Hive cities are one of the most evocative parts of the 40K setting. I grew up reading 2000AD and Mega City One is ingrained in my imagination, and I think it's clear that it and the nightmare cities from Nemesis the Warlock are a big part of the inspiration for the Hive City idea.
If you look at the fiction though, they can be portrayed fairly inconsistently. In the Armageddon War for example, sometimes the Hives are like just big cities, with tower blocks and streets and so on. That is also how the Hives are represented in battle reports from the 3e era - the famous battle for Tempestora Hive report is a futuristic city, but nothing like the entirely enclosed "caves of steel" of Necromunda. Similarly, Verunhive seems to mostly be a ground level battle and the "hive" is mostly just a big walled city.
Obviously, there are practical reasons for this - 40K 3rd edition is heavily influenced by WW2 wargames, and therefore works well in the kind of environments that were fought across in WW2. Huge, highly vertical, enclosed cities are not really part of that paradigm! Imagining how a battle would play out in such terrain and what tactics could be used is pretty challenging.
But if we want to do Hives justice as they are portrayed in fiction like the Necromunda materials or some of the Dark Heresy books, how would we do it on the tabletop? And how would it play in game?
To my mind, you need at least 3 levels of verticality to give the impression of the complex structures inside the hive. I think normal city layouts should be avoided, and actually also think that brick and mortar construction should be pretty rare. These are caves of steel and so as much as possible the bones of it should be metal.
Using walkway systems is a good start, but I think you also need significant amounts of raised platforms creating miniature battlezones above the "ground" level, and might even suggest that objectives should generally be in this "layer" to encourage engagement with the vertical nature of the structure. A ground level, with a level of raised platforms connected by walkways and then a final layer of walkways above that, perhaps with a few more raised platforms in the "top layer" would give a pretty convincing 3D aspect. Walkways and smaller platforms allow for us to see in and also move our hands in and out to move miniatures.
But the final question is, how good is all this verticality for gameplay? How do you represent it? I'd say you need fairly streamlined movement rules. Penalising vertical movement too much will put off players from using the higher levels. But you also need to reward jump troops in some way to make them attractive, because being able to jump from platform to platform is really evocative. I'd also give some sort of bonus for being on the high ground (as in the old Cityfight supplements) to encourage getting up there and using it.
I'm interested in other points of view here - do you prefer the more standard "city ruins" representation of a hive city? Do you think the caves of steel style is not that common in universe and a lot of hives really are just very big cities (in which case some cities on Earth are approaching being hives atm)? And how do you find gameplay on these boards?
And of course, if you have cool hive terrain please post it!
The first two MDF kits look like how I imagine hives, the middle one is lovely ruined city terrain but I dunno that it fits what I imagine when I imagine a Hive City. Though, I do struggle with what the habs should look like - I imagine something pre-fab and standardised, and made of metal for the constructed habs which I imagine the richer gang leaders would live in or would be popular homes in the upper levels, but then with lots of shanty town like hovels everywhere in the lower reaches where most people live.
A hive city is meant to be a man-made mountain somewhat resembling a pyramid, with the spires of the nobility at the top and the stygian slum of the underhive below. I think the Necromunda Hive for instance is 5 miles high - so not far off Everest (5.5).
But its a massive structure in terms of volume too. So it seems reasonable most fighting would be inside it - and therefore enclosed - even if the space could be more than big enough to drive tanks etc around in. Although there's no real reason you couldn't be fighting on the surface - although how that would look would vary from level to level.
I think all the verticality/gangways etc is good for visually simulating this. But arguably as you flag up, its not great for gameplay given the relatively limited movement ability of infantry (whereas bikes and vehicles etc may just be stuck).
With that said, In "real life" (if such a phrase can apply to 40k) I'm not sure there would be much verticality. I mean I'm posting this from an office several floors up - and while I can wave out the window, I can't see into the floor immediately below or above me. After all, why would we want that? I'm thinking there would just be floor after floor of 40k-concrete. You'd move between them via stairs, or lifts. Presumably there's some sort of mass transport system to get people from living quarters to work stations etc - but that's probably just a system of train stations in tunnels, where space is kept to a minimum.
Look at video games such as Underhive Wars for how conflict areas in hive cilties have been protrayed in them:
https://www.focus-entmt.com/en/games/necromunda-underhive-wars That game's terrain is supposed to match tabletop, but bits of it are specially made, such as the big vats.
For tabletop scenery though, which bits of the vast hive are you wantling to depict? There are the areas the various gangs control, the more general areas where trade and industry happen, then suposedly habitation. Not everyone lives in the slums, or lives in gang hideouts.
Of GW's releases for Necromunda (just to keep to that theme) the metal girders of the Sector Mechanicus seem pretty ubiquitus. With that and Zone Mortalis for the bits inbetween, there is a fair amount of variety in construction methods.
You can expand them into the transport tunnels, wide open storage areas, recreation spaces, etc.
Vehicles are a problem, for sure. I'd say each raised platform should have a ramp that a vehicle can drive up to allow them to get at least to the middle layer, and the walkways would hopefully be big enough to let some vehicles drive along them as well.
And yeah, I think you're not wrong that a hive city is not a very realistic structure. I think it might make more sense (the huge domes that are then "filled in" with structures) on planets that are not terraformed, so the domes are protecting from hostile outer environments.
One solution could be to have connections into the raised sections in each deployment zone, and have objectives on each layer. That way you are incentivised to spread out your deployment and use all the vertical space. You could have different teams on different levels pushing for each objective, it feels like it could be very dynamic. I dunno, I just think there's something so cool about this sort of multi-level battlefield.
This is my set up:
And I'd say it's about a third of the way there. I have the stuff for some extra raised platforms that are a lot bigger, and will be making ramps for those as well as the stairs seen here. And then I really need some hab-blocks which I'm also working on. I've decided after a lot of thought to steer away from concrete in my structures, barring a few walls here and there.
But even in this rudimentary set up, my walkways are 75mm across, so you can drive a fair few of the smaller vehicles down these. It's one of the reasons I've not upscaled bases on any of my minis - this is designed to take three 25mm minis walking abreast, and if you upscale to 32mm bases it's a lot less usable, which is likely to be another challenge with this sort of terrain nowadays - making space for all the bases makes it look weird and out of scale.
Skinnereal: My aim is to make a very modular set up of mostly infrastructure, which you can then plop various things on to represent the different hive zones. Stack scrap and shanty buildings on your walkways and platforms - Underhive. Stack it with hab blocks and manufactorum, mid hive. Stack it with artificial parks and statues, upper hive. That's the plan, to be able to represent the entire hive without having to make bespoke structures for each area, but just set dressing on top of the stage of the modular walkways and platforms.
Hah, my version is something like the version of Mega City One from the black and white comics, but even more enclosed. Overpasses and walkways everywhere, with towers looming up between them.
I'm doing roughly 6"x6" electrical gang boxes as hab units, and adding some bits to make them stackable into towers. I've seen some cool shipping container habs but I decided the gang box approach would be more useful to me because I could use them as installations and stuff for other set ups.
For gaming, dungeon tile like set ups are probably the most practical. Much like a boarding action on a space ship. The most you want there is one level of elevation. But I think the more complex 3D boards just look cool enough that the spectacle is worth the hassle...
I agree this is primarily a constraint placed by the practicalities of wargaming. The need to actually see and reach our models limits how many layers we can add. It is something I've pondered about for years, although I've not had opportunity to start on anything yet. That is all likely to change once I've finished renovating my new house.
Firstly, I think it is important to note that there are a lot of different types of hives, and not all hives are found on hive worlds. For example, Valhalla has subterranean hives carved out of the rock and ice, but is typically described as a civilised world. Presumably the population is not big enough overall to warrant classification as a hive world, but is highly concentrated into a handful of hives due to the adverse conditions on an ice world. The Dead Men Walking book describes a hive constituted as a series of distinct high rises connected by bridges at various levels. The hives on Meridian seem to have few spires and be fairly flat across the top of the structures, with deep chasms reaching down into the lower hives. Forge worlds also occasionally have hives for their indentured workers (if that is how they procure labour). Having said that, the typical hive seems to be a giant enclosed structure of one or more major spires surrounded by minor spires and some degree of suburbs, which all sits atop some kind of underhive wilderness.
Secondly, I think the warren of tunnels is only going to represent a portion of most hives, even the typical enclosed ones. If we take the best described hive in 40k- Hive Primus on Necromunda:
It is supposedly based upon a mound of domes upon domes. This is quite a clever bit of world building IMO. Each individual dome can essentially contain a city analogous to something on a surface level, with its own little patch of artificially-lit sky beneath its adamantium firmament. It allows your battlefield to be built based upon a single level whilst still representing a discrete chunk of the hive. The areas between domes and in some of the more built-up domes would be tunnel warrens, but a given dome may be fairly open. This is going to become increasingly true as you go up the levels. In the noble areas, wide boulevards and airy spaces are going to be common despite being within the iron skin of the hive.
In addition, despite older images showing a smooth-ish exterior, it does appear Hive Primus is a craggy mass of external structures:
This is consistent with other newer hive images, like on Armageddon:
Spoiler:
Even outside of the dome concept, I think open spaces like parks and boulevards are going to be relatively common in the mid and especially upper hives. Not so much as public amenities, but as public reminders of Imperial power. This is from the hives on Valhalla, and is clearly meant to be a reminder of such as the troops exit the hive to battle:
GW's own hive city model suggests hives are often wider and flatter around the spires:
Meridian features a lot of open areas on the upper surfaces of the hive, which are readily taken advantage of by the Blood Ravens in drop pod assaults:
Regarding suburbs- I think this probably depends heavily on the planet. The hives on Necromunda and Armageddon seem to have little in the way of suburbs, but it appears they used to have extensive ones given the huge numbers of ruins lost in the ash wastes surrounding the hives. Meanwhile the very modest Vervunhive has a lot of city outside the main walls. My suspicion is that early hives develop extensive suburbs, but these are gradually abandoned as the atmosphere becomes more toxic and inhospitable, with only the most hardy and/or useful communities surviving outside of the thick hive skins.
