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Hello everyone. I've been following this site for several months now and I've finally decided to bite the bullet and post my blog. I was a GW fanatic back in the old times of 2nd edition 40k, Epic and of course, Necromunda. I drifted away from the hobby 10-15 years ago but this site (and in particular the incredible work of people like PDH, Migsula and Baiyuan) inspired me to go back to my roots and start up a gang for a Necromunda campaign. A few friends were keen to get playing again as well and I will be posting their efforts in this blog too.

So, a few months back our gaming table was polystyrene packing boxes and ladders drawn on in felt tip. Scenery was my first priority and now we have this set up, with a few more currently unpainted bits to follow soon:







I have to admit I really love making scenery, I can sometimes struggle with attention to detail but I love the overall effect. Soon we aim to have enough for a 7x4 board, which will just about allow us to play two games at once (and have a huge cityscape for some special scenarios). In the pipeline is a road system, an overpass, a couple more risers and several more buildings.

So we have just finished our first campaign, and it was really a chance to learn the rules again and practise painting and modelling as none of us had done any for at least a decade. I was running my Goliath gang the Thunder Tyrants:





Now most of these guys were painted pretty quickly and the paintjobs and conversion work doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny, but it helped me get to grips with things like greenstuff (and made me realise that Catachans and Chaos Marauders are not the most detailed of sculpts). My gang was winning, thanks almost entirely to Boris, the most lethal gang leader I can ever remember (getting a BS of 6 almost immediately with his plasma grenade launcher, as well as getting infiltrate, Ld10 and Iron Will). In the final two games the gang was finally defeated, and Boris - like all the best supervillains - met a grisly end (getting insta-gibbed by a meltagun, snake eyes on the serious injury chart).

The other star of my gang was undoubtedly Thunder Nuts, a juve with a massive axe who went on to become a ganger with a massive axe and berserker chip and an uncanny ability to make 6+ dodge saves. Generally speaking, anything he charged got obliterated by frenzied str8 attacks. He met an ignominious end to a lucky laspistol shot.



I'll try and get some better pictures of these guys soon as I have recently got a lightbox, although they look best from a distance anyway!

Now we have my current project, the gang I will be running in our next campaign starting on Thursday. This is a pitslave rebellion led by the hulking monstrosity known only as Sparkticus:



The cyborg known only as 'Sparktacus' was a rusted pile of scrap metal serving as a menial servitor, rotting in the basement of the pitslave ludo when he was found by Elita, a teenage runaway and techno. Once a champion pitfighter of renown he had sustained so much damage in his long lifetime that parts of him, including his weapons, had been offline for years and the little of his human body that remained was atrophied, his brain all but lost. But she repaired and restored him, her regrafter - an archeotech device, possibly a relic from the dark age of technology - seemed to give Sparktacus a new vitality and dead circuitry reconfigured and recalibrated. In the darkness of his helmet his eyes lit up with intelligence - but whether human or machine it is hard to say. With his weapons and body functioning and his consciousness and will returned to him, Sparktacus inspired the other slaves in the arena, leading by ruthless example and inspiring dread with his razor sharp mechanical shears. He soon seized control of the ludo and razed it to the ground, leading his gang of pitslaves out into the Underhive.



The Shadow of Death is a giant even among the gladiators of the Underhive. An albino that refused the implantation of (crowd pleasing) pitslave weaponry, instead demonstrating that he could effortlessly lift the enormous industrial mancatcher without the use of bionics. In fact, his demonstration proved so persuasive that it was decided to let him avoid the implantation procedure, especially since the techno - the only one able to carry it out - had just had his head crudely severed from his shoulders.



The hostile environment mining servitor designated AGR-1 (who would later come to be known as Agron) was originally used by a prospector team in the hazardous depths of the Sump. However, a series of accidents and mishaps led the prospector team to get suspicious that something was wrong with their apparently docile servitor. On several occasions Agron would refuse to obey orders to deactivate, or would seemingly deliberately start up his mining drill in the middle of the night before stamping determinedly into the prospector camp site, crushing tents and wrecking vehicles. After one event where the mining unit, upon completion of the days mining duties, apparently refused to stop drilling and turned his excavation equipment on five other servitors it was decided that it would be better for everyone if he was sold to the arenas.

