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Hey P&M, I'm currently working on building an Ash Wastes outpost for our gangs to battle over. The layout will consist of a central "Road" leading to a large gate with a gang checkpoint/structure in the middle. Currently I have the ZM stronghold & platforms/stairs

Couple of questions/seeking advice. What colour/texture should the Ash Wastes, well Wastes colour be, deep brown, light taupe, etc??? I remember in the original descriptions it being like a chalkish colour.

Also what should the road look like. Dirt road, improved pavement, actual asphalt?

My gangs & structures will have a fair amount of weathering and dust accumulation to link up w the board.

Your description makes me think of Killzone: Sector Fronteris:

What colour of ash do you like?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/simplicable.com/amp/ash-color


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Actually, this might help. My wife and I went to Iceland for our honeymoon, and this part of the trip could Definately be described as an ash waste



Edit - there is even a road…look you can tell by the snow stakes…

I think Necromunda traditionally has grey ash, somewhat matching the old Imperial Army colour schemes. But the factories of Necro aren't particularly fussy about what they send up the stacks, so ash could be any colour - blue, green, red, whatever. Could have patches of different colours of ash.

Texture wise, i guess it would depend on how far from the hives you are. In Flinty's photo above, I'd assume that's volcanic ash fairly close to a volcano, so fairly course. If you're further away grain size is going to be smaller, as it will be limited to what can drift on the wind. Of course, Necromunda is renowned for its ash storms, which can "strip a man to the bone in minutes", so if there's been a big storm recently particles could well be bigger (put a hatch nearby for a subterranean storm shelter!)

Road could be anything. Due to the multiple collapses of the subterranean train tunnel system (plus the fact that the planetary governor is running an enormous drugs operation down there) a lot of inter hive transport will be by road. Given that the Imperium doesn't tend to work on a small scale, I'd imagine that the Great Ash Road, for example, will be a raised freeway dozens of lanes across in each direction, with cargo haulers that are closer to container ships thundering along. At ground level all you would see is the base of the support stanchions.

But there are a lot of places that aren't hives. Some will be fairly established settlements, with decent roads, with a proper asphalt surface regularly swept of ash. Some will be the most dystopian of road surfaces, 100m concrete slabs with movement joints and multiple areas of patching, turning the road into one long, ghastly rumble strip (Spot the civil engineer). Others will be a dirt track.

Other areas, often mining camps, are only really accessible by massive off road crawlers.

As your board will represent a checkpoint, I'd suggest somewhere towards this end of the scale - a decent-ish road leading up to the gate (it's easy to do maintenance near the depot) with a few patches of drifted ash from the last storm. Consider if it is a one way or two way road. Maybe some markings and lanes. What actual width of vehicles will travel along it? Remember that GW vehicles and models are hugely out of scale, and typically much broader. A Rhino is massively wide, but it's also an APC - will your road traffic be narrower? You probably don't want a board that's just road, but if it's set up for two lanes of Rhino sized terrain vehicles in each direction, it's going to be somewhere in the region of two feet across! (Since road lanes are typically quite a bit wider than the vehicles. Unless you live in the UK countryside)

All of which is a really long winded way of saying:

1) Virtually anything you build can be justified.

2) I've given this WAY too much thought over the years because...

3) This is something I've long wanted to build myself, and I look forward to seeing how yours turns out!

I think I'd go with a dirt road if the checkpoint is supposed to be an outlying outpost or prefabricated concrete slabs if it's something of a major trade or industrial road.

Texture I'd say use fine grain sand. Large grain in my experience is better suited for regular dirt and gravel, not something you'd describe as ash.

Color, I'd try to avoid most browns as that may make it look more like dirt than ash. Going with sand as the base material, I think I'd give the whole think a dark grey base, add areas with medium gray (no strict idea about a pattern, but maybe resembling dunes), drybrush everything with a lighter grey or grey brown (or both, a board is a lot of space to cover) and then pick out some areas with off-white and bone to give it a bit of color and move away from an all grey appearance. Ocher as a supplement to the medium gray base may not go amiss for a few stained areas to add a few spots of interest to it.


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 Graphite wrote:
Remember that GW vehicles and models are hugely out of scale, and typically much broader. A Rhino is massively wide, but it's also an APC - will your road traffic be narrower? You probably don't want a board that's just road, but if it's set up for two lanes of Rhino sized terrain vehicles in each direction, it's going to be somewhere in the region of two feet across! (Since road lanes are typically quite a bit wider than the vehicles. Unless you live in the UK countryside)

I think I'd use a Goliath truck to determine lane width. It's an actual civilian model and seems to be a good standard for the size of industrial vehicle you'd want to represent on a 40k or Necromunda board. You might even have a broken down truck as a terrain feature.

Goliath is certainly likely to be a much better width - I work on the Gorkamorka Trukk standard, myself.

Thanks to everyone's input.

I've decided to go for a true Ash colour. Reason being I'm just imagining that line from synchronicity II where "smokestack belches filth into the sky". I'm taking it to heart and adding 30-40k years of that happening. I am definitely going to have a slag pile or leeching pond on one of the board ends (read 1-2ft of total table length). Then the other will be a large gate facade maybe 6" deep and give it some height to make a couple "levels" of the gatehouse playable.

Then the 4ish feet in the middle will be the Orlock Roadhouse with stronghold. I'm going to base this using ZM tiles(whenever they come back in stock) so the 1ft tiles can be configured differently.

My goal is to have a 6x4' table the is some modularity so I can take the various elements and swap them around to fit the story(40k or Necromunda).

Standardizing on the Goliath size wise makes sense and will utilize that going forward. Now just need to buy one...

Leeching pond! Sweet! 'orrible chemical swirls.

From Reddit - Goliath truck is 2.5" wide.

Table sounds like it's going to look really good. Have fun!

I'm a tad bit late to the discussion but if you'll look up Hobby Dad's contaminated earth tutorial on YouTube, I think that it may give you the look that you're after.

Thanks for the tip Necro.

I've settled on AK Dry Ground from their terrains range. I think with tinting/drybrushing I can achieve the varied look I'm going for.

Now I'm trying to figure out what material I should use to make the "tiles". MDF/fiberboard I a choice but can warp. Lately I've been toying with the idea of using squares/rectangles of plexi/acrylic as I have a local wholesaler that I use for carbon fiber stuff. It would be relatively easy to run a couple strips of square tube underneath to provide some dimensional stability.

I'm also considering building a large wall section of ZM columns/walls and casting it to use as a basis for perimeter/border walls of the Hive gates. I've already worked out how to build the gatehouse/palanite Enforcer Precinct. Just need more kits.

I think I've settled on the tone/colour I'm going for on my Ash Wastes board.

Slow progress but steady.

I like it.

It's really easy
AK Dry Ground texture
Light coat of Reikland
Mig Light Rust Effect (splotches)
Light coat of Adrax
Heavy drybrush of Hobgrot
Heavy drybrush of flayed one


Drybrishing to taste.

That AK dry ground texture looks great! I might have to get some of that

Thanks, I was originally thinking having it be brighter at the base level but I actually like the recipe I'm working with.

Working on some Ash Wastes Biker Gangers.

Unnamed Orlock Affiliated former Miners turned raiders.