So I think the typical, surface-level city board is entirely consistent with a fight in a hive city, if it represents combat in the suburbs, on the surface of the skin, or through some of the more airy parts of the hive levels. Given that GW has generally only released kits for fancy Imperial government buildings or shrines, or for manufacturing districts (which are likely to be fairly spacious just to accommodate the size of Imperial gear being constructed), this works. We now have GW kits for the warrens of tunnels too- Zones Mortalis and Boarding Assault/Gallowdark kits. What has always been missing is dense blocks of basic habs, but then these may be the most difficult to actually play through.
Regarding ideas for adding more multi-level play:
The (conceptually) easiest is to have a second level raised quite high over the first with enough room to reach beneath it, and essentially have two urban zones with only a few points of connection. This doesn't provide a lot of interactivity though, but could be very cool for a force to attack upwards from the hive base.
Similar to this is the space hulk method, where you have two separate boards with designated connection points.
I've also thought of an idea where there is a spine of sorts down the centre, with floors coming off towards either long edge. These would need to be carefully crafted to avoid anywhere being unreachable, but being open from the edges will help a lot. The spine will heavily limit long-ranged firepower and be a bit awkward to manoeuvre troops across.
Great visual references here, thanks! I'd never seen that new Armageddon hive image. Awesome stuff.
I agree about the idea of a "spine" level - I'd think of it as the second layer of the battle field stretching from one long edge to the other with at least three paths you could take to get from one side to the other, and probably a central hub area around the middle of the table. This would mean the second level is in both player's deployment zone, so a part of their force can be deployed up there and fight across it.
A third layer I imagine for practical reasons needs to be more sparse, but I would still want at least a connection from the deployment zones to the centre above the second layer's centre. That way you could at least have some small teams having their own battle up there.
I mean it's all for spectacle and to feed the imagination during the battle.
As for access, I make my levels about 4.5' high, and that's enough for large models to move under and for me to reach my hands under. But I don't play with models much bigger than a Land Raider generally so I don't have to plan for tall superheavies, and I think if you're going to take those sorts of things you really need to design the layout to accomodate them.
When I say a spine, I more mean a central support for the floors, to minimise obstructions. Something a bit like this old GW board, but a city instead of a space ship with more through-connection:
Essentially, rather than building two walls with floors between, you build one central wall with floors on either side. With lots of doors and gates.
It all depends on how dense you want your terrain to be really.
I think you can build a table that accommodates larger models, but they will be heavily restricted in mobility. As they should be.
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I also really like this image from the 4th edition Cities of Death book. Very much a city similar to the hives on Meridian, and something you could do a bit of on the tabletop. The high-level gantries and bridges give another way to add verticality to a board. Maybe you could use lift shafts with simple rules to connect areas without giving too much advantage to jump troops? This and the armoured train in the battle report for Cold Steel Ridge in Apocalypse 1st edition have given me a long-running desire to build a 40k train....
I always just head to the way Hive cities were described in Old school Necromunda. Basically towers and other large structures connected at various levels by walkways. My ideal is 2-3 stories where the second story has enough walkways to get around almost the entire table. It'd be fun if the 3rd story was to, but generally it serves as less connected scattered high points for objectives and locations for sniping.
For game purposes, this generally works best with skirmish games or infantry-only games. It'd be a big commitment to build the number of bridges and ramps needed for vehicles on multiple levels .
These links show some of the setups. I often use an elevated train line to create even more walkways. Most of my pedestrian walkways are broken Lionel Gondola bodies with the ends cut off. They provide nice cover, are a good length and have lots of rivets.
Those set ups look great. I didn't put barriers on my walkways, except as clip ons, and it's the worst part of set up clipping them all on. But it increases modularity by being able to have the walkways interlock at any point along their length. But you do need some cover up there. I house rule that anyone in an elevated position always has cover, because they can drop down and have a much smaller silhouette than someone on the ground.
I also like that your board has plenty of colour. I think it looks nicer with some weathered colours than all in tones of rust and steel.
Haighus: That is a cool picture, though if those buildings go down to the ground, I'd say then some modern cities qualify as Hives.
Another inspiration for me is Midgar from Final Fantasy 7, with it's big "plates" with the slums underneath and a central spire. A sort of mini-hive, even with ash wastes all around it.
Eilif, that board set up looks great. I like how it feels like an actual place. One of my problems with a lot of terrain set ups is they don't look like they have a purpose, just a collection of stuff which might be aesthetically cohesive but lacks functionality as a place. It is also why I liked the starter set terrain from the last edition, that had a strong functional theme to it.
Da Boss wrote: Haighus: That is a cool picture, though if those buildings go down to the ground, I'd say then some modern cities qualify as Hives.
Well, Vervunhive has a population of "just" 40 million, with Ferrozoica hive at about 1/3rd of that. The greater Tokyo metropolitan area has a population of about 40 million people. I'd absolutely say the largest cities on Earth today would be considered small hives in 40k. I think hive is a pretty loose term that just means large city in its most basic form. Frankly, I don't think Verghast would be considered a hive world by most of the Imperium, it has a population that seems unlikely to top 1 billion or so given it had three and a half* puny hives at the beginning of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. But the population seems to be mainly concentrated into those hives, so that would explain why people viewed it as such.
Having said that, the image of Dheneb Capitalis is much more interconnected than high-rises on modern day Earth, even if you assume the ground is not far below what we can see. But it may be much lower, we don't actually have any indication of where surface is in that image. It could be a mile below what we can see. The only real inferences we can make is that the atmosphere is not so polluted that the governor ("Hierocrat") has pushed their palace up into a spire above the clouds yet. I'd say this is probably a relatively early hive. It has a lot of similarities to how Meridian is depicted in the Dawn of War series with fairly under-developed spires surrounded by a mass of dense city.
*I say half because the Northern Collectives were apparently well on their way to becoming a hive proper.
I think if you imagine that a lot of planets in the Imperium are relatively hostile to human life, densely populated and enclosed urban settlements make a lot of sense.
Overall, the interior needn’t be overly standardised, as a Hive’s construction is layer upon layer added over millennia, seemingly according to immediate need.
You may have high vaulted ceilings for thoroughfares or former manufcatorums. You may have MC-1 style floors for high density domiciles. Some sectors may be largely only traversible on foot. Others might have vac-tubes, monorails, powered walkways, roads etc.
They’re a proper mish-mash of usable space.
We also have Domes described in Necromunda, which appear to be akin to self contained towns. And like any town, may have a variety of architecture and usage.
One thing I'd make - assuming I had unlimited time, money, and storage space - is table top topper i.e. some "spires" that hold up a basically battlefield sized surface to represent just the one layer with spires and layers going up and down from there.
Just don't put too much thought into it - How many Hive world invaders care if they storm the top level of the citadel before or after they bomb the bottom support pilings? But that would make a far shorter black library book.
...I also like that your board has plenty of colour. I think it looks nicer with some weathered colours than all in tones of rust and steel.
Thanks!
I agree that cover is very necessary. It's the one thing that's missing in sufficient qualities in the original 90s Necromunda sets. Your rule giving cover to higher models is a very good idea.
As for color, I'm so glad that stands out. I'm a big fan of color in terrain layouts. I'm not particularly careful in the application or detailing (usually just dusted spray cans or dry brushing), but it just seems more fun to me, even in the grim darkness of the far future.
Haighus wrote: Eilif, that board set up looks great. I like how it feels like an actual place. One of my problems with a lot of terrain set ups is they don't look like they have a purpose, just a collection of stuff which might be aesthetically cohesive but lacks functionality as a place. It is also why I liked the starter set terrain from the last edition, that had a strong functional theme to it.
Thanks! Trying to have the terrain make sense (almost to tell a story on it's own) is something I've always tried for but has definitely improved over the years.
Here's last week's Grimdark game at TMX. Might be one of my most sensible boards yet, with fairly obvious port, industry and settlement.
A majority of the Darktide game takes place in a hive city, and across varying districts.
Them range from the criss-crossed shanty slums to the more upscale cathedral districts and everything in between. Though the best part is definitely that the ‘sky’ is always more city; a vast expanse of metal above you which turns you into the foundation for the next level up.
Oh, a fun idea I forgot to mention before: if you have an enclosed area that feels like it should be accessible but just cannot easily be reached for placing models (like a structure on the bottom layer), then you can model it with LEDs suggesting the section contains a fire and is impassable. Totally unnecessary but cool. Can also use rules for garrisoned buildings.
Haighus wrote: Eilif, that board set up looks great. I like how it feels like an actual place. One of my problems with a lot of terrain set ups is they don't look like they have a purpose, just a collection of stuff which might be aesthetically cohesive but lacks functionality as a place. It is also why I liked the starter set terrain from the last edition, that had a strong functional theme to it.
Thanks! Trying to have the terrain make sense (almost to tell a story on it's own) is something I've always tried for but has definitely improved over the years.
Here's last week's Grimdark game at TMX. Might be one of my most sensible boards yet, with fairly obvious port, industry and settlement.
Yup, looks awesome 👍 We are definitely on the same page on this one
I love this discussion - Gameplay aside, you could easily model this with some 2x4 boards - set next to each other, but with foam insulation (or books) below each one to raise it up anywhere from 4-8 inches. so you have what looks like a stepped board, each layer representing a different chunk of hive. With buildings, walkways, ramps, etc. It gives you narrative opportunities to either 'fight up' the hive with chokepoints or other issues, or fight across the hive. More challenging would be to represent this chaotic environment with the attacker and defender dividing their forces into three groups and randomly rolling to see which starts on which layer.
Currently I’m fiddlin’ with my Zone Mortalis and Sector Mechanicus backlog, with the intent of it being used for Necromunda.