Finally for now, this is my most recently painted miniature and it's really a pretty huge improvement over the Goliaths, the photo doesn't really show off the skintones all that well:



Mecha-Gannicus is a pitfighting champion that won his freedom in the arenas but decided to join Sparkticus' rebellion anyway. Possibly he is won over by Sparktacus' revival and enigmatic new persona and the promise of following a leader that seems destined to carve his place in history, or possibly he just wants the opportunity to be in the midst of a guaranteed bloodbath when the guilders catch up with him, having grown bored of his freedom. The only thing more unnerving than the roar of his giant chainsaws is his constant laughter - whether this is caused by the cocktail of drugs that is constantly pumped into his helmet, or the fact that he simply loves what he does, it is hard to say.

Phew OK that's it. I have hundreds more photos to put up but I will try and pace them a little. The rest of the Pitslave gang is ready and mostly painted and in the pipeline I have a Bull Gorg counts-as, a few hired guns, a Slaaneshi Chaos coven, and an (Inquisimunda) Arbite patrol. Plus I will be posting some pics of the competition - including Imperial Guard, Orlocks, Ratskins, Ratmen, Ork Freebooters and a Admech Explorator team.

Elita is a teenage runaway and a competent techno. Once she would have been happy to have been called a brat, her and her uphive friends would frequently visit the underhive to cause trouble and for the thrill of escaping from the tedium of their lives. But for Elita, the trips to the underhive were more than just an excuse to cause mischief, she was fascinated by the lives of the ganger, the scummers and the miscreants that lived there. One one brat raid she discovered a strange device, clearly ancient yet apparently far more sophisticated than any machine she had seen, even in her life in the spire. The archeotech device was able to restore machinery, mending broken circuitry and frayed wiring as if it had a mind of it's own. Elita considered this a sign and ran away from home to the underhive, where she soon gained a job at a pitslave ludo as a technician (replacing the previous one who had been accidentally decapitated). In her spare time she worked on restoring the ancient, crippled servitor she dubbed 'Sparkticus', a far greater project than she had tried before. The archeotech device seemed able to restore the servitor's broken mind as well as his broken body, and soon the man/machine she had rebuilt was carving his own destiny.

I'm not completely happy with the sculpt but I anticipate having to redo the model at some point in the campaign anyway as hopefully she will get a new weapon (currently her autogun is my gang's heaviest gun).

Nice
you should make an arena for some terrain

This is epic. The terrain is very cool, and I agree with the above, an arena would be very cool. I'm a big Necromunda fan myself, so consider me subscribed.

Welcome to Dakka

Now that is some impressive terrain. The colours you've gone for are spot on. What must make this good in game is the amount of levels and variety in the size of the levels. Jealous much....hell yeah.

Is that a ship (in the 2nd picture down)? If not it still looks freaking ace.

Where abouts are you in the UK?

The Goliath in the top pic 2nd from the right (with horse marauder head, mace and autogun/pistol) looks great. Would like a close up of him. Seriously good looking gang.

The pitslaves are off to a good start. The guy with two chainswords is ace. I like how the techno has got herself some appropriate cloths.

Looking forward to checking in to see progress.

Peter

Wow! Your table is spectacular. My group and I are still in they polystyrene and felt-tip stages, but if I could get them to go for something as cool as yours...

The goliath gang looks better than you make it out to be, and sounds like a blast to play.

Sparktacus is looking pretty sharp, but my favorite of the bunch has to be the mining servitor. Could be the hours and hours of bioshock speaking, but it resonates with me. The one thing I would suggest for him is to maybe rotate one of his arms down maybe thirty degrees to give him a little more dynamism.

Elita is looking really good too, though her shoulders may be a touch too wide. Are you running her as the gang leader? Also, good luck on getting a heavy weapon for her

Scrazza wrote:l. I'm a big Necromunda fan myself, so consider me subscribed.

DITTO

YOU NEED TO DO SOME BATTLE REPORTS THE TERRAIN
sorry about cap locks my computers a peice of %$^#


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http://privateerpress.com/files/products/32070_CastigatorPlasticWEB.jpg

this would look good maybe a lifting servitor count it as a heavy and equip it with a heavy stubber as well as a some flails

Great terrain. Looks well thought out.

The Pit Slave are fantastic as well.

