Way back in the day, the original version of Games Workshop's Necromunda game came with a small table's worth of industrial-styled terrain that was constructed from printed cardboard and held together with plastic bulkheads. Many battles were fought over my set of this terrain, and so when a friend and I started talking about revisiting the original Necromunda rules, I thought it would be fun to put together an updated set of terrain inspired by that original battlefield. This week I put together the first of the large platform structures.












I started this build by sketching up a rough design for the structure. The aim wasn't to duplicate the original version, but to create something similar to it, with an eye towards making the structures look a little more like actual structures with some sort of purpose rather than just random platforms.









3mm foamed PVC has become my go-to for buildings, as it's easy to work with and lightweight, but quite durable. So to kick things off, I grabbed out the PVC and some support struts from the first Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue, and put together eight bulkheads. These were made from a single piece of PVC cut to shape, with two support struts running vertically up the sides of each face.









Four of the bulkheads were left as standalone pieces, while the other four were joined into corner pieces for the front of the structure.









I used some more PVC to put together a box shape for the tower. The cutaway at the bottom of the front wall would be used to add a trash receptacle - my thought was for the tower to be some sort of trash processing unit.









The roof of the tower has four exhaust fans, taken from the second terrain sprue. I mounted these onto floor panel pieces, just shaving off a little around the bottom edge of the fan to make them fit neatly inside the bracing pieces on the panels.









The door for the trash unit was made from pieces of foamed PVC, cut to fit neatly into the opening to look like it's jammed open.









To conceal the joins on the tower walls, I ran a strip of support struts from terrain sprue #2 up each joint on the front and back, and then glued on the roof and a control panel for the trash unit.









For the floor of the first level, I used two layers of PVC, with some holes cut in to insert some floor mesh pieces from terrain sprue #2.









I glued the bulkheads onto the underside of the floor piece, and glued the plastic floor panel pieces into the holes. With a very minor bit of trimming, ladders from terrain sprue #1 fit neatly into the central hole in the grating sections, hanging down to about an inch above ground level - low enough for someone (or at least, someone with upper-body strength!) to grab the lower rungs and haul themselves up.









On the back of the tower, I added a generator piece from terrain sprue #2, bulked out with a little PVC to make it protrude enough to provide a neat little covered firing point.









For the upper level, I put together a catwalk using floor mesh pieces from terrain sprue #2.









The support braces for the catwalk were cut from the sides of a ladder. The ladder up to the catwalk has some of the rungs leftover from cutting the supports glued to the back, to space it out from the wall slightly.









High catwalks aren't very pleasant places to be in battle without some cover, so I added a balustrade using posts from terrain sprue #2 and some offcuts of PVC. A trimmed down ladder added some access to the roof level.









The other side wall needed some detail, so I grabbed the junction box from terrain sprue #2, and some aluminium rod and installed some exposed wiring. The clamp pieces were made from short sections of plastic rod and some sections cut from the support struts from terrain sprue #1. The lower end of the thinner cable will drape over the first level floor, having been severed from wherever it was originally attached to.









Finishing up by adding a light to the front wall and an access hatch to the bottom left wall of the tower, I also added a 10' square of PVC as a slab base for the structure. At the moment, the base, first level and tower are all separate pieces, and the ladders are all similarly unglued. I will glue the base onto the bottom of the bulkheads after painting the underside of the first level, and glue the tower and ladders in place once they are painted. I'll probably also add a larger piece of hardboard under the whole thing for some extra rigidity and also to give it some more weight on the table - better to prevent it sliding around.



























Painting will come later - I'll get a few more structures made up over the coming weeks, and then go through painting everything together!



Stay tuned!






To give it a go yourself, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Last week, I shared a trash processing unit, the first of a series of terrain structures inspired by the classic Necromunda plastic/cardboard hybrid terrain. (If you missed it, you can find it here)



This week, I'm adding a watch tower to the set!











As with the previous building, I started out with a quick sketch. I don't always use a sketch, and when I do I don't always follow it precisely, but it can be a handy tool for visualising the process.








For this construction, I once again pulled out the 3mm foamed PVC, and a bunch of both of the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues. I started out by building the central pillar, which needed a ladder running up the center to the twin hatches on the platform up top. To give the pillar some depth, I decided to use two layers of PVC, with a ladder running up the outside of each face rather than just using one going up the middle. I wanted to be able to see through the ladder section, though, so cut out a strip up the middle of each pillar side just wider than the ladder rungs. The ladders themselves were taken from terrain sprue #1. I also engraved some panel lines into the PVC with a scriber.








I glued the ladders onto the PVC with superglue, two to a side, leaving just a small part of the ladder projecting above the top so it would reach to the top of the platform. I then ran a strip of support struts from terrain sprue #1 up each side of the ladders for some extra detail.