What I think needs to be seen on such terrain is a suggestion of functionality. Or at least, a one time function, even if bits have since been destroyed, cannibalised or otherwise removed.
The hanging cables for the underside of Sector Mechanicus, control panels, bells whistles and doohickeys all help with that.
I’ve a fair road to go, but this is what I cobbled together last night. Nothing too fancy, as I’ve only limited support legs on hand. But I’ve got verticality, a ladder for in-game access, and at least a small platform for models to occupy, with some cover to boot. And the dangling cables for set dressing. And I’ll be adding a control panel or two as well.
In the fiction some authors (Abbnett et al) don't seem to like the necromunda hive. Indeed they constrain writing a fair bit. As you say the description of hives in stuff like helsreach is more like a MC1 city. External walls, tall buildings, roads etc. That sort of environment allows you a lot more writing freedom.
Hives now seem to formally encompass the gothic cities and the Necro multi age look.
I have been building up a stock of Mantic and GW terrain for some time and when I get to have somewhere to live can start trying to build an ancient bit of hive where you have the pre imperial remnants merging into the newer building on top.
It doesn't help that some of the classic images of Hive Primus are wrong. In the images I posted upthread, the first one is inaccurate, because Hive Primus is described as ten miles wide as well as tall.
This image is as wide as it is tall. In this depiction, with the craggy exterior formed of a multitude of structures, you could well have a classic surface cityfight over much of the hive exterior without even touching on the interior segments.
It is basically a bunch of interconnected highrises built onto an increasingly-steep artificial mountain.
I suspect that most hives do have a wide base that is much more gently sloping before reaching the steep spire(s).
For a size comparison, the M60 around Manchester has roughly a 10 mile diametre. So Hive Primus has the footprint of Manchester but extends upwards to ~twice the height of Everest. Greater Manchester has a population of roughly a million and the current tallest building is 201m or about 1/8th of a mile. Hive Primus probably has a population at least comparable to the entire present-day Earth, if not greater.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I've recently found some interesting stuff relating to the hives on Armageddon, will share when I'm home from work and can take the relevant photos.
Mad Dok: Looks cool, those GW kits are very atmospheric if you're going for the full on techno gothic look. A board done with all of that stuff always looks really good.
Blockade: Yeah, that "layered board" idea would work especially well for a battle on the hive skin, which is probably the start of a lot of hive wars - orks or whoever swarming all over the skin looking for weakpoints to force entry.
Haighus: Yeah, you can see that sort of more traditional "tower blocks and streets" forming the edge of even really big and ancient hives. I do think the in world logic of the hive being sealed because the outer environment is too inhospitable is pretty strong though - the hive as a sealed environ makes a lot of sense if you consider that loads of planets in the Imperium are gonna be pretty unfriendly to human life in ways that might be impossible to terraform - like just having no magnetosphere and an active star nearby would mean that radiation from the star would make living outside long-term untenable. You could still go out, but living outside the shielded Hive would eventually and inevitably mean mutation and cancers. The idea that these hab domes would merge and stack on top of each other makes a lot of sense.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Currently I’m fiddlin’ with my Zone Mortalis and Sector Mechanicus backlog, with the intent of it being used for Necromunda.
What I think needs to be seen on such terrain is a suggestion of functionality. Or at least, a one time function, even if bits have since been destroyed, cannibalised or otherwise removed.
The hanging cables for the underside of Sector Mechanicus, control panels, bells whistles and doohickeys all help with that.
I’ve a fair road to go, but this is what I cobbled together last night. Nothing too fancy, as I’ve only limited support legs on hand. But I’ve got verticality, a ladder for in-game access, and at least a small platform for models to occupy, with some cover to boot. And the dangling cables for set dressing. And I’ll be adding a control panel or two as well.
You're off to a good start. I think the key to hive terrain (at least in the classic Necromunda sense) is elevated walkways. Being able to move around much of the board on a second (or third) level is key. A piece with a platform or elevation is nice, but it's when you start connecting the upper floors with walkways that it becomes a Hive. A simple set of loose walkways/bridges that you can arrange to connect the various terrain pieces is essential.
Another neat thing about walkways is that it can make even non-hive terrain, more hive-ey.
Definitely. Verticality is an important feature of Hive architecture, though the tunnel fight nature of Zone Mortalis also suits, as it’s replicating fighting within buildings. Add in some scatter terrain and general obstacles, and you get a suitably claustrophobic environment, where positioning and cautious movement is the order of the day.
Each also favours certain weapons.
A Heavy Stubber, Heavy Bolter or Autocannon are all well and good when you can make use of their range with a decent vantage point. But in ZM games, you may find Flamers, Frag Grenades/Missiles and Plasma Cannons, with those lovely templates paying dividends instead. Same with Basic Weapons and Pistols respectively.
I’ve also ordered a selection of the Habs for Ash Wastes from my friend’s FLGS, which I’m paying for on Friday. Idea there is to use them to properly flesh out the intended settlement for a forthcoming campaign, as well as being used for general engagements, adding further vertical looks and hidey holes.
Haighus: Yeah, you can see that sort of more traditional "tower blocks and streets" forming the edge of even really big and ancient hives. I do think the in world logic of the hive being sealed because the outer environment is too inhospitable is pretty strong though - the hive as a sealed environ makes a lot of sense if you consider that loads of planets in the Imperium are gonna be pretty unfriendly to human life in ways that might be impossible to terraform - like just having no magnetosphere and an active star nearby would mean that radiation from the star would make living outside long-term untenable. You could still go out, but living outside the shielded Hive would eventually and inevitably mean mutation and cancers. The idea that these hab domes would merge and stack on top of each other makes a lot of sense.
I agree, but I can also see why humans would be constantly expanding beyond the armoured shell for various reasons, like space/aircraft facilities or shanty towns.
I've found these images of hives on Armageddon. The first is Helsreach:
This is Tartarus (I suspect this is too narrow and the actual hive would be broader at the base):
On both the exteriors look like cities in their own right.
I also found this very interesting example from an in-universe pamphlet on how to set booby traps. It refers to a typical 12-floor hab unit. I presume this is common inside the hab zones on the interior of Armageddon's hives. The basic structure is very reminiscent of Eastern bloc social housing, with several flats per floor off a central stairwell. Whether these reach the ceiling or not for a given zone probably varies on the specific circumstances.
Based on the size of the stairwell, those flats are not big. Very fitting for the Imperium.
Seriously though, it would be fittingly grimdark for a hive city to cram in layer upon layer of roadworks in the center of their cities. Make it as inefficient as possible. I think it would also make for an interesting map for vehicle heavy games. Put in a few roadways and add some industrial or habitat buildings in-between. The troops could make their way through the denser areas while the tanks fight for clear laneways. Maybe add a scaffold running over the highways.
The_Real_Chris wrote: In the fiction some authors (Abbnett et al) don't seem to like the necromunda hive. Indeed they constrain writing a fair bit. As you say the description of hives in stuff like helsreach is more like a MC1 city. External walls, tall buildings, roads etc. That sort of environment allows you a lot more writing freedom.
I was just looking at the maps from the novel Helsreach, and I just noticed there is a cutaway schematic that shows the map is actually just a slice of the lower hive. Interesting.
Seriously though, it would be fittingly grimdark for a hive city to cram in layer upon layer of roadworks in the center of their cities. Make it as inefficient as possible. I think it would also make for an interesting map for vehicle heavy games. Put in a few roadways and add some industrial or habitat buildings in-between. The troops could make their way through the denser areas while the tanks fight for clear laneways. Maybe add a scaffold running over the highways.
That is an abomination... I've seen spaghetti that is more organised.
Which is what makes it so perfect for the Imperium.
One thing that is worth considering.. given that a lot of hives are described as having formed gradually, as layers of new construction was built over existing construction, i'd argue that a good way to depict a hive city might be to make a normal urban board.. then stick some big pillars in there supporting another urban board directly above, with ramps and stairs to link them. possibly just a partial board above.
these screenshots from macross, showing the "city-inside-the-ship" are a good example of what i'm thinking of, albeit in a less grimdark aesthetic.
and that seems to be sorta what the makers of Darktide seems to have gone for, as a lot of their 'urban center' maps seems to be just layers of platforms and bridges with smaller buildings on top of them, and a few larger buildings poking up through.
Edit: screenshot of what i mean, from a recent play through. Had an even better one, but an ogryn photobombed it in the last second, blocking sight if everything.
Love the image references! I agree about the roads, my ideal hive layout would have curved road-ramps connecting all the levels and acting as arteries. It's getting balance between coverage and accessibility for the underneath layers that is the challenge. And "layered city" is exactly the aesthetic I'd be going for.
Also, I'm a fanatic about modularity, even if it means aesthetic compromises. It needs to be able to pack away into a tub for storage and it needs to be able to be laid out in a huge variety of patterns to allow for interesting gaming. Playing something like Necromunda on a fixed board quickly becomes stale, and I think modularity beats aesthetics for gaming terrain.
Another aspect I think about is redundancy. The Imperial Hives are likely made from STC tech. In my head, there is probably an STC for a Hab unit, that is mass produced. And it's probably adapted for all kinds of worlds. I imagine it as a hermetically sealed block with air filters and so on, probably made of similar materials to a starship so that it is equally comfortable on an airless moon with no atmospheric pressure or on the bottom of an ocean bed on a water world. This means that the hab domes would be full of smaller hab units which are themselves sealed, creating a nested environment of failsafes and seals.
That seems to fit the idea of mankind spreading to all kinds of available worlds with a common tech base - I imagine a big automated factory that just churns out modular habs made of ceramite and plasteel and they just get plonked down. Surely that would be the start of any human colony, the equivalent to the cellular tissue of the Hive.
The multiple redundancy aspect of this would keep a hive habitable even after extensive damage, as people could mostly stick to their habs or take shelter in intact habs. I imagine that in the underhive, intact fully functional habs are really valuable resources, and most people don't get to live in one.
