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There's nothing wrong with then, they're just of limited use.

Everybody panic!!!

The Promethium Refinery is out of stock online!!!

You bought em all?

Possibly. I have bought, over time, 5 of them. And 3 Derelict Factorums. Probably about 6 Galvanic Magnavents. Maybe 8? At least 10 Alchomite stacks. So much other things.

Anyway, it's saying "No Long Available" at GWOZ, whatever that means.

Shame, it's the best value of all... ah, that'll be why. And everything else is Direct Only. Good job GW.

The wonders of living in places with lot's of space. That amount of terrain home and I'd be sleeping on the entrance.

M.

 Miguelsan wrote:
The wonders of living in places with lot's of space. That amount of terrain home and I'd be sleeping on the entrance.

M.

Nah. Just build an extension to the house out of GW terrain kits

Got a reply from GW.

It's gone and they don't know if it'll ever come back.

 Orlanth wrote:

The vast pile of pulleys in the bottom right corner look useful. You have enough to use as bogey wheels and mount some of your terrain pieces as mobile gantreys.

A table with a giant cable car running through the middle of it would be pretty cool.

Awesome work mate

Mik

And we're back!!!

One part of long term products is keeping your motivation up. Suffice to say it, the failure with the long bridge was a large drain on said motivation, and whilst I still built most of the next building, when it didn't turn out as I had imagined it I basically kinda stopped. That's why we've been so long without proper updates. Well, inspired by some reason pictures I found and the recent weekend where I cleaned 80 million tiles and de-sprued a bazillion struts, I decided to get back into it.

But before we get to the upcoming stuff, I did promise that now that the basic buildings and walkways were done I would be going up with future buildings. With that in mind, I bring you...

The Lift Tower - Part 1
The Outlanders expansion for Necromunda came with two new buildings. One of thse was a smaller 2 story watch tower, a nifty piece, and the armoured walkway, which is a wonderful bridge. However the far more impressive pieces was the bright green three-story building that had a small cargo lift off to one side.

(NB: To our American friends, lift = elevator. )

Towards the middle left of this pic you can see it, sitting between the two first-story parts that head off towards the left edge of the pic:

In game it had a simple rule - you could go up 1 level with it, costing 1" of your movement (rather than the usual 3"). Calling the lift to your level cost 1" of movement as well. So if it was one above you, calling it cost 1", stepping onto it cost 1", and then going up or town cost 1". Quick way to move around compared to having to expend heaps of movement going up and down ladders.

So I thought, well, the stack sprue has a big chunky door on one of its four sides, and the whole kit stacks really well. What if I turn that into a big lift shaft? And what if one of the levels had a way to exit the lift on either side? In fact, I gave a sneak peek of this layout a few posts back. It's not exactly how it turned out during the initial build (or even now that it's finished).

So let's get on with the show...


As with everything, it all starts with a big pile'o'sprues. Here are a bunch of stack sprues (can you believe I still have 8 more of these things to go!):


Here's the first floor layout ready to go:


Where the struts for the first floor will go. Struts turned out to be a real pain with this piece because, as it turns out, when you try to make this kit do things it was not designed for, it fights back!:


Case in point, you're not really meant to join the curved walkways to the circular walkways in this manner. So it requires a bit of cutting on the clips to make them fit together flush. Otherwise you have clip overhang, and that looks quite bad:


Now that they're attached you can start to see what I meant by a lift with doors that exit on either side. In fact, you board the lift one way, can get out on the second floor at one of two doors, and then exist the lift on the top floor by a door on the opposite side to where you originally got in at the bottom. But that's not what happened in the end...:

You and me both buddy...

With the stack on the first floor drying, you can start to see how this is all coming together. Captain Short Sword is back in his power ring again:


I didn't bother taking pictures of more stacks going together - seen one big cyllander you've seen 'em all - so we'll skip to the strut-less dry fit of all three levels.


It was here I realised I'd made a mistake. Even whilst building it I thought that it was one level taller than I originally thought, making the exit to the elevator not the actual top. And whilst the platforms were correct (in essence) it also meant that the double-lift exist wasn't the middle of the lift, it was the top (even thought there was a platform above it). This is actually meant to be where one side of the free-standing bridge is meant to join up, so I was disappointed with where this one was going. I have since salvaged it to the best of my abilities, but at this point I was let down by yet another building not coming out as I had intended.