Because the gap between the ladders would be practically inaccessible once assembled, I sprayed the inside with some rust brown base before gluing the two halves of the pillar together.








For the platform, I made up the main part of the floor using grating pieces from terrain sprue #2, glued edge to edge and leaving two pieces out in the middle for the ladder access.








I then cut a surround from foamed PVC, with a second layer to give it some thickness, and to provide a support structure for the grating.








I designed the side pillars to give the structure some bulk while also providing some nice cover at ground level. As with the central pillar, these were made from two layers of PVC, cut to shape and with some panel lines scribed in on the outside pieces.








To give the side pillars some detail, I trimmed up some more support struts from terrain sprue one and glued them running up the edges of the pillars on both sides.








To finish up, I cut some waist-height (to scale, obviously!) walls for the platform, using some off-cuts of foamed PVC and some trimmed down corner brackets from terrain sprue #1. I then glued the structure together, and cut a base of hardboard for it to sit on.








And that's two structures completed! As with the previous one, painting will come later, once I have a few of these all ready to go.



Stay tuned!






To give it a go yourself, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

My ongoing project to create updated versions of the classic Necromunda terrain continued this week, with a third structure - a generator tower, based on the hexagonal(ish) multi-level platform.











I started out once again with a rough sketch, to get a feel for what I was building. I wanted something similar to the original shape, but with the bulkhead on the narrow end rotated 90 degrees, and with something in the central hole rather than just having a big empty space.








Instead of building individual bulkheads, like the original Necromunda plastics, I built each support pillar as a single piece. I'm not intending these buildings to be reconfigurable, and doing it this way gives the structure some extra strength. I used foamed PVC for the core of the pillar, cutting out the basic shape of the bulkheads, and then added support struts from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues up each edge on both sides. I also added some buttresses from off-cuts of foamed PVC to provide some cover zones for gangers to hide in.



Access between levels is via a ladder running up the short end of the platform, rather than building a ladder into each pillar. This makes the structure a little harder to get up and down on than the original, but can be made up for with catwalk placement when the table is set up in full.








For the floors, I used double sheets of 3mm foamed PVC. One layer probably would have been enough, but I went for the extra strength and visual bulk from the thicker platforms.








I took two generator coils from terrain sprue #2 and glued them together. The ends have a slight angle to them, so I sanded them down flat, and also sanded down an iris portal to fit over one end of the generator. The other iris portal fits back to back with the first.








To give the generator something to sit on, I took a couple of trapezoid windows from terrain sprue #1 and trimmed their long edges to fit inside the central hole in the middle platform. In between these, I glued an octagon of PVC, with a large pipe fitting glued to the underside.








Time to fit everything together! I took some offcut pieces from the support struts and glued them to the bulkheads to create supports for the floors.








With the floors glued in place on their supports, the last things to do were to add some pipes running up from another large pipe fitting to the underside of the generator, and a control panel on the top level made from another trapezoid window, a computer from terrain sprue #2, and some cutoff support strut pieces.


























As with the previous builds, I'll hold off on painting this one until I have a few more ready to go and do them all at once.



Stay tuned for more!






To build your own hove structures, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

The underhive construction drive continues! So far, I've put together a watch tower, a trash processing unit and a generator tower, and this week I'm adding a junction platform to the collection.












This construction is based (very) loosely on the bare, square platform from the old Necromunda terrain collection, with scatter terrain can be placed on top, or it can be used as a junction point for multiple walkways. I decided to build two of them in the end, so that I can use them individually, or stack them up for multi-level shenanigans.



The bulk of the wall structure is taken care of using the wide doors from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue #1. I used four of them, taking to them with a sharp exacto knife to remove the doors from the frames.







I joined the four resultant archways together using pieces of 3mm foamed PVC with 45 degree bevels on the vertical edges.








Some more strips of PVC filled in the gaps above the door frames, bringing the walls all up to the same height (2.75", which with the roof will come up to around 3". All of the buildings so far have been working around 3" to a level, although I'm not keeping it exactly the same from building to building, in order to accentuate the hodge-podge nature of the terrain once it's all on the table together with catwalks added!)








For the roof/platform piece, I cut two octagons of foamed PVC, leaving a space in the middle for some floor gratings. I also cut a ladder hatchway to match up to one of the lower angled walls.








For the middle detail on the platform, I took a bunch of floor grating pieces from the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue #2 and glued them into a square shape.








With the two platform layers glued together, I then inserted the gratings, and filled in the central square with another piece of PVC. I also lined the edges of the platform with reinforcing struts from both terrain sprues, trimmed as necessary to fit neatly around the perimeter.