Edit to add: Originally I had planned for soviet style concrete blocks for my hive city, based on stuff like that diagram Haighus posted and just the general aesthetic. But I gradually moved away from it for a variety of reasons - one being practical. I found electrical gang boxes I could get cheaply and adapt into hermetically sealed habs, and decided to go that road instead. But I think the soviet tower block style of hive is also a really cool aesthetic and certainly allows for a more traditional battlefield and feel, and is probably more multi-functional in terms of using the ruins for different settings. I decided when I make my modular ruins they're gonna be fantasy though, and my sci fi stuff is going to really lean into the sci fi aspect.
In terms of aesthetic? Keep in mind not only do many Hives and Hive Worlds pre-date the Imperium? But even within the Imperial Era, we needn’t feel restrained to a specific aesthetic.
As a Hive grows, its most desirable areas necessarily shift location. The poshest and most exclusive areas tend to be in the then pinnacle. But as layers are added on top? Earlier luxury areas become buried within the Hive.
This allows us a pretty decent level of freedom to play around with aesthetics. And it’s entirely possible something Art Nouveau, with elegant curves immediately abuts something horribly Brutalist or Industrial, representing once fancy areas eventually subsumed into now lower levels.
An interesting example of this in my memory is Canary Wharf, and Tower Hamlets. In pop culture parlance think Old Detroit and Delta City.
See, Tower Hamelts is one of the poorest areas in the UK. Filled with high rise, high density housing in a Brutalist style. All manky concrete, small windows and hard edges. Canary Wharf is all glass and steel, with wide, straight boulevards.
Now, Tower Hamlets is undergoing regeneration, and the replacement flats aren’t as ugly as what they’ve replaced. But the transition is stark - not helped by private security leading into Canary Wharf adding to a real “us and them” feel.
The same can be true of a Hive, regardless of which level we’re looking at.
Yeah I agree with that - I think you can have really wildly different aesthetics for hives in the Imperium and within each hive.
My preferred 40K is a bit toned down in terms of the extreme technogothic style that is on all the official terrain. I get why they do it - it's a very visually distinctive and interesting style that is really hard to replicate with traditional scratch building, but in my head that stuff would be more limited to shrines and shrine worlds rather than your bog standard STC constructed furnaces and habs.
Also UK cities, particularly those that saw extensive damage during the blitz can serve as interesting examples.
Keeping with London? A lot of the medieval and later street layouts still remain, and the place is riddle with tunnels - both sewers and other amenities, and smuggler’s tunnels. This means above and below you’ve a real hodgepodge of not just architectural styles, but street layout.
If you visit Edinburgh? It’s only in the last couple of hundred years the New Town has existed (building began in 1797). The Old Town, best represented by the Royal Mile linking the Castle to Holyrood Palace remains. And it’s literally a spine, with closes and roads coming off the main thoroughfare, built on the tail of the volcano the Castle sits upon the crag of (thanks, Primary School History Lessons!)
The closes are claustrophobically narrow. So much so neighbours could easily reach out a window and shake one another’s hand. In fact, you’ve a great use of verticality there too, as the buildings have multiple “ground” floors with direct street access. Add in oddities like Mary King’s Close, and you start to see an early Hive type structure, with buildings and streets built atop one another.
Da Boss wrote:Yeah I agree with that - I think you can have really wildly different aesthetics for hives in the Imperium and within each hive.
My preferred 40K is a bit toned down in terms of the extreme technogothic style that is on all the official terrain. I get why they do it - it's a very visually distinctive and interesting style that is really hard to replicate with traditional scratch building, but in my head that stuff would be more limited to shrines and shrine worlds rather than your bog standard STC constructed furnaces and habs.
I agree for the most part- I think that most of an Imperial city is going to look quite utilitarian in one form or another, made from prefabs of some kind as you mention above. Both "ferrocrete" blocks and metal habs are likely to exist, and I think the distributions probably vary by world and zone within that world. It probably also depends on whether a design is an STC prefab in its own right that is shipped from a large factory, or is instead constructed on-site by some kind of STC-based construction machinery using locally-available materials. Both seem plausible.
Regarding GW terrain- I think it is noticeable that GW have never made urban hab terrain (to my knowledge). They have made frontier outpost habs, like the Ash Wastes habs or the Ryza-pattern fronteris stuff, but these are not dense urban terrain like the old Cities of Death terrain or the more modern Sector: <insert name here>. We never got a Sector: habitorum or something.
So all that terrain either represents industrial zones, which are going to look very technical, or symbols of Imperial power. The highly-gothic structures are either religious/semi-religious facilities for the Ecclesiarchy or other high-ranking officials or are administratum buildings. These are essentially colonial structures reminding the locals of their duties to the wider Imperium so it absolutely makes sense that they are meant to be grand symbols of Imperial power in their gothic glory. On many worlds (particularly the less developed ones), the church, administratum presence, and Arbites contigent are the only real links to the outside Imperium and will typically live in a small (probably gothic-styled) enclave alongside the planetary governor.
Now it is weird that the bulk of urban architecture (where people live and the associated facilities) has never been represented by GW, but I think you are right in that it is less marketable.
Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Surprised no one's brought up the irl hive city, Kolwoon.
Kowloon walled city is a great reference, probably the highest population density of any city in human history. I used its estimated (volumetric) population density to estimate an upper limit of population for Hive Primus's main hive area. Obviously an overestimate, because the hive isn't purely hab zones and has masses of industry and will have significant space taken up for structural reasons. But if you scale KWC up to a cone or fustrum of 10 miles diametre by 5 miles height (I calculated up to a top diametre of 3 miles) you could cram in a population on the region of 60-90 billion. I wouldn't expect even half of that but the numbers are huge. I'd expect maybe up to another billion, but probably somewhere in the millions for the hive spire (all those insanely-rich nobles are going to have legions of servants) and who knows how many in the underhive.
I also did a bit of a deep dive on Kowloon and combining it with what Mad Dok mentioned about reconstruction on ancient roots there is definitely space for a brick and mortar style Hive board with loads of corrugated iron and signs everywhere, it seems like a lot of popular stuff was inspired by Kowloon. The history is really interesting, how people chose to live there due to the legal grey area it represented. I knew it would be something like that immediately on seeing the aerial photo, but it was fascinating to read about.
On population, it is just staggeringly massive. A big question is where do you get food for all of those people, especially if the biosphere is ruined. Enormous bioreactors full of yeasts and algae being processed into food is the only likely solution (I believe Imperial space ships would have a section full of this sort of thing too, it's the only thing that makes sense at their scale - it does atmosphere and waste recycling AND some food production for your massive crew). So I've got that on my to do list - build some bioreactor tanks for the "farm" districts.
And another point is...if you've got billions of people in a single hive, how does ANYONE invade and conquer it? Armies of billions would be possible, and it's hard to see how anyone would ever take one of these things on the ground. How big would the armies of the Third War for Armageddon have to be to assault multiple Hives simultaneously?!
The greatest challenge with hive city's would be making the table playable. Once you get four levels of walk ways cris crossing in a game, its practically impossible to reach the lower levels. I've modelled terrain with walkways between upper buildings and these often prove a hindrance to moving around in the actual game.
I think thematically battles in hives and tunnels fights etc are cool, but due to the nature of table top gaming, it is well handled by zone mortalis and then mechanicus terrain.
As a one off, i would love to battle over a 5 level terrain set, but I think it would prove really hard to do so regularly with speed.
That said, i do like the idea of a wall mounted table. Here me out! You mount your standard size table on the wall, and then place levels with 4" spacing all the way up, each roughly 5" deep. Then you decorate, build and create a cutaway of the hive, but play your game as if you are going up and down, rather than across the table. That sounds like a great table.
Yeah I think that sort of layout could work for sure. 5" deep does seem a little shallow, but I think it could be really effective at showing a Necromunda style Hive.
I kinda agree that 4 or 5 levels is too much. I think 3 is about as far as you can push it, and 4" - 4.5" between levels allows for you to fit your arm in and move stuff. I also think it has to get less dense as you go up, or else it'll be too crowded underneath, because every walkway and platform on the highest level has to have it's base on the lower levels.
In terms of a practical, usable gaming board? I feel like as you go up, you need to compromise on the depth and width of the board. And even use it for specific games, as having gantries and walkways and ladders is great, but not if I’ve brought Knights, an Armoured Company or other heavily mechanised force.
Likewise you might need to house rule infiltration and other advanced deployment.
Though only really for three floors and above I’d reckon.
I think if you know there are gonna be Knight Titans and Baneblades and other massive models on the board you really have to design with that in mind, maybe making the first "level" double height for example so that you can comfortably have the titans and superheavies fighting at ground level while infantry battle above them. That could be pretty dramatic and interesting.
Though you'd be getting pretty ludicrously high for the third level at that point - 8-9" for the first level and then an additional 4-4.5 puts you over a foot off the table for your third level. 8 inches might even be a bit of a squeeze for the bigger Knights.
Well, you can also have limited routes for the big vehicles- a couple of wider streets or highways that cut through multiple levels. Sure, their options would be limited and the terrain can be used to counter them... but then you chose to send super heavy units into dense terrain
Ultimately different terrain favours different units and dense, multilevel urban terrain does not favour super heavy units.
On population, it is just staggeringly massive. A big question is where do you get food for all of those people, especially if the biosphere is ruined. Enormous bioreactors full of yeasts and algae being processed into food is the only likely solution (I believe Imperial space ships would have a section full of this sort of thing too, it's the only thing that makes sense at their scale - it does atmosphere and waste recycling AND some food production for your massive crew). So I've got that on my to do list - build some bioreactor tanks for the "farm" districts.