Prepping the four lift doors:


I mentioned earlier than the kit fights back when you try to put things in places where they're not meant to go, such as struts holding up platforms stuck on at angles that where they don't normally work, including room for the clips you've had to use 'cause there was no other place they could go. This involves lots of cutting and hacking to make things fit, such as...:


And when put in place this is how they look:

Sorry for the over-exposure on this. I caught some of the lights from my living room. Dakka's auto-filter killed the worst of it so you can still see what's going on.

Second story goes on!:


Third floor test fit with struts in place (note they're not glued to the second story platforms yet):


From an alternate angle with mostly everything done:


Not wanting to add yet another stack to the top of this, I just went with a trust spare dome:


And the initial build was done (here's an example with it plugged into the Outer Ring):


But I wasn't happy with it, and obviously it's not complete (no underwires, no shields, no ladders). The other issue is that whilst it's not lopsided, it looks lopsided in the way that the levels are arranged.

In the next post I'll show you how I went against my original tip from a few pages back about always finishing your platforms first and never adding to them once they're done, and also how I finished it and made the best out of what I could.

But before then, a tiny update on the free-standing bridge.

There was a point whilst part of the Lift Tower was drying today where I decided to quick fix up the last part of the bridge that I never got around to.

The Thermic Plasma Conduit contains some broken pipe ends, the types of things I tend to avoid most of the time as I like complete buildings that aren't ruined or broken:


But part of this bridge, the Lift Tower, and the other building that's coming next (eagle eye'd people might notice some of the floor plans sitting and awaiting glue in some of the upcoming pictures) is meant to be a connector for a longer pipe network that, over the decades of misuse, has broken down and is no longer connected:


With the broken end part:


And done on both sides:


Version 2.0 of the bridge will have the same thing, but unlike this one it will gun centrally along the length of the bridge, and won't be off to the one side as this one is now. It also won't have big flanges out the side, not any big furnace/pipe handle going over the top (though that does make it easier to carry!).

Until then...

BYE

immense project looking forward to seeing more

Monumental project, I look forward to seeing the developments! Especially how you integrate the manufactorum parts into the overall design.

So with the lift tower, is the idea that the lift is internal to the silo? How are you planning to differentiate the lift shaft from any other silo stack? Will it just be the paint job with appropriate hazard markings and floor signs? Are you going to add a control panel to every floor? (The Necromunda objectives set has some control panels that would work well).

 Haighus wrote:
Especially how you integrate the manufactorum parts into the overall design.

Yeah, about them.

I've got three Derelict Manufactorum kits, and I'm not so hot on combining them with the Sector Mechanicus kits. There are a couple reasons for this:

1. I like Necromunda buildings to be lots of platforms and gantries, rather than solid buildings. It's too... normal for regular Necromunda.

As for what I'll do with that kit, well the 18 flat non-ruined panels I have from the 3 kits will go into building a solid building. The ruined sections... not sure what I'll do there. Maybe I'll make a larger building in multiple sections, with ruins along the edges to show a shell hit.

One of my biggest Cities of Death buildings is like that - a manufactorum in four sections, all representing a once-larger building that blasted to hell and back. I should take some photos of my CoD stuff if anything just to prove that I really do own TONS of the stuff. Like the time I built my own fortress/bunker before GW went and made the Planetstrike bastion kits.

2. I like complete buildings. I have so many ruins, and so many GW kits contained ruined sections, so I was happy when the Sector Mechanicus stuff didn't. Of course, I like the ruined sections from the Derelict Manufactorum, but I want to combine them with this kit and this kit and make a Deathworld table.

Of course then the Deathworld Killzone went Last-Chance-2-Buy, then vanished, so i'm not sure how I'm going to do that now.

 Haighus wrote:
So with the lift tower, is the idea that the lift is internal to the silo? How are you planning to differentiate the lift shaft from any other silo stack? Will it just be the paint job with appropriate hazard markings and floor signs? Are you going to add a control panel to every floor? (The Necromunda objectives set has some control panels that would work well).

I have two sets of those control panels, come to think of it, but to answer your question I'm not sure how I'd do it.

I will say that if you look at the kit itself behind that door there's a lot of mechanical crap that is 100% not a elevator (I doubt a person could even fit in there!), and I've left the door off most of the other stacks I've built so the machinery shows through. So it's easy to justify that it's a lift simply because you can say that behind the door is where the lift is, whereas the other stacks have 'maintenance opening' that's full of random machinery.

Use none GW components? Model railway stuff and fish tank plants would be a place to start.

Huh, how have I never seen the barbed bracken sprue before? I've looked at the creeping vines!

Thanks!