With the platform glued in place on top of the walls, the last things to do were to cut a base from hardboard, and add a ladder from terrain sprue #1, using a piece trimmed from the lintel piece from that same sprue as a spacer.


















For the second platform, I followed the exact same process, but left the doors intact on this one for some solid line of sight blocking.








One or two more structures to go, I think, and then it will be time to get some paint on - Stay tuned!






To give it a go yourself, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

I'm rolling into the new year with another building for my ongoing underhive table project. The Necromunda Outlanders supplement came with a nifty tower that had a (more or less) functional lift on it, for speedy access between floors. The original cardboard lift piece clipped into the side of the bulkheads that made up the side of the building. For this build, I decided to make use of the magic of magnets instead!












As I've done for most of these buildings, I started with a rough sketch, to get an idea of what I was aiming for. The final structure actually wound up a mirror-image of the sketch, but the basic idea was there.









The lift tower would be three levels, with doorways onto each level. I wanted to use a doorframe on both sides of the wall to keep things looking pretty, so used a strip of 3mm foamed PVC sheet for the main bulk of the wall, and padded it slightly with some 1mm sheet to make the doorframe holes deep enough to accomodate the inset flanges from both door pieces. The doorway pieces were taken from Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue #2.









I cut the other walls of the tower from some more 3mm foamed PVC, and added some detailing to the back wall using some more of the 1mm sheet and some plastic offcuts from previous projects.









Under each doorframe, on the outer facing of the wall, I cut recess for the magnetic lift attachment. Into these recesses, I glued a piece cut from the terrain sprue #2 support struts, with two neodymium magnets superglued to the back. The magnets are facing opposite ways so the poles don't interfere with each other while sitting side by side.









The lift was made from grating pieces from the terrain sprue, with a PVC support beam on the bottom. Into the end of the support beam, I drilled two 6mm holes and glued in another pair of magnets, making sure to get them the right way around to match the wall magnets!









With the tower walls all glued together, I added some strips up the front edges of the lift wall using support struts and lintels taken from Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprue #1. These had been carefully factored into the wall dimensions so that the lift fit snugly in between them.









For the floors, as with most of the previous structures, I used double thicknesses of 3mm foamed PVC for rigidity, adding some strips of floor grates from terrain sprue #2 down the middle to break up the flat expanses.









To support the outer corners of the floors, I cut some 30mm strips of PVC and added support struts from terrain sprue #1 up the edges of each facing.









A couple of windows from terrain sprue #2 added to a square of PVC made for a nice cover-generating wall on the other side of the building, to support the small 1st floor platform.









The lift doors wound up slightly above the floor on each level, in order to avoid having to lift the bottom floor up far enough to accomodate the magnetic strut on the underside of the lift. A set of stairs from terrain sprue #2 glued in under the interior doorframe on each level sorted out the step.









The roof was looking a little sparse, so I took a generator from terrain sprue #2, glued it to a rectangle of PVC for just a touch of extra height, and stuck that along the lift side of the roof to provide some low cover.









There's obviously not much point having cover on the roof if there is no way up there, so I took a ladder from terrain sprue #1, some posts from terrain sprue #2, and some offcut support strut pieces and added a ladder access from the top lift floor.









Finally, I cut a square of hardboard to sit under the whole thing for strength. At this stage, the floors are still unglued, for ease of painting.



























The whole collection so far, with some catwalks made for a previous article a while back:












Looking at it all together, I think it might be time to get some paint on this lot, and then work on expanding out to a full table from there. Stay tuned!







To build your own hove structures, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues, along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Over the past couple of months, I've been slowly putting together an underhive table, based very loosely on the designs of the terrain from the original Necromunda starter set. With the first half a dozen buildings assembled, the time has finally come to get some paint on them!












To get things started, I pulled a bunch of spray paints out from the store room, and sprayed on the bulk undercoats, for the most part just going with whatever colour was going to make up the majority of the structure.









On most of the buildings, during construction I tried to leave parts unglued where painting with them assembled would be problematic, although they still promised to have some tricky parts left over here and there.









Once the sprays had time to dry properly, I took everything upstairs and set to work blocking in the rest of the base colours. Walls were all either coloured or grey for bare cement, floors were likewise filled in with grey, and bare metal sections were undercoated with a dark brown to form a rust base layer.









Painting structures of this size, production-lining it only really gets you so far before it starts feeling counter-productive. I also wanted to try out a couple of new ideas before hitting the whole collection with them, so at this point pushed the other buildings aside and focused in on the watch tower. I wanted a streaky, weathered look to the walls, which on this tower were going to be bare cement. So I took a wide, flat and wet brush and some very watered down pale grey paint, and applied light streaks by just passing the brush gently down the wall, dipping the brush in some water and going back over it if the grey lines came out too intense.