See my sig for a thread that partly covers this exact topic
And another point is...if you've got billions of people in a single hive, how does ANYONE invade and conquer it? Armies of billions would be possible, and it's hard to see how anyone would ever take one of these things on the ground. How big would the armies of the Third War for Armageddon have to be to assault multiple Hives simultaneously?!
I've pondered this, and I think the answer is that no one can or does mobilise most people. I see the control of territory in 40k as being very akin to feudal or colonial methods. In these situations, the general populace is generally seen as a resource with a small number of troops in proportion to the general populace. Battles are fought for control of the political institutions at the top, but by and large the population is not mobilised or does not form effective troops if they are because you want to keep them in their place as menial labour. Oppressed menial labour with good combat training and equipment is a threat to the oppressor.
The Imperium often doesn't even know how many people actually live in a hive, they are not going to be able to mobilise a billion people to face an invasion. Recently, the UK military said it couldn't handle reintroduction of national service in its current state, and would be able to process max about 30000 individuals. It tales a lot of logistics to equip and give even basic training to military units, and all those trainers are soldiers taken off other duties. A billion militia requires an awful lot of training staff- even one drill sergeant per thousand would be a million drill sergeants. Also, all those souls are probably doing more for the war effort by keeping the soldiers at the front supplied with fresh ammo and equipment than being a rabble of poorly equipped, basically untrained warm bodies that are going to be as dangerous to those forcing them into combat as they are to the enemy.
They also don't want to have the lower classes to be veterans with guns, as then they might not be able to put down the next round of food riots. A few gangs are fine, especially whilst they are divided and fighting amongst themselves. Plus, if a hive does turn traitor and is able to mobilise billions, retaking the hive becomes nigh impossible.
In the siege of Vervunhive, it is astonishing that the entire population of Ferrozoica is mobilised, and that was only a few million. I think most hives just barely touch the toiling masses in the foundries during a war. This is Minea, a typical hive world. It has a standing garrison of just 2 million soldiers on a population of 154 billion! They can't mobilise more than a tiny fraction of that 154 billion without severely compromising the effectiveness of their garrison.
True, certainly an inaccurate archetype of a Hive is that it must be tight and claustrophobic. But, they’re also functioning cities/arcologies. So all the things we depend on in day to day life must be accommodated for.
Not just power and water, but transportation of persons and materials, and on a scale sufficient to service such a mind bogglingly dense population.
So there would be things at least roughly analogous to internal motorways/freeways/railways/monorails etc for distribution of goods and persons.
Which puts me in mind of the fight scene in early Clone Wars, on the internal freight way of a Confederacy Super Capital Ship. Which now I think of it could make for a thrilling game of Necromunda, with gangers having to jump between moving trains, risking life and limb, but mostly life, should they botch it.
And as Necromunda shows? It’s even possible for waterways. Well. Not so much water as industrial chemical rivers. But enough to involve pole driven skiffs, speedboats, subs, all sorts depending on how big you need the chemical sludge sea to be for your purposes.
God I love Hive Cities. As a concept. I’d hate to live in one.
Oh yeah, the image of Helsreach upthread shows the road network (including the pivotal Hel's Highway), Vervunhive has a road network and several rail terminals, and the image upthread of Dheneb Capitalis from the Cities of Death book shows a cool rail system. GW has also added railway terrain to their boards before.
Hives definitely have transportation networks, although they are probably horribly inefficient in some dumb way like having to stop to pray to the Emperor for 5 minutes every time the hour changes.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, a lot of foodstuffs are probably distributed by pipeline though. You can pump nutrient gruel to local distribution hubs easily enough.
I agree you wouldn't be able to mobilise the entire hive, and Chaos or Genestealer Cults, probably also Orks would leave the population alive. Eldar and Dark Eldar are probably never trying to take a Hive conventionally.
But Tyranids certainly would be, and it'd be a nasty as hell fight to the death against them. I suppose most of the Hive dwellers would die from sporeborne diseases and other issues...but then again a Hive that's a nested layer of sealed domes and habs would be pretty resistant against the usual Tyranid MO. I'd imagine it'd come down to hab by hab fighting and in that case the billions of people in the hive would be fighting back for sure.
Just seems to me like a Hive World is a costly fight for a Hive Fleet. Depends a bit on the hive - if it's not properly sealed then the 'nids will have a much easier time.
Oldschool Necrons would also have wanted to exterminate the entire populace, but I guess they're pretty patient about it!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: In terms of a practical, usable gaming board? I feel like as you go up, you need to compromise on the depth and width of the board. And even use it for specific games, as having gantries and walkways and ladders is great, but not if I’ve brought Knights, an Armoured Company or other heavily mechanised force.
Just from games with the old cardboard necromunda walkways I can say that multi-level boards quickly become difficult to play on in terms of reaching and moving the models.
For any given part of a board I think the considerations have to be - can you place a model, can you reach it without pulling(or knocking) the board apart, and can you get a line of sight to it from at least two different directions.
Narrow walkways also skew how certain units can perform.
For instance? On the Sector Mechanicus walkways you can go about two abreast. Which naturally limits the number of combatants in a punch up, almost to the point of Herohammer should a combat monster character get stuck into an enemy squad, as the enemy are getting far fewer attacks in return, preventing any chance of a pile-on-kicking.
Likewise, something akin to Custodes vs Orks is going to see a heavy advantage for the Custodes, provided they keep up above the main battlefield, as Orky numbers just cannot be brought to bear. Though objective placement can mitigate that to a greater or lesser degree.
Should be interesting for you the blokes done a load of excellent Necromunda stuff in this style.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-8745-65203_Norwich%20Castle.html This was a building refurbishment project I did the archaeology for in Norwich Castle. i'd llove to make a 40k table in this style massive gothic outer walls with loads of criss-crossing gantries for inner walls.
They also don't want to have the lower classes to be veterans with guns, as then they might not be able to put down the next round of food riots. A few gangs are fine, especially whilst they are divided and fighting amongst themselves. Plus, if a hive does turn traitor and is able to mobilise billions, retaking the hive becomes nigh impossible.
The in universe example is the necromunda (was it them or a different hive world?) gang that was press ganged wholesale into the guard (was it the spiders?). Presumably they were a house like the Orlocks, decided to make a play for the spaceport and greater legitimacy. 10's of thousands strong it ultimately failed but after their officers were executed and replaced with proper nobles they were transferred to the guard on mass and sent off world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Modelling usable multi level terrain is fiendishly hard, even more so when you have game systems written for mostly 2D environments. It can look great but not be usable, very hard to be both. Very few wargames do proper urban fighting well as it's a swingy nightmare armies hate.
So, what do people think are the criteria for usable multi-level terrain?
I'll give a run down!
1. Level Height - try to keep it fairly consistent for ease of linkage. By that I mean everything on one level should be at the same height. I think 4-5" is a decent height for a level, allowing hands to get in between levels fairly easily. The old Cityfight books suggested 3" and I think that is actually a bit too small.
2. Walkway width - I think walkways should be wide enough to allow for 3 normal infantry to walk abreast. For me that's 3" across, and why I do not use 32mm bases at all in my collection. 2 40mm can walk abreast on this kind of walkway too, which allows for a better gameplay dynamic. If you want, you could include 2 abreast walkways, but they should be less common and not the main thoroughfares. And wider walkways up to 4" or more could form highways and other transport links suitable for vehicles, but I wouldn't make those the most common type.
3. Walkway sides - I would tend to not putting too much on the side of my walkways, just to maximise access. I'd just rule that models on a higher level benefit from cover and move on.
4. Platforms - Your platforms should be at least 4" square, and I think 6" squares are also a good idea. If using platforms it's good to have a mix where the platform is on a solid pillar that blocks LOS and movement and a platform where the platform is on thin "legs" that allow models to move underneath.
5. Level access - There should be copious ladders and stairs and then I'd just handwave models climbing between levels. I wouldn't sweat it too much. Otherwise the upper levels won't get used much.
6. Board Layout - I think you want access to the upper levels in both deployment zones. So that someone could deploy on the highest level at the start of the game and mostly stay up there, or in the middle, or on the bottom. That should have the result of making 3 different battles play out at different elevations.
What do you guys think? Would you add anything to this?
Da Boss wrote: 1. Level Height - try to keep it fairly consistent for ease of linkage. By that I mean everything on one level should be at the same height. I think 4-5" is a decent height for a level, allowing hands to get in between levels fairly easily. The old Cityfight books suggested 3" and I think that is actually a bit too small.
5" is the height of a single 'battlezone' scale level including the walkway itself. It is also the height of two zone mortalis blocks stacked together - so ideal for anyone with more recent GW scenery.
The old cityfight wallsets were 3" high, as were bastion wall sections, while the larger ruined chapel was 9" from base to walkway.
I'd say that 5" is ok for walkways and ruins, you'd probably want to at least double up if someone has to reach in any distance underneath, though it does depend on whether you are using it for 40k or necromunda scale games.
I think 3" works fine for ruined buildings in the set-ups in Cities of Death. It was chosen in part to maintain 2" coherency between models from the same unit on different floors (most models being about 1" tall) and 3" looked relatively natural for a floor (actually really big compared to most modern structures). But it does get claustrophobic and difficult to play on once your structures get more complex and interconnected. It wasn't designed for that though, Cities of Death was designed for multiple discrete buildings.
5" is more accessible but looks weirdly tall outside of a palace or cathedral. Also spaces units out a lot if spread across floors.
I would mix in some 3" tall habs and hab towers that go up in steps of 3". So you might have a 5" high platform 6" square with three 3" walkways going off it, and a 6" tall stack of two hab blocks on the platform.
But I consider the structures on the walkways and platforms to be separate to the walkways and platforms themselves. They make the floor that the rest sit on. So I don't think it looks too bad for them to be quite high.
Sureshot05 wrote: The greatest challenge with hive city's would be making the table playable. Once you get four levels of walk ways cris crossing in a game, its practically impossible to reach the lower levels. I've modelled terrain with walkways between upper buildings and these often prove a hindrance to moving around in the actual game.
