHCH, and I visited Comics (Looking for Menoth stuff, but they were sold out) and decided to buy what I needed for this project. I have long wondered why GW never translated the Skaven forces to the 40K universe. As a result of this not happening officially, I decided that I would take this project on myself.
With plenty of spare guns lying around, arming them is not a real problem. I decided that nightrunners would be more suited for the image I have in mind for them, so I bought a box. A couple of hours later I bought a warpfire thrower also. Of course, I will also have to write the rules for this gang myself, and that will form part of this project also. I still plan to add some of the other Skaven specific weapons to the list, specifically, Poison wind globadiers, and maybe a Ratling gun and Jezzails.

Another unproductive week

I haven't accomplished much in the way of work on my miniatures in the last week or so.

I usually rinse my brushes under the tap in the bathroom when I'm painting, as it's only a couple of steps away from my work area, and it saves having containers of water within flailing distance, but the drainpipe on the basin split last week. A new pipe is in place, but is not connected to trap outside as it is 300mm of concrete to drill through, and the plumber cant lean on the end of a dynadrill at present due to a damaged shoulder.


My main work has been planning out some new terrain for Necromunda, to be made from MDF (due to acquiring a large supply of it).

It's taken a while to get this photo. My three year old daughter loves to watch me paint, and if she gets the chance she'll grab a brush, and a painted mini, and pretend to paint.

Rescue Mission x2

Two rescue missions in one night. The first when Ash tried to rescue his lost Escher, the second with John trying to recover a captured Juve.

The first game against Ash took longer to set up than to play. Two turns in luck was with one of my sentries, as he stepped to edge of a platform, and the random direction roll left him facing the the two Eschers below him. the dice roll for spotting distance left him staring straight down at the Escher leaders head. Being a good member of the gang he promptly raised the alarm - by putting a boltshell from his shotgun through the Escher's head. The ground level sentry was staring in the right direction, and reacted to the shot, by levelling his autogun, and blowing a hole in the chest of the leader's companion.

Ash began the next turn by making a bottle test. Disapointment reigned around the table as everybody groaned at the result. End of game. One well-used Escher ganger sold into slavery, and a free shotgun in my stash.

John steps up, and prepares to recover his lost juve. Two hours of solid gunfire follow, and John wins, taking his juve back. His only bottle test was immediately before winning, and he passed.
A very tough game, whose highlights included two three story plunges to ground. My particular favourite part of the game was John's heavy stubber. After scoring seven successful hits with it in the previous game, it was ineffective this time, with only one or two hits. My Marksman was stood in the open for a long time, taking round after round of sustained fire from the stubber, but not one wound. Four turns of fire, pinned every turn until his leader turned up, and never falling to the heavy stubber. A real hero, until he ran out of ammo after two turns of shooting.

On another note, my rotating bridge had been built by this time, and was ready to use, although not fully painted. It received a lot of ooh's and aah's when it was placed on the table. I'll post some more photos, with an article on the next stage of it's construction soon.

Rotating bridge - part 1

I've been browsing a UK terrain site (TerraGenesis - http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/ ) lately, and was inspired to begin a new terrain piece for my necromunda collection. Thanks go to Gary James for the brilliant Toll Bridge he built, which I am now attempting my version of using the Bitz and materials I have lying around at home.

The basic materials for this project are shown below. Brass rod, Plastic Card, 20 mm dowel, custom wood, a large washer, and a piece of plastic tube.

This is the main shaft that supports the bridge, without the piece of plastic tubing that sits on the washer to allow the bridge movement.

The pieces of brass rod have been glued to the lower piece of the bridge itself, and some card detailing has been added to the upper surface.

That's as far as the project reached on the first session of making it. I will post more as I continue with the bridge.

Wednesday's Necromunda

I got involved in a vicious scanvengers game of necromunda at the club las wednesday (25/3/09). with John. He had an orlock gang that was just starting out, going up against my large, experienced Dark Roughnecks gang from my own House Lanfear (shameless ripoff of the name from Robert jordan's Wheel of Time series).
With a large open platform in the center of table, courtesy of Worldworks Platform Command:Red Sector package, Johns Heavy Stubber had a commanding view of my setup. Luck was with him, as his heavy starting hosing down my gangers from my second turn. John used the Overwatch rule to great effect, dropping my marksman in my second turn, and surviving four turns of ammo rolls through the game. The stubber inflicted seven hits all up through the course of the game before running out of ammo.
At ground level John didn't fare quite so well, as the roughnecks two plasma guns methodically cut down his Orklocks (as he decided to call them).
The first close combat began on turn six, as the Roughnecks leader, Derrick, and the gang's only juve (Stev) charged the two Orklocks attempting to flank them. Derrick got dropped due to his loweres weaponskill from a hand wound, while Stev dropped his target. Second round of combat saw a standoff between Stev and the Orklock ganger, with the Orklock juve getting back to his feet. with the third round of combat Stev showed his true combat skills (WS 4), dropping the ganger, then the juve in a single turn.
After advice from others John wisely decided to bottle, leaving us both with two loot counters each.
We ran out of time to carry the post game duties, so we will complete them next week, after which Ash will come looking to reclaim the ganger I captured from his Eschers a week ago.
The picture below is the oustanding Stev, who will become a full ganger once experience is added on.

What to do with leftover pieces from old kits

I recently found a pair of tow ropes from a Tamyia kit I built years ago, and started thinking about what I was going to do with them. 24 hours later, the idea took shape in my mind, with the tow ropes being used as a loose rail for a hastily built bridge between two platforms for necromunda. As I was at work at the time, I couldn't do much about it, but when I got home, I found the pieces I needed - a sheet of plastic flooring cut into strips, 2 pillars from GW's cityfight sprues, and a tow rope from a GW Rhino sprue.

The first step was to cut a length of plasticard that was the full length of the bridge. The cable from the Rhino was next, just the shackles were kept. I then glued the three strips of pastic flooring in place, with spacers to prop the ends up, after leaving sufficient space to slide the bridge over the card platforms of my necromunda terrain. The cityfight pillars were added in the corners of one side, with the shackles wedged in position and glued.

The smaller shackles on the tamiya tow ropes were carefully cut at the peak of the shackle, and first the two were carefully joined together, followed by even more care easing the remaining ends over the larger shackles on the posts. The safety cable has not been glued to the shackles, and still swings free, even after painting. a day later I realised that I needed something to make it look like it had been put together hastily, with materials lying around. After a bit of thought, I decided to use the hubs I had left over from Space Marine bike squadrons.

I haven't tested it in a game yet, and when I do, I'll need to work out some rules for it, as I consider it to an unstable structure as far as the game goes.