I wanted these buildings to look nicely 'lived in', with wear and tear and graffiti all over the place to add colour. To give the grafitti more of an aged appearance, I decided to paint it on before doing the rest of the weathering. I also added a large building number (or possibly a sector number... haven't decided yet!) to either side of the tower with a stencil whipped up on the PC. The graffit was all painted in freehand - I drew in an outline with a fineliner pen, and then painted in the colours using inks. Any messy bits or errors would be covered up (more or less) by the weathering!









I then sponged some darker grey liberally all over the walls.









Carrying right on with the weathering, I sponged dark brown over the support struts running up the edges of the walls, and then drybrushed over all of the metal parts with a light orange. I also glued the base on, and blacklined in the panel lines on the walls with a fineliner.









To finish up, I applied some Dry Rust effects paint liberally over the metal sections, and added some dirt and dust into the creases with a drybrush of brown. With a few extra nicks and scratches and some stains on the base using drops of ink, the tower was complete!




































Stay tuned for part 2!



To build your own underhive metropolis, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

Last week, I started painting the underhive terrain that I've been building over the last few months, based very loosely on the designs of the terrain from the original Necromunda starter set. For anyone who missed the previous article, I started out by basecoating everything, and then finishing off the watch tower. This week, I'm carrying right along with the painting, on the generator tower!












For the basecoat on this one, I had sprayed the base with grey, and the upright sections of the building with a brown rust base colour. So before going any further, I needed to base the floors with grey, and just touch up with brown anywhere the spray had missed.









As another bare cement and rusty metal structure, painting from here was fairly similar to the tower. I gave the metal sections a drybrush with a light orange, and the cement a heavy drybrush with light grey.









I wanted to include some hazard stripes on this one to give it a bit more colour. To save time, instead of painting them by hand I worked up some circles in Gimp, printed them out, and then hit them with some sponge weathering with grey paint. Then it was simply a matter of cutting them out, painting the backs with a coat of PVA glue and sitting them in place.









I made up some larger circles to go around the central pit, and some smaller semicircles for the ladder access holes. I also whipped up a couple of quick signs to go on the upright pillars. While putting these all in place, I also went over the panel lines in the floors with a black fine point pen,and added some graffit around the upright pillars, just for colour.









Once the glue had set, I went over the cement areas with a patchy drybrush of brown to dirty things up, and then added some dry rust effect paint to the metal sections. The rust just gets blobbed on wherever seems appropriate, and it can be tricky to tell if you have got it right until it dries. It's come out a little too heavy and patchy in places here, so I'll probably go back and touch it up later.









That just left some final details - painting the keyboard and screen on the computer panel on the roof, painting the pipes in the core with an aged copper finish (you can find the tutorial for that here!), and adding some drops of black and brown ink around the place for assorted liquid stains.




































Stay tuned for part 3, which promises to be a little more colourful!



To build your own underhive metropolis, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

This week, I'm continuing right on with my underhive project. So far, I have painted up the watch tower and generator tower, and so I needed to paint something with a little more colour to it. So I decided to have a crack at my twin level junction tower.












When I base sprayed all of the structures, I hit this one with a coat of Army Painter Necrotic Flesh on the walls, and some medium grey on the floor/roof areas. I then went over with a brush and picked out all of the exposed metal areas with dark brown.









Most of the painting process here will be looking fairly familiar by now to anyone who has been following these articles. As with the sides of the watch tower, I added some streaking to the walls using very watered down pale grey with a flat brush.









I wanted this building to have some more extensive graffiti coverage, but as with the others I wanted it to be weathered and old, so this needed to go on before the weathering layer. I sketched out the designs with a fineliner pen and some pale grey paint, and then filled in the colour using Army Painter inks and Citadel Contrast in various colours.









To apply the weathering, I used a sponge to apply grey over the wall panels, and dark brown over the doors and doorframes. I also drybrushed the floors with pale grey, and the brown metal areas with pale orange.









I glued the ladders on at this point, and then went over the whole structure adding some dirt into creases and wherever else seemed appropriate with a drybrush of brown. I also glued the bottom layer down to the base board, although I left the top layer unglued so that they can be split and used as two single-level structures.









For the final touch, I dabbed Army Painter Dry Rust over the metal sections, working downwards onto the raised surfaces and stippling lightly all over to avoid hard edges on the rust sections. This gave a much smoother finish than on the previous structure, where the rust had wound up a bit stark in places.







































So that's one more done. Stay tuned for part 4 - although I'm undecided as to whether to do the trash unit or the lift building first. I'm a bit excited about getting either of them done!



To build your own underhive metropolis, you can pick up the Maelstrom's Edge terrain sprues along with the rest of the Maelstrom's Edge range, from the webstore here.



As always, feel free to share your models and terrain, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!



For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.