I think thematically battles in hives and tunnels fights etc are cool, but due to the nature of table top gaming, it is well handled by zone mortalis and then mechanicus terrain.
As a one off, i would love to battle over a 5 level terrain set, but I think it would prove really hard to do so regularly with speed.
That said, i do like the idea of a wall mounted table. Here me out! You mount your standard size table on the wall, and then place levels with 4" spacing all the way up, each roughly 5" deep. Then you decorate, build and create a cutaway of the hive, but play your game as if you are going up and down, rather than across the table. That sounds like a great table.
i agree. using Kowloon Walled City as an example of the urban areas of a hive undercity, you basically get something not playable except as a first person videogame..
-Clearly this sort of thing works best for warband size games like Necromunda. However larger games can certainly work if you and your opponent agree to infantry-only games.
-a table can be as tall as you want as long as there is a scenario based reason for moving around all levels. Having deployment zones in the middle or multiple levels and objectives on multiple levels is a good start.
-Treat ladders as open terrain and have lots of them.
-Even if your walkways aren't very wide, have the platforms they lead to be large enough to accommodate multiple squads.
Just came across one of these in Dunelm and Immediately thought of this thread:
The measurements don't mention it but I had a tape measure on me and there is 7" between shelves with the shelves being about 2/3rds of an inch.
Now that is a bit more than what has been discussed in this thread, but you can very comfortably reach into this height and place structures on the layers. A few similar areas distributed around a board and connected by various walkways and roads would be accessible and somewhat like the Macross images upthread.
Food for thought. This was a commercial product but someone could make something similar fairly easily.
Sureshot05 wrote: The greatest challenge with hive city's would be making the table playable. Once you get four levels of walk ways cris crossing in a game, its practically impossible to reach the lower levels. I've modelled terrain with walkways between upper buildings and these often prove a hindrance to moving around in the actual game.
I think thematically battles in hives and tunnels fights etc are cool, but due to the nature of table top gaming, it is well handled by zone mortalis and then mechanicus terrain.
As a one off, i would love to battle over a 5 level terrain set, but I think it would prove really hard to do so regularly with speed.
That said, i do like the idea of a wall mounted table. Here me out! You mount your standard size table on the wall, and then place levels with 4" spacing all the way up, each roughly 5" deep. Then you decorate, build and create a cutaway of the hive, but play your game as if you are going up and down, rather than across the table. That sounds like a great table.
i agree. using Kowloon Walled City as an example of the urban areas of a hive undercity, you basically get something not playable except as a first person videogame..
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
I think that density of terrain either needs to be handled with garrisoned building rules (similar to boarding transport vehicles) or be heavily ruined to facilitate access to some areas with much of the volume solid rubbl, a bit like in this image during the demolition:
Otherwise it would be impassable, LoS blocking terrain for practical purposes.
Those who have been around a while will recall the massive tower GW once showed for Necromunda. Many stories tall, based around 4 walls that split the board in four sections with lots of ladders, platforms and passages between.
I've seen several versions of this over the years. Here's an I'm progress shot of a small one made of magnetic tiles. Each level is glued together, but you can swap them out at will and stack them in district orders. Also, these sets can be quite cheap in the off-brand versions.
Its probably worth looking for maps and images of Megacity one from Judge Dredd. It has much the same high rises and concentration of people in each block. Peach trees in the good movie is an example of a small one by MC1 standrds
Those sorts of fixed set ups that Haighus and Eilif posted can look incredible. I think if you're gonna do that, you can go ham making it look as authentic as possible. But for me it's not a practical approach - I just don't have the storage space (I live in a relatively small apartment with a small kid and my wife) so my scenery needs to flatpack down so I can store it in tubs that slide under a bed or whatever.
I've seen those magnetic toys though. Really interesting, and VERY flatpack-able. I made magnetic dungeon tiles that also function as stackers for fantasy dungeon crawls, and they're pretty great, and those tiles are 90% of the way there for a Sci Fi version. The only doubt I have is how long the set up will realistically take with something like that - my Wyloch inspired Sector Mechanicus rip offs take a decent amount of time to set up, and they've got far fewer pieces than similar coverage of the magnetic tiles.
Kale, absolutely agree about Mega City One, I think it's absolutely part of the inspiration. What MC1 has is the complex interlocking roadways everywhere in between the hab towers. I think that could look amazing on a table, and give you the mobility for vehicles. But it's a big challenge to balance the size of the road with accessibility.
Dr Who serials The Happiness Patrol and Paradise Towers.
Not the show’s finest moments. But plenty of Necromunda type goodness all the same. The killer cannibal old ladies of Paradise Towers remain legit terrifying though.
This image is from Kill Team: Warzone Chalnath, and I am pretty sure it depicts fighting in one of the slum-stacks of the feudal world St Kornaz's Hope in the Vedik system*. If you look closely, the buildings on either side of the alley are half-timbered Tudor style, but on a big scale. There are also a few wires and doodads. Techno-Tudor architecture...
Certainly a very different vibe to typical GW terrain!
*The actual campaign lore is written rubbish. Best I can tell, the Vedik system is within the "Chalnath Expanse", hence the warzone title... but the Chalnath Expanse is only mentioned in the blurb on the back cover.
Hah, Techno-Tudor on a ridiculous scale is VERY 40K. Especially if the trees you need to make those massive beams are singing and can feel pain or something.
Kale wrote:Its probably worth looking for maps and images of Megacity one from Judge Dredd. It has much the same high rises and concentration of people in each block. Peach trees in the good movie is an example of a small one by MC1 standrds
for example, using some online seaches
Concept art from the 1995 film:
Spoiler:
and concept art from the "mega city one" TV series pitch
Of course, a major difference twixt MC-1 and an Imperial Hive? Imperial Hive’s don’t have unemployment as such.
I mean…being feudal it’s truly arguable if there’s employment as such. But the majority of the populace has its eternal tasks going on, and so we wouldn’t see the overblown boredom buster attractions of the Mega Cities.
I suspect unemployment does exist within hives, but how that is dealt with is going to vary. Social safety nets are generally going to be predatory to non-existent- one is to join the Guard and escape off-world, but at least you get your daily ration packs and recaf. A similar approach is bonded servitude- I suspect hives are involved in huge amounts of people trafficking (legal and illegal), both within and off world. Forcing the desparate into the underhive is another method- probably most of these just die in the harsh environment, so this is essentially an execution with a glimmer of hope (a bit like a penal legion or the Guard as a whole now I think about it).
I doubt that they are simply left to their own devices to starve though- large numbers of desparate people with nothing else to lose are intensely destabilising. When hives experience supply disruption food riots are a huge issue that can threaten Imperial rule. So it is in the interest of local enforcers to manage the unemployed somehow and prevent that.
Entertainment does seem to exist, but the poor masses often seem to resort to the limited available options in their hive levels. Stuff like drugs and brothels. TV does seem to be a thing but its basically propaganda all day, every day, and many poor civilians probably don't have reliable access to it.
Another audio visual reference which clearly fed into Confrontation (no not that one, the WD serialised predecessor to Necromunda), and fed from the same underlying societal gubbins as 40K and 2000ad. Particularly the character being cleaner and brighter than the peons.
It’s also a legit bop, so extra enjoyment.
And speaking of Confrontation, early Necromunda, influences and fashion? I’m guessing these guys* were a heavy influence on the Brat Gangs.
*founding Sputnik Tony James played bass on the previous Billy Idol track, as they co-wrote it as part of Chelsea/Generation X/Gen X before going their separate ways. Indeed Dancing With Myself was originally a Gen X song. There you go. There’s some punk/post punk/new wave trivia for you.
Gangs provide a social safety net the Imperial government either can't or won't provide in the Hives. There's a reason hive cities are just lousy with them. In addition, organized crime follows much of the same social relations of proto-feudalism and just warlordism in general, especially in the early medieval period: patron-client relations, entrenched value systems, a reliance on etiquette, et cetera (c.f the works of one Charles Tilly). This relationship between the sort of state the Imperium is and the way gangs function is most evident on Cthonia, I feel.
As for how such socio-economics would influence the look of on-table terrain, I feel as if the average 2000 pts game covers at most a city block. So, it should be one or two gangs at most. If we follow the Cthonian model as an example, I feel like you should have a 'under-layer' (ala the aforementioned Walled City) with claustrophobic tunnels that can fit a squad in column formation at most, then slowly open up as you ascend. Certain areas on these upper levels should be set up to look like armed camps for the gangs, places where there's some obvious fortification, probably near the various paths through the city (so they can collect 'taxes').
At least on Necromunda, there’s extra bells and whistles on the gang violence.
It is as you described, but the gang violence is sanctioned and encouraged by House Helmawr. Possibly to keep that internal competition more or less under control, but also to help root out heretics, mutants, witches and other undesirables from festering too much in the parts it’s difficult to reach.
Came across this in a White Dwarf from... 2021 I think. Might have been beginning of 2022. Built for Necromunda and follows the "battle on the outside" paradigm.
Da Boss wrote: So, what do people think are the criteria for usable multi-level terrain?
I'll give a run down!
1. Level Height - try to keep it fairly consistent for ease of linkage. By that I mean everything on one level should be at the same height. I think 4-5" is a decent height for a level, allowing hands to get in between levels fairly easily. The old Cityfight books suggested 3" and I think that is actually a bit too small.
2. Walkway width - I think walkways should be wide enough to allow for 3 normal infantry to walk abreast. For me that's 3" across, and why I do not use 32mm bases at all in my collection. 2 40mm can walk abreast on this kind of walkway too, which allows for a better gameplay dynamic. If you want, you could include 2 abreast walkways, but they should be less common and not the main thoroughfares. And wider walkways up to 4" or more could form highways and other transport links suitable for vehicles, but I wouldn't make those the most common type.