Thanks for all the encouraging comments!

you should make an arena for some terrain

My Pitslave gang quite luckily rolled a Pit Fighting Arena as their territory, so now I kinda think I have to. My Slaaneshii cult rolled a drug den, talk about perfect territories.

Is that a ship (in the 2nd picture down)?

It's not, it's just a generic factory/crane thing. It has a rotating crane arm at the top and we use it to hang the prison cells from (pictured below). I'll get some more photos at some point. The colours are a bit darker than they look in some of these photos, the grey board is pretty much a match for codex grey and a lot of the colour comes from liberal use of Mig pigments. I like my underhive to be dirty and rusty.

Where abouts are you in the UK?

West Midlands

The Goliath in the top pic 2nd from the right (with horse marauder head, mace and autogun/pistol) looks great. Would like a close up of him. Seriously good looking gang.

Thanks, I'll get some better pics of the old gang soon. And one day I might repaint them a bit, my initial plan was to try and learn some techniques and to paint them in the brightest comic book super-villain colours I could think of. The thing is I really love the metal Goliaths and although some of the ones I have built are quite good I think I would rather play with the metals, they are seriously cool.

The pitslaves are off to a good start. The guy with two chainswords is ace. I like how the techno has got herself some appropriate cloths.

The pitslaves are nearly finished now, just got a retarius to convert and then they are done (except for my counts-as Bull Gorg). They have their first game on Thursday - can't wait. Although I expect they will be shot to bits as they are all far to enormous to use cover effectively. I really like female gangers and didn't want another all-male gang (couldn't think how to do a convincing female Goliath considering that is basically just an Escher). I also have plenty of female minis in my Slaanesh cult, and I suppose they are dressed appropriately as well (for Slaanesh cultists).

but if I could get them to go for something as cool as yours

My advice is to just get hefty piles of bits - broken machines (spot the blender in my stuff), toys (I use a lot of scalextric barriers and toy car bits) and then a hot glue gun and textured spray paint and weathering powders. You can make something cool really quickly and you can always go back to do it up later. Oh and make risers - simple boxes for other bits to go on top of, they are essential IMO.

Elita is looking really good too, though her shoulders may be a touch too wide. Are you running her as the gang leader? Also, good luck on getting a heavy weapon for her

She has one giant shoulder pad on her right shoulder, her actual body is much slimmer and I think it looks OK. She's just the gang's techno, Sparkticus is the chief/leader - I'm using Anthony Case's Pitslave rules as they are so full of character (in these rules I can't get a heavy weapon servitor, but I am allowed fighters with two pitslave weapons). I love all his rules generally speaking and we use lots of them (and some Inquisimunda rules). She is allowed a plasma gun, I might get her one soon but for now I just wanted more Pit Fighters.

YOU NEED TO DO SOME BATTLE REPORTS THE TERRAIN

Here's a few pics:



It's a rescue mission, and the Orlock heavy takes up position while the Orlock leader - Duke - charges into combat with the Goliath sentry.



But the sentry is Melvin, a vicious killer who has embraced his murderous nature after falling into a chemical pit. Now he wears a skull-faced ballistic mask and Duke's pet Snapjaw is too scared to attack. Even though Melvin is caught by surprise he beats down Duke... before getting obliterated in a hail of heavy stubber fire. The alarm sounds!



The Imperial Guard, allied with the Orlocks, are there to free their man as well. With the alarm blaring they decide to 'go loud', and heavy bolter fire echoes throughout the Goliath camp.



Goliath reinforcements rush on, but the Orlocks have activated the prison control console and get the captives free. The goliaths are pinned down by heavy bolter fire and can't pursue effectively.



The Goliath heavy, Pill Shovel, runs on and lets rip at the escaping prisoners, crippling the Imperial Guardsman. The Orlocks leave him to his fate and run away.

Not pictured: Thunder Nuts runs after the escaping prisoners, makes several dodge saves, several iron jaw saves and several juggernaut saves in order to charge and kill two gangers. The second one disarms his massive axe (he doesn't carry a pistol in case it distracts him from his furious purpose) and Thunder Nuts has already used up his berserker chip... but unconcerned, he puts him down with his knife. The Orlocks escape and the Guardsmen flee, but the crippled Imperial Guardsman doesn't manage to crawl away, and is left abandoned, crawling and leaving a trail of blood as the Goliaths close in on him. But somehow he Survives Against the Odds... which we decided meant he got back to his basecamp anyway, bleeding and livid with his teammates for abandoning him!

