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Thanks all.
I had grabbed two SWA boxes and just started to get into the second one.
You get only 2 "dog-leg" / diagonal walkways per set so I like using those for the 3-way joins to the tile edges.

@Breotan: I agree that most joins are VERY solid but I used the skinnier pipe for my second tier of platform and the middle area when the two half-moons joins just has very little contact area. I noticed some bits have some slight cut-outs inside the tube to accommodate one of those joining tabs in the middle which is REALLY well thought out and a good solid join. I used some styrene I-beam and added some tube along the side to look like power going up to the next level. I will add more "stuff" later to make it fit in better.

@Ian Sturrock: Short walkway is 6cm, diagonal and long walkway is 12cm, "half moon" platforms are 6cm by 12cm.
So on the right tile I made is a diagonal, another diagonal attached to it's end and a small platform = 6+12+12 = 30cm.
Middle: Long platform, short end of half moon, long walkway through the middle across it's side and another half moon = 12+6+6+6=30cm.
For the left tile I left it 6cm short but with an opening to the platform to either jump (good luck with that) or to have a loose platform as discussed. Up and down from the picture is two diagonal pieces with the width of a long walkway in between = 12+6+12 = 30cm.

@JohnnyHell: If you look, I intentionally made sure the big round bases and ran a pipe along the bottom so the ground level has quite a few areas to block line of sight.
For the "Intersection" or 3-way walkways I try to have them go around a feature so you cannot see a straight shot down them.
The various walkway edge "walls" do a great job blocking as well.
I do agree however that some various debris features do need to be added: I have a bunch of 60mm low profile bases I plan on using for various stuff.
That black blob near the bottom of the picture is a black primed bunch of barrels made to look like a fueling station of some sort complete with a pump.
I have an old school hand crank meat grinder, put the coarsest die in it and run old sprues through it: perfect debris unrecognizable from sprue. Blob some model cement throughout (ventilate!) and you can have limitless piles of junk.

@Sidstyler: Yes the expense is insane with GW BUT that is why the SWA kit sold out so fast: between the terrain and the miniatures and the rule book it is a deal by GW standards. I am still using bits from my City of Death kit that had one of each building type. I will probably use some bit for the Aegis Defense Line to make a "checkpoint" tile with like a tiny outpost with an underground entrance.

@kodos: I have some Pegasus gothic terrain and looked at it for use here... it just does not look right, at least not immediately beside what looks like chemical industry stuff so I agree. I find that if I commit to a set "diorama" the terrain looks much better, I will just try to get the most utility I can out of it.

@gungo: City of death stuff does fit in, especially the manufactorium kit: that has zero issues. I still need to measure-up the pieces to see what is needed to get the heights to line-up or I may have to rely on some ramps or some Plastruct stairs.

I find the real trick is keeping the heights right for that: 4.75" (12cm).

Anyone putting these kits together please post pictures or point to anything interesting being built out there: I need the help!
I want the best layouts I can get for the money before I glue and screw it all down.
Thanks!

Disagree that nothing looks as good as GW stuff. Much homemade terrain can eclipse it for looks and versatility with a little effort.

Very true johnny... the new gw stuff looks good, but it really isn't modular out of the box. Even the walkway legs fit loose... its pretty much glue them or they may fall out. For true modular scenery (without customizing and magnets), I use mantic deadzone infestation terrain.

I have found that when painted, there is little visual difference on the battlefield between the new gw kits, old gw kits, and mantics infestation kits (full of fans, pipes, walkways... more industrial looking). I use all three to give variety, options, and save my pocket book.

And no, I am not a gw hater or mantic fanatic. Mantic deadzone is just a game to me, 40k is a lifestyle

Oh, there is all kinds of stuff out there that looks "better" than GW.
One can get tired of skulls and gothic architecture.
I usually liked the clean science fiction Star-Trek look but Star-Wars with it's tubes and wires everywhere with bits of paneling to cover the odd bits give the impression of "functional" design.

Mantic Deadzone Urban Quadrant looks nice but around $200 Canadian... ouch,l but it is a ton of stuff.
The esthetic of it at least allows for other games to be played without the mentioned skulls everywhere.
Costs less than me buying two SWA boxes so I cannot say much.

 Talizvar wrote:
Anyone putting these kits together please post pictures or point to anything interesting being built out there: I need the help!
I want the best layouts I can get for the money before I glue and screw it all down.
Thanks!

Posting it here would be off topic so I created a thread in the Paint and Modelling forum.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/723697.page#9310932

I've started with some small things and hopefully others will join in. I think most of us are waiting on kits before we can finish our centerpieces.

Finished my Ibram Gaunt.

MSRP for Shadow War rulebook is 40USD/50 CAD.

$40 USD for the rulebook? Seems a bit much. Does it also do the dishes?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
$40 USD for the rulebook? Seems a bit much. Does it also do the dishes?

With the rules for the additional factions, the book will about 200 pages. $40 is the same price as a softback codex so it does not seem unreasonable. Ghb price would have been great, but the rush to release and printing in America is probably a factor.

I don't think I'm even mad about that. It is a tad high.. but for it to be a full ruleset for a game and not an expansion or an army book or whatever.. I think I'm good with that.

$40 is a pretty good price for a 200 page book. I don't know if I will keep my basic book or throw it on eBay to get the more complete one. Or I could just spend that effort getting more Kill Teams. I am going to get a few Eldar Kits to make a Craftworld team (and another allies army for my CF).

$40 is a good price for a hardback rulebook with the kind of production values that GW will bring to it. Same retail as the KoW hardback and just as smidge more than two 64 page Osprey rulebooks.