3. Walkway sides - I would tend to not putting too much on the side of my walkways, just to maximise access. I'd just rule that models on a higher level benefit from cover and move on.
4. Platforms - Your platforms should be at least 4" square, and I think 6" squares are also a good idea. If using platforms it's good to have a mix where the platform is on a solid pillar that blocks LOS and movement and a platform where the platform is on thin "legs" that allow models to move underneath.
5. Level access - There should be copious ladders and stairs and then I'd just handwave models climbing between levels. I wouldn't sweat it too much. Otherwise the upper levels won't get used much.
6. Board Layout - I think you want access to the upper levels in both deployment zones. So that someone could deploy on the highest level at the start of the game and mostly stay up there, or in the middle, or on the bottom. That should have the result of making 3 different battles play out at different elevations.
What do you guys think? Would you add anything to this?
Do you want people to shoot from one level to another? And if so how easily? That influences things.
Movement - we typically do poor multilevel objectives. Vertical movement is time consuming. Sci fi risers and lifts can help here.
Movement - verticle movement can be dull. horizontal movement has corners and hiding from each other etc. Hard to get this in vertical movement. Typically you are exposed or hidden while moving up, stopping a lot of gameplay.
In terms of aesthetic? I’m favouring a drab, tarnished look to things.
Not too heavily rusted, as given how precious water is on a Hive World, I figure there would be built-in moisture traps. Not just to provide and recycle potable water, but to prevent materials rusting. After all, once built something is required to last. And you really don’t want to risk load bearing constructions decaying away, as that could allow significant damage.
So more surface, patina rust. The sort that tends to prevent further rust
In terms of finding a balance between visuals and play-ability for underground/enclosed enviroments, the maps from the Starship Troopers Terran Command RTS has some pretty good ones. the game and it's DLC's have several examples of 'underground' combat where the missions are set in stormdrain and service tunnels under cities. which they do largely through just having nice large corridors and rooms and lots of industrial detailing like pipes and machines. (including in the first DLC where they use the same approach for the interior of the orbiting space station, as well as underground bases on the regular maps
you can see several of these maps in these play throughs
Spoiler:
it would not be hard to take something like those maps, with their large rooms and wide tunnels (more than big enough for vehicles of the non-titan, non-flyer types), and just have buildings and other urban elements along the walls or within the rooms.
nor is the size all that odd.. given the existance of stuff like the Tokyo storm drainage system and its massive water diversion tunnels and cisterns.
Spoiler:
it wouldn't be hard to imagine that a hive city might have extensive versions of these sorts of drains originally, which as the city grows up and out, might end up dry and useless, and end up converted into housing and work spaces. (either officially, or through shanty towns)
And don’t forget claustrophobic spaces. Pipework is a useful form of cover, and looks visually striking. GW’s pipe kits are fairly rudimentary, but do allow for vertical as well as horizontal. Once assembled it’s possible to have individual pipes or a real tangle where movement through isn’t possible, but a narrow LoS can be drawn.
When did 40k drop garrisoned terrain rules? Was it 8th? Personally I think that is a neat way of sidestepping some accessibility issues for dense terrain- just make units count as inside a transport if they enter those areas. Especially helpful for intact buildings.
I think I got to throw grenades into a building firepoint... once, in a Planetstrike game. Very cool rule, shame it didn't get much opportunity to be used.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: In terms of aesthetic? I’m favouring a drab, tarnished look to things.
Not too heavily rusted, as given how precious water is on a Hive World, I figure there would be built-in moisture traps. Not just to provide and recycle potable water, but to prevent materials rusting. After all, once built something is required to last. And you really don’t want to risk load bearing constructions decaying away, as that could allow significant damage.
So more surface, patina rust. The sort that tends to prevent further rust
I agree that everything should be a bit rusted and dirty, but not full on crumbling unless you're modeling the deep underhive or around the Sump.
As mentioned, before I'm a fan of the original Necromunda aesthetic so I actually like allot of color in my hive terrain, albeit faded flat colors and plenty of green. No all grey hives for me thank you very much.
For splash of colour, I’m going with muted primary colours, and a bit of a drab green. Oh, and Screamer Pink has turned out beautifully.
I guess the aesthetic could be described as maintained, but not cared for. So as bits wear out they’re replaced, sometimes via necessary bodge job, sometimes with spares recovered from other things, but nobody is really decorating.
That opens up some interesting painting opportunities. For instance, hazard striping itself might be maintained fairly regularly, but any paint covering installations, not so much?
I think looking at actual railcars and railroad infrastructure would be instructive. Often displaying a heavy degree of rust and grime, but usually nothing that would affect structural integrity or usefulness.
Plus even with today's more boring paint schemes you still see a good deal of color.
I like the Warhammer Crime books for their depiction of a hive that's not really a classic hive. Varengantula is described as a continent spanning city with various districts walled separated by large concrete walls. It has a realistic feel to it.
It's pretty much Mega City 1. Ground cars, highways, subways.
I never understood the whole, build a city up into the air like a mountain thing. But for an interstellar society is might make sense. I.E. You start with a natural mountain, construct platforms for less costly transport to orbit, maybe a space elevator, and then the city is constructed into the mountain as the wealth flows in and out of this space "nexus."
Should give those books a read, heard lots of good things.
I think a concrete hive is totally believable too - I just think it would arise probably on a world that didn't need any terraforming.
Because I think you'd use steel or other materials for the initial habitats when terraforming is not complete, LV 4 26 style, and that'd layer up on top of itself. I also imagine that there'd be a fair few half completed terraform projects in the Imperium, failed during the Age of Strife or whatever. So then I think the "stacked dome" model works fairly well, especially if it's all focused around some particular resource that's being extracted.
Btw, I've not been posting much because I don't have steady internet access!
I think a concrete hive is totally believable too - I just think it would arise probably on a world that didn't need any terraforming.
Because I think you'd use steel or other materials for the initial habitats when terraforming is not complete, LV 4 26 style, and that'd layer up on top of itself. I also imagine that there'd be a fair few half completed terraform projects in the Imperium, failed during the Age of Strife or whatever. So then I think the "stacked dome" model works fairly well, especially if it's all focused around some particular resource that's being extracted.
Btw, I've not been posting much because I don't have steady internet access!
the initial lore for imperial buildings was that they were made using techniques that would exploit whatever local materials there are. so i'd imagine that stone/concrete would be common even for worlds where the enviroment wasn't very habitable to start. mind you, i think most hive worlds started as habitable worlds.. and turned into poisoned wastelands over time through pollution, mining, and general environmental destruction.
from the "space marine" game's 1st ed (before it became Epic)
Imperial Architecture
Much of the fighting in the wars of the Horus Heresy has taken part in and around cities, refinery complexes, and similar groups of buildings. Thanks to the Standard Template Construct, buildings of several common types are constructed on most lmperial worlds using locally available materials. Using the Standard Template Construct means that the appearance of a building is determined by its function rather than the materials of which it is constructed. According to the resource base of the planet in question, this can be stone, brick, wood, coral, volcanic ash, compacted inorganic waste or any of a hundred other material. Thus, buildings of more or less identical appearance may be found throughout the lmperium, regardless of all considerations other than function.
here is the rest of the section btw, which would be useful for designing a hive city board.
Spoiler:
Administratum
The complex organization of the Adeptus Ministratum, or Administratum, is responsible for the administration of the whole of the lmperium; it manages over a million inhabited worlds. Planetary government buildings, records offices, taxation centers, and many more are controlled by the Administratum; they are usually distinguished by the sign of the Imperial eagle over the main door. Many bloody assaults and valiant defenses have taken place in and around urban and planetary government buildings; they are natural command points, and the fall of the Administratum normally indicates the fall of the city. This building is often the attacker's primary target.
Auditorium
Most Imperial cities have at least one auditorium, where the populace assemble
at great rallies organized by the Administratum and the Inquisition. A visiting dignitary, such as an lnquisitor or a Space Marine commander, will often be requested to lead such rally, it is common practice to use the main auditorium - if it still stands - to announce the 'liberation' of a city by one side or the other.
Castra Exercitus
According to the provisions of the Codex Excercitus, every imperial world has a duty to raise and maintain its own planetary defense force. Additionally, each city or world forms part of a precinct where Imperial laws are enforced by the Judges of the Adeptus Arbites. One or more barracks will be found in most lmperial cities, providing accommodation, training areas and armories for the forces they house Much fighting has centered around these strongholds.
Chapel
Chapels are found throughout the lmperium. and this is a typical example from a world of medieval or higher technology. On many worlds which have fallen to the force of Horus, chapels have been desecrated and torn down: on some Traitor worlds they have even been turned over to the feral-world cults favored by the Warmaster and his followers, in such a case the Inquisition normally demands the chapel's complete destruction.
Cellarion
No world is an island within the Imperium; each gains something from the rest of the galaxy, and each must pay its way. The worlds of the imperium provide foodstuffs. machinery, minerals and many other things according to their resources. Few Imperial cities are without vast warehouse complexes where these goods are collected ready for shipment to other areas and worlds, and where incoming goods are placed ready for distribution.
Censorium
Countless clerks and officials labor on a million worlds for the Administratum. Most of them confined to dark offices in grim, towering administrative blocks. These buildings house vast quantities of information on their worlds; population, economy, levels of production and taxation, resources, industrial and agricultural quotas — the whole of the world is recorded, filed, indexed and updated by an army of bureaucrats. The valuable data in a Censorium can make it a prime target.
Generatorium
A city or industrial complex requires vast quantities of energy, and power supplies are favorite target for attacking forces. The nature of a generator will vary from world to world. Fertile planets often use organic or fossil fuels, while fusion grids and plasma reactors are common on industrialized worlds. Solar generators and geothermal energy are also used where local conditions permit. These power sources, and the secrets of their operation. are jealously guarded by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Genetorium
Most planets in the lmperium maintain a gene-pool of plant and animal species for terraforming, agriculture, resource management and other purposes. Native species are studied with a view to assessing their usefulness elsewhere, and introduced species are bioengineered to adapt them for use in local conditions. The scientists of the Adeptus Mechanicus who run these establishments also monitor the genetic purity of the planet's population, and co-operate with the Inquisition in their task of rooting out mutation and other undesirable traits.