Everything you saw in the previous Lift Tower post was completed quite a while ago, and as I mentioned in that post I was never really happy with it. Combined with the bridge that didn't work out the way I wanted it sapped my motivation. Well after spending too long doing nothing except accumulating more and more bits I decided to finish the tower off and make into a more useful and less lopsided building.

So here we go...

The Lift Tower - Part 2

I wanted to add a bit more support to the tower, as the taller something gets the more its centre of gravity can shift. This goes doubly for a building where the platforms go up in an angle and even moreso given my intention to make the top level larger (wait 'til you see the next big building... I'm taking that to somewhat to the extreme). Simplest and least parts intensive method for adding stability that keeps in with the theme is just just add pipes!:


The Furnace sprue, pictured below:

... is without a shadow of a doubt the most useful of all the Sector Mechanicus sprues. You get the furnace itself, which is equal parts centrepiece for smaller buildings, or for larger buildings in large quantities (oh the plans I have...), a wonderful alternate support point for when you don't want to use up more struts, and generally a good size for any type of building. You get the three way pipe, which as I've said is my single fav bit in the entire suite of terrain, useful for just about anything. You get a straight chimney, a curved pipe, a bunch of end caps and some big vents/hatches.

And then you get that thing right in the middle. You can see fan blades in the middle of it, but the GW sprue pic doesn't do justice for how thick that piece is. And, if I'm being honest, I haven't really figured out what to do with it yet.

I mean, look how many I've taken off the sprue so far (yes, I made them into a sadface):

... and I have so many more. Maybe 20 more of the damned things.

I've saved so many shots from the internet with examples for inspiration, and I've seen this bit used in a few places, but still it alludes me as to its real value. Nevertheless, I got a handy dandy curved pipe and used it along with an endcap to give the tower some more stability on the opposite side to the one from above:


This next picture is actually a cut-out from a larger picture you'll see in a bit, hence the pulley hook in that pic that wasn't there at the time I added it on:


With the extra stability out of the way it was time to do something I specifically recommended against doing early on in this blog. I am of course talking about adding platforms to an already complete floor. This can cause all kinds of problems with drying, as things can dry at slightly different angles. In the Pipes a'Plenty building that entire first floor ground section was added afterwards, and it angles up slightly, meaning the struts are actually a few mm in the air. Drives me nuts. Since then I have always made sure I am done with the floors prior to moving onto something else.

Well, to salvage the Lift Tower I wanted to add more walkway to the top level, and knowing what could happen, I decided to go heavy on the structural supports. The walkway itself got two clips, rather than just one in the middle, as I wanted as much surface area holding them together as possible (without going overboard).


Emphasising the need for as much support and strengthening as possible, attaching this would mean 5 underside connection points, highlighted below:


And here it is with the platform glued in place, clips in frame highlighted:


I would go on to add some of the flat pieces you can use to clip walkways to larger sections just to further keep everything flat. You'll see one of them on top in an upcoming picture. But the next stage was Captain Shortsword's favourite... LADDERS!:


Next up it was time to fill some blank space with lots of those hanging wires. Grabbed a handful of them and just went to town:


And even more (here's the rest of the picture you saw above):


When it comes to adding shields, the "handles" on the side can often be a bit of a problem. But, thankfully, they're really easy to remove, and cut down on the side of the shields quite a bit. It allows you to fit them in without blocking ladders:


And now it's basically done (apologies for the weird lighting in this pic):


From the other side:


I also added a chimney to the top of the dome. Captain Shortsword was quite happy with the emergency redesign:


I really like the Lift Tower now. The including of the wires, ladders and especially the shields really add a lot to the piece, and the complete walkway around the top not only makes it more useful, but it feels less like it's leaning over. It's still not perfect, but any slump in motivation I had in its first incarnation is gone and I'm raring to get back into it.

So what's next? Well as I mentioned in the first part some eagle-eyed readers might have noticed a set of floors stacked off to the side in some of the photos (especially the last few). There are also a lot of pipes floating around in some of the pictures. These are where things are headed, and as is the whole point of this phase of construction - the only way is up!

BYE

Nice job man, looks fantastic.

I have a question to ask all of you in regards to the next build!

Before moving onto the next big building there's something I wanted to get out of the way, an idea I've had rumbling around in my head that actually requires very little effort. Not only that, it goes towards another aspect of this whole project, that being that it's not all for Necromunda. Some of it just intended to be general 40K terrain. There's a good amount of crossover to be sure, but some things I'm building just for the purposes.