And this picture is from a later game, a shootout. Imperial Guard advance on Orlocks.

The terrain pics are getting better and better. When I have time (and the inclination to build more terrain) I may have to quiz you a bit more on some of those buildings.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good

Awesome stuff I will watch this play out !

Your terrain is awesome! I love seeing some properly built necromunda terrain, especially when there is lots of hight change.

You've done a good job of Elita, most sculptors add breast implants as standard, its good to see a more normally proportioned lady!

Looking forward to seeing some more stuff!

Aw wow! Its like opening up a classic copy of White Dwarf! Really great stuff mate!

R

I worked on my retiarius (a gladiator that uses a net and trident) conversion last night and could use some feedback. For one thing, he doesn't have a trident exactly and I am not sure if I should add a third prong. No background story yet, but here he is:







He is really going to struggle to stand in any cover!

exalted. Too awesome.

Seconded! Awesome stuff!

Your terrain is seriously jealousy inducing! Really awesome gangs as well. I think the trident (bident?) is perfect how it is.

Wow, quality stuff! Your terrain is incredible, and the models are great! I think the trident works well as is - a third prong could look great, but I don't think it's strictly necessary. The idea is sold really well as is

The trident is a good idea, but it looks fantastic as it is, so whatever you like

Thanks everyone, I think I'll stick with the bident.

Here's one more pitslave. He's not especially photogenic, the red is a nice glossy colour all-over rather than washed-out as it looks here, for example).



This is the ludo's Doctorian Training Unit. He's armed with less lethal training weaponry which is really only less lethal against giant, armoured, cyborg pitfighters rather than say, squishy Orlocks. Since leaving the ludo the pitslaves have not made equipment maintenance a priority and the Doctorian is no exception, Elita can keep their weapons and bionics functioning, but cleaning off the bloodstains is really not in the remit of a techno. And it's tricky for Doctorian to do it himself as he has wrecking balls for hands.

I'm lucky to have a bits box that's 10-15 years old that I get to raid so I have some really obscure parts to use on these guys - can anyone spot where the hands come from?

Bruticus wrote:This is the ludo's Doctorian Training Unit.

Again awesome stuff mate, what do his metal fists count as? Pit-slave hammers?

R

Yep, two hammers which gives his opponent -2 to their combat score. Not tried him in a game yet but this seems like a really nasty combo, especially as he starts with ws4.

WOW. this is a great blog. I love the conversion work that you did and the back story fluff is the best that i have seen. Keep up the good work. Seriously amazing stuff.

Wow seriously fantastic, looks like soo much fun =D

And cannon hands is great, I imagine him being sad under that helmet thinking, "Everything I touch gets crushed, cannon can't have nice things : ( "
hahaha

Good stuff. Looking forward to more!

And cannon hands is great, I imagine him being sad under that helmet thinking, "Everything I touch gets crushed, cannon can't have nice things : (

Hah yeah, I love the idea that despite their prowess in the arena, the rest of the time they are quite helpless, like big kids that cant look after themselves. Elita will look after their repairs, but I imagine there are servitors, freed slaves and menials that feed them and wash the bloodstains off.

OMG! A Terrain-builder after my own heart! Welcome! And thank you for posting this wonderful eye-candy- I will have more detailed C&C a bit later when I get some more time!

Nothing very exciting to post today but I have finished a bunch of small terrain bits - you can never have enough waist-high walls to hide behind (especially when your gang has no guns). Here's some parts that make up a little scrap yard and a water still.



Still plenty to do before the next campaign starts on Thursday but not sure I will get all this scenery done. Here's a preview of what's coming up.:



There's several Platformer/GW buildings and a 3ft long overpass to paint. By the way, if anyone has any ideas on how to build a curved on-ramp, I am all ears!

Are those cake pillars?

For the curved on-ramp, I'd cut the curve out of foamcore or pvc foam or whatever you've used for the deck, then bevel it to fit the top deck, and cut those cake pillars to the right heights.- That way the area below is stil playable too.


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Oh, and where did you get those great resin concrete dividers?