Librarium
During the terrible wars of the Age of Strife, untold quantities of knowledge were lost. and preserving that which remains has become a holy task shared by the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus. ln many of the larger cities of the more advanced Imperial worlds, an imposing Librarium building will house thousands of books and records, and make them available to those lmperial servant whose rank entitles them to access.
Manufactorium
Although much technology was lost during the fifteen centuries of the Age of Strife. the lmperium is by no means technically backwards, industrial complexes across the galaxy produce billions of items, from clothing to plasma bombs. All of these installations are closely controlled by the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and it is not uncommon for the workers in a factory to be completely unaware of the end-product of their labors. The occupation or destruction of the Manufactorium or industrial complex can deny precious resources to the enemy.
Mausoleum
For the vast bulk of the citizens of the lmperium, death is not the end of their service to the Emperor. They are quickly forgotten by everyone except the record-keepers of the Administratum and their bodies are recycled into foodstuffs, fertilizers, and other useful products More prominent members of society may receive the honor of entombment in an imperial mausoleum, where the masses may read of their deeds and be inspired by their example With its halls of entombed heroes, a mausoleum can become the focus of a fanatical defense, and its destruction can deal a severe blow to the defender’s morale.
Residential
The population of the lmperium is vast, and only the Administratum has the means to begin to estimate it. The bulk of this population lives in cities, ranging from the huge complexes of the hive worlds to the smaller garden cities of the more advanced agricultural worlds and the grim tenements of the industrial worlds. While worlds and cities may differ, the residential blocks follow limited number of standard patterns laid down by the Standard Template Construct.
Living space in the cities varies widely according to wealth and social standing. Most people live in residential blocks of one kind or another, but the living space permitted to an individual can range from a spacious luxury apartment to a cramped and filthy cubby-hole with barely room to turn round. According to the type of world on which it is found and the status of its occupants, a residential block can house a few down or several thousand.
more recent fluff and fiction have given us set names for some of that.. "rockcrete' being a sort of space-concrete which seems to be made using whatever stone like raw material is on hand (i personalyl suspect it is a kind of vitrified material, made by melting rocks, coral, ash etc down and pouring it into place.), Ceramite being a strong durable super-ceramic that gets used for armor, as well as an alternative to metal in structural frameworks, and so on. personally i tend to assume that the same lore holds, and the various named materials are just the designations for STC derived processes that can be fed with all sorts of raw materials.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A ruined auditorium could be a great bit of terrain, not sure why I never thought of that before. It has a similar distribution of large, open rooms and dense terrain as a cathedral or church, but is a less common alternative.
I'm imaging something a bit like a Greco-Roman theatre surrounded by a ruined theatre complex with a badly damaged, mostly collapsed roof.
This article on zone mortalis boards has some interesting ideas. I especially like the one about the shipping container stacks at a cargo port or warehouse. That is certainly something that would be fairly common in hive cities, its a location that both gangs and military forces would inevitably end up fighting over (gangs over whats in some of the crates, military forces over controlling the port or warehouse)
I feel as if that verticality is a way to go, but not really in the way you usually would go. if battling in the under hive / lower hives, then something simple could probably work. Like the one of the pictures in the first page, build up a few columns with (3d printed) zone mortalis walls going up towards an imaginary ceiling, maybe add a few walkways between the closer ones, and on you go. Or, use some non ruined walls from imperial buildings and build upwards until it's at a good enough height.
cuts down on the fiddly bits of multiple walkways, gives verticality and a theme to LOS blocking terrain, allows the use of knights and baneblades, and allows for a themed board that is fairly simple in concept.
EDIT: Attached is a board I saw online that uses gigantic pillars as terrain to give the illusion of fighting in the emp's palace while providing line of sight blocking terrain. simple and effective IMO. I dont know how to upload a picture really.
I don't hate the current Necromunda aesthetic of walls and warrens. I see the appeal of those sorts of layouts and I've got a Black Site Vault system that would be perfect for that. However, for those like me who prefer Towers over Tunnels, here's some OG Hive City from White Dwarf.
Eilif wrote: I don't hate the current Necromunda aesthetic of walls and warrens. I see the appeal of those sorts of layouts and I've got a Black Site Vault system that would be perfect for that. However, for those like me who prefer Towers over Tunnels, here's some OG Hive City from White Dwarf.
Alright, this is going to sound super heretical but… I kinda don’t like that style of terrain. It’s just platforms. If they didn’t have names over each of them then there would be nothing to tell them apart from other platforms.
Honestly, I prefer hive cities that look like they could be lived in.
(But that is my oppinion of course. I think I just have the problem of visualizing the battlefield with it.
I think the original aesthetic was a result of what was practical at the time--plastic columns and supports and large cardstock floor sections, and anything on a floor (machinery, consoles, etc) is a separate piece. At the time, the "OMG, the table isn't flat!" excitement made up for the rough edges.
I feel the problem with the "platforms and catwalks" stuff is the lack of context. It would make sense if it was literally platforms and catwalks on and around machinery or other buildings. But that would require a lot of decorative terrain building. It would also mess up sightlines and such gameplay wise.
solkan wrote: I think the original aesthetic was a result of what was practical at the time--plastic columns and supports and large cardstock floor sections, and anything on a floor (machinery, consoles, etc) is a separate piece. At the time, the "OMG, the table isn't flat!" excitement made up for the rough edges.
Surely you guys aren't implying that the terrain in the Hive War box is more defined and exciting than the N95 box set? It's just a few, relatively generic walls.
I think both approaches are defined by what the chosen terrain material allows. I find games with elevation and walkways far more fun to play on than barely-3d boards . You can pack allot of that in a box set if you're using Plastic Bulkheads and card platforms.
However, GW seems quite insistent on doing mostly plastic terrain, and you simply can't put as interesting or large a set of all plastic terrain in a box set. GW could have done an upgrade version of the classic hybrid card/plastic style elevated terrain with a bit more definition and modern style to the elements. Battle Systems has shown that such terrain is possible in a modern style but instead we got the rather boring terrain of Underhive and Hive War.
Put another way, both eras had fairly general style terrain in the starter sets and what followed (Built or purchased) was more specific. I just think if you compare the Box Games terrain contents, it's hard to defend the current era as better. And that's before you figure in the massive cash investment required in the current terrain sets to make anything as expansive and multi leveled as the N95 box set.
solkan wrote: I think the original aesthetic was a result of what was practical at the time--plastic columns and supports and large cardstock floor sections, and anything on a floor (machinery, consoles, etc) is a separate piece. At the time, the "OMG, the table isn't flat!" excitement made up for the rough edges.
Surely you guys aren't implying that the terrain in the Hive War box is more defined and exciting than the N95 box set? It's just a few, relatively generic walls.
I think both approaches are defined by what the chosen terrain material allows. I find games with elevation and walkways far more fun to play on than barely-3d boards . You can pack allot of that in a box set if you're using Plastic Bulkheads and card platforms.
However, GW seems quite insistent on doing mostly plastic terrain, and you simply can't put as interesting or large a set of all plastic terrain in a box set. GW could have done an upgrade version of the classic hybrid card/plastic style elevated terrain with a bit more definition and modern style to the elements. Battle Systems has shown that such terrain is possible in a modern style but instead we got the rather boring terrain of Underhive and Hive War.
Put another way, both eras had fairly general style terrain in the starter sets and what followed (Built or purchased) was more specific. I just think if you compare the Box Games terrain contents, it's hard to defend the current era as better. And that's before you figure in the massive cash investment in the current plastic sets to make anything as expansive and multi leveled as the N95 box set
I think the old boxsets were much better as a gaming experience and much more cost effective, but I can see why people don't think they looked as good. Especially when a lot of the old structures appear devoid of purpose and look like multistorey carparks without the vehicle ramps. Making a modern equivalent with GW terrain is leagues more expensive, but it looks much more like an actual structure would with greebles.
I think the old boxsets were much better as a gaming experience and much more cost effective, but I can see why people don't think they looked as good. Especially when a lot of the old structures appear devoid of purpose and look like multistorey carparks without the vehicle ramps. Making a modern equivalent with GW terrain is leagues more expensive, but it looks much more like an actual structure would with greebles.
Form over function I suppose.
That's a good observation, I just don't think the comparison some folks are making is fair. Both eras have relatively generic starter sets and in both eras, what followed was more specific. There's lots of examples of N95 terrain with more character, it's just that back then it was expected you would make it yourself.
Ironhands.com ( formerly Necromundicon) still has the old 90s pages up. A nice look back at the sort of things folks were doing for N95 and it's still my North Star for terrain today.
http://www.ironhands.com/necro.htm
I think the old boxsets were much better as a gaming experience and much more cost effective, but I can see why people don't think they looked as good. Especially when a lot of the old structures appear devoid of purpose and look like multistorey carparks without the vehicle ramps. Making a modern equivalent with GW terrain is leagues more expensive, but it looks much more like an actual structure would with greebles.
Form over function I suppose.
That's a good observation, I just don't think the comparison some folks are making is fair. Both eras have relatively generic starter sets and in both eras, what followed was more specific. There's lots of examples of N95 terrain with more character, it's just that back then it was expected you would make it yourself.
Ironhands.com ( formerly Necromundicon) still has the old 90s pages up. A nice look back at the sort of things folks were doing for N95 and it's still my North Star for terrain today.
http://www.ironhands.com/necro.htm
There is some beautiful terrain in that link. I've seen some of these before but it is great to see the source.
I agree that the newer kits are far from becessary, but making good-looking terrain is easier with them... if you have deep enough pockets.
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