I love me a pretty rulebook. I just get annoyed when a company expects me to buy a rulebook for every army I own.

I'm in!

Chikout wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
$40 USD for the rulebook? Seems a bit much. Does it also do the dishes?

With the rules for the additional factions, the book will about 200 pages. $40 is the same price as a softback codex so it does not seem unreasonable. Ghb price would have been great, but the rush to release and printing in America is probably a factor.

GHB is $25 for 168 pages, softback, so yeah. If SWA were similar, I'd spend the $25.

Grey Knights question: I haven't bought any of them before and was wondering how many of them would be a good number to buy to have a decent SWA team. I have some unbuilt Betrayal at Calth bodies that could have some spare weapons put on them, if that works.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Grey Knights question: I haven't bought any of them before and was wondering how many of them would be a good number to buy to have a decent SWA team. I have some unbuilt Betrayal at Calth bodies that could have some spare weapons put on them, if that works.

I do believe they max out at 5 for the squad..

But you can specialist more for prom caches

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Grey Knights question: I haven't bought any of them before and was wondering how many of them would be a good number to buy to have a decent SWA team. I have some unbuilt Betrayal at Calth bodies that could have some spare weapons put on them, if that works.

Friend of mine managed to get 3 into one team, and an alternate team had 4. The first team was a Justicar with Nemesis Matt Warding Staff, and then a guy with a Cheesblaster*, and a guy with a Psycannon. Recruiting new guys is very difficult for GKs.





*Psilencer, broken as feth in SWA. 3 Sustained Fire Dice and a 2+ Ammo Roll ie. never runs out of ammo.

The Psilencer is really something alright!

But yes it is also quite a feat recruiting GK. I am really leery of those who have houseruled it to make recruiting easier for GK and Nids. I think it's supposed to he that way ...

With the 10 man Grey Knight Strike Squad, wouldn't you have just about every possible load out possible for a GK team?

At least with the exception of some of the terminator spec ops.

GK can have up to 5 men, but you'll have a hard time getting there.

Best strategy early on would be to load up on as many bodies as you can as cheaply as you can, since you're going to have a hard time getting any more. You're going to need the Scavenger skill in order to get that, which is pretty RNG dependant.

With a 10-man box you could build just about everything you need.

The teleporting guys are nuts. They just move. Height/direction is no object. They just move whatever distance you want (up to their pretty decent max limit), wherever you want, regardless of ladders. They're scary!

Even the Harlis, who are just impossible once they get going, can't do that.

GK very much sounding like the Spyrer's of this game. Stupidly rockhard from the outset - but if you lose a couple, you can pretty much forget the rest of the campaign.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
With a 10-man box you could build just about everything you need.

The teleporting guys are nuts. They just move. Height/direction is no object. They just move whatever distance you want (up to their pretty decent max limit), wherever you want, regardless of ladders. They're scary!

Even the Harlis, who are just impossible once they get going, can't do that.

Actually, with how ambiguous GW's writing can be, there's some (sketchy at best, but not entirely unignorable) reasoning that can be made for the argument Harlequins can freely move through walls.

Meanwhile there's no guidelines as to how to run drones. Do they need ladders? How do they fly? Does the Plasma Accelerator (or whatever its called) stop working if the Drone is Pinned/Down?

Played my first game yesterday, Skitarii versus Chaos. I lost at the start of my opponents first turn (I went first and managed to pin two of his models), after which he had to take his bottle test, which he failed. I ended up losing though because I couldn't fulfil my objective yet (have one of my models go for the opposite table edge).

We had nowhere near enough terrain, just about one-third was covered and due to how aggressively I deployed (and banked heavily on getting the first turn) I managed to get some shots in that hit at least.

After that the chaos player went against a Tau player, where we noticed that the entry for the ion rifle is also incomplete, as it makes mention of being able to overcharge, yet it only features one firing mode and no mention of being unstable or exploding. That game lasted longer, with the highlight being two chaos marines ganging up on a lone pathfinder, only for the little fish to murder the feth out of one of the marines, despite having a flesh wound and thus only having WS1.

You don't take a bottle test when pinned, its when you are down/out of action that counts.

And I'm pretty sure you win in any case when the opposition bottles (note: I've not read the SWA missions).

A good source of scatter terrain is the Tamiya jerry can set - comes with 12 barrels and a bunch of extra baggage (basically double the amount on the box) for a pretty cheap price.

UltraPrime wrote:
You don't take a bottle test when pinned, its when you are down/out of action that counts.

So the expert got it wrong?

Had a ton of fun assembling my set of Shadow War Armageddon.

Pros: Fun to assemble. Cool catwalks and neat industrial pipes and crap.

Cons: Stupidly expensive. Like, seriously. The terrain in the set is enough for maybe 18 inches square, and only at 6" up. There should honestly be 3" high struts as well so make multi-level catwalks (and ramps).

So, I'm definitely going go to be buying at least one of each of the three terrain kits and probably two of the Galvanic Magnavent. With all that I should be able to densely pack perhaps two square feet.

Thankfully I have a ton of Deadzone terrain, to make 3" stuff and, like, you know, structures. The GW terrain is great for Catwalk & Pipe City but the moment you need, like, a wall, or a door, or a building, all you've got is GW's ugly gothic ruins.

 Manchu wrote:
MSRP for Shadow War rulebook is 40USD/50 CAD.

I was really hoping for a small format $15 rules manual. Other games have done it and it really makes it easy to get into a game on the ground floor. $15 rules + $40 box of minis and you have everything you need to get started. That being said, I hope it serves well as an easily accessible system to bring new people into the hobby.