Ever since I first started scouring the Internet and saving pictures of other people's Sector Mechanicus tables, all so I could steal be inspired by their ideas as I went along, there was a reoccurring theme using the stacks and the domes. A lot of people do them differently, but they all have a similar look. Here are some spoiler'd examples of what I'm looking at doing:

The thing is, I'm not quite sure whether I could have platforms between the stack and the dome, or no platforms, or a platform and no dome. But before we can get to options, we need to build the things!

The Three Towers

First thing's first is to gather together all the necessary sprues for such an endeavour (I still have 5 stacks and 5 domes spare after this! Yes I'm crazy!):


I won't bore you with the details of building domes, as you've seen one you've seen 'em all. They just magically all got built:


And then so did the three stacks. Interestingly after making the Lift Tower, where I had to give one stack two doorways, I ended up with two panels that had the pipe around the mid-point of the piece, which turned out to be fortuitous as I could put one either side, much like I did with the dome above it, meaning they can all interconnect once I add various end pieces and what not to bridge the various gaps between each tower:


So we get to the four possible options for building these things (again, there will be connectors that make them line up a bit better).

Option 1:


Option 2:


Option 3:


Option 4:


Ok, Option 4 isn't really an option. It was just me going crazy and seeing what it would take to link them all in one single building. Really I am only entertaining the first three options.


So what do you think? Please let me know!!!


Finally, for my eventual second round of walkway expansions, I plan on doing some longer ones and even a double-decker one. With the pieces already build I figured I'd do a mock-up of what I intend that to look like. If anyone has any suggestions for this Double-Stacked Walkway (as we'll call it for now) please chime in!:

So what do you think? Please let me know!!!

Since you have the pipes there (which is cool!), definitely go with a build that allows them to be joined! So, #1 would be my go-to, unless you could find small pipe pieces to make #3 work. Or, add in a little more platform between the stacks, and have long pipes between those in #2.

but no, I think #1 is best.

If You want it as blocking terrain then just go with 1. If you want it to be a usable platform then 2. 3 just seems to be a waste of platform bits that could be used to better effect elsewhere.

So when's the big party at HBMC's house to break these in?

I'll bring the chips.

IMHO

option 1 looks best. and should be good for LOS blocking If you could add some basic pipes inbetween or just say its LOS blocking (in your local group)

option 2 seems kinda blank on the top feels unfinished

Option 3 the platforms are so small its kinda useless for most models

Option 4, the platforms are soo large that it kinda obscures the bottom layer which is kinda a waste.

you could maybe do option 4.5 by only putting the walk platform on one side if its possible.

Any other thoughts before I break out the glue?

I have a 5th option I discovered yesterday (more on that, with photos, in another post - yesterday was oddly productive) that I might go with that combines option 3 and option 4 in an interesting way.

I agree with what everyone above is saying - option 1 looks the best together, which option 3 being my second choice.

Would any of you be surprised if I said I could actually do option 1 and 3 and still have 2 stacks/domes spare?

I don't think anyone will question what you are capable of regarding your terrain collection.

Personally I prefer the look of option #3, but overall #1 is probably the better one to go for.

And that Total Recall joke? Brilliant stuff

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Would any of you be surprised if I said I could actually do option 1 and 3 and still have 2 stacks/domes spare?

At this point, dude, I don't think we'd be surprised if you did options 1-4, plus this #5 you've mentioned, plus a half dozen other things, and still had spares at the end

We have a fifth option!

After thinking about what some people have said, I started wondering about how I could get the best of all worlds. My thoughts came back to a piece I made as part of Platformapalooza, the U-Shaped Platform:


As I said at the time, I intentionally left no shields along the inside so that it could slot with other buildings. I've been waiting to build a second U-Shaped walkway for a while, and I want to build more straight walkways, so why not combine the entire thing and kill every bird with all the stones!

So... how about this as a 5th option?:


And a different angle:


And this is how it would all split apart:


Outside of the stacks, domes and the original U-Shaped Walkway this is all dry-fit, so it's easy to change.

So lemme know if you think that works as a way of combining the various options.


In the meantime, the next big tower continues to grow as I test fit all the various levels:


Dry fitting this stuff can be a nightmare when the clips are loose and don't hold together!


It's going to be four stories tall.

5th option rocks! Depending on how stricttly you guys play the rules, the openings between the stacks might allow for LOS, RAW. Easy to agree on before the game though

5th option could work - but I'd still suggest trying to make the pipes collect together (even if they aren't glued), as I think the 'break' in the pipes loses a bit of the aesthetics. Plus, its an extra bit of cover you can hide next to!