Cult on Cult action in the Underhive.

We are starting a Necromunda campaign in Newport soon as we have actually managed to rope together 5-6 people who want to give the campaign system a try. Because I've played the most and actually read the rules I've been allocated to teach everyone, so for the first few weeks we are just playing one-off skirmish game to get everyone used to the rules.

I'd made some walls and bulkheads for Zone Mortalis games already, but to give us more depth I very quickly knocked out six simple EPVC terrain in homage to the old boxed set terrain last Saturday, it does the trick but isn't exactly detailed...

Last week I played a game against steve's Genestealer cult, who hadn't named them yet but as he's an Eton old boy I named them for him after some of the institutions famous alumni. I have Genestealers, Chaos cult, Escher, Goliath and Orlock painted, so I'm not sure what I'm using for the campaign- but this game I took my plague infested Skitarii gang the 3rd protocol as the Cults are fairly similar in power level (as in not much power) so it would give Steve a balanced first game. as usual my boys (and girl) let me down like only rust machinery can but you'll see more of that later.

Anyway, enjoy a battle report with some old school white dwarf style maps I knocked up in powerpoint, not just for boring presentations!


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The sewers of Necromunda are as dangerous as they are vital to the hives infrastructure. Specially trained squads of skitarii patrol the depths of this vast network driving out unwanted squatters and repairing the damage caused by the eternal gang wars. When protocol team 3 were sent into the system to investigate extreme corrosion they found an infestation of ‘Bilebeetles’, chaos tainted mutants that decayed and rusted the environment around them. After a prolonged purge only one of the creatures survived, but when protocol team 3 delivered it to the mechanicus they had changed. Judged themselves to have succumbed to nurgles rusting witchcraft, they fled back into the sewers with their captive. now on the mechanicus bounty list they have become engaged in a vicious turf war with the brotherhood of the sun father, a holy cult with their own agenda in the underhive.

Left to Right- Sepsis 6.3, Ventrot, Rotbringer (witch), Bilebeetle (Disciple), Bitterbolt,  Mouth of Rust and Bile (Demagogue) Sporeslinger, Compiler of Miseries (dsiciple- nurgle accountant who doesn't show up unless he has to, someone has to make money!), Tetanus 4.1. 

Steves gang wasn't entirely painted so no pretty pictures of them as yet. 

The board set up ready to go with a second board in the distance from another game. 

Deployment

Pict-scan of the area after deployment with both gangs in place. and Steve's arm. He literally built a wall of dice to hide a model behind. You just can't trust Eton boys. 

Both gangs spread out across most of the length of the board, with the Chaos Cultists clustering around the building in the centre and the walls to the south. Bilebeetle deploys as high as possible to gain a good field of fire.  The Genestealers take advantage of their infiltrate skill (on both Acolytes and the Adept) to grab one objective early, and place both Acolytes under the refinery, as close as possible to the enemy in order to cause carnage and delay them straight away. 

Turn 1

The Chaos cultists advance cautiously, with Rotbringer taking advantage of levitation to soar toward the centre building. Caamhrone drags the objective back to his deployment zone and Mhogg-Rise and his allies advance behind the bulkhead walls. The first bullets are exchanged in the south corner as Mouth and Bitterbolt open up into Whailes, though their combined fire inflicts only 2 flesh wounds, and Bitterbolt realises he forget to bring enough shells for his shotgun which does not bode well for next turn..  

The firefight beneath the refinery starts early thanks to the infiltrating acolytes.  

Turn 2

The firefight beneath the refinery continues, with Mouth inflicting a flesh wound on the second acolyte, Both Acolytes return fire but only manage to pin the Chaos cultists in place while Bitterbolt reloads. A few opportunistic shots are taken, including BileBeetle and Hidlysttorm exchanging heavy Stubber fire without any real effect, and Rotbringer swoops up to the top of the centre building, hiding behind the chimney stack. 

The Genestealer cultists advance to try and spot the Nurgle tainted tech-priests in the ruins. 

 Turn 3

Whailes starts the turn with a fearsome charge into Bitterbolt, the acolytes vicious rock saw carving 7 points of damage into the nurgle cultists and slaying him outright! The second acolyte gets to his feet but is pinned again by Bilebeetles stubber and Sporeslingers autogun fire as he pokes his misshapen head round the corner. Caamrhone runs into the refinery proper to back the acolytes up and the remaining Genestealer cultists advance to new firing positions. Rotbringer snatches the centre objective and brings it back behind the chimney. As Sepsis finally reaches objective number 3 he is blown off the building by a lucky shot from Wrathschild, the fall knocking Sepsis out cold and taking him out of play. 

Bitterboil is torn limb from limb by Whailes Saw as The Mouth of Rust and Bile looks on. 

Turn 4

The turn starts badly for The 3rd Protocol when they fail their bottle check, shortly followed by it getting worse when Rotbringer decides she’s had enough of the others incompetence and promptly flying off the field. Mhogg Rhise and Redmaihne take control of the northern building now the cult are flushed out, and the chaos leader is forced to send his support team of Ventrot and Sporeslinger north to deal with the Aberrant and claim the objectives. The two cultists take heavy fire from Hidlystorm as they run but survive unscathed. The same can’t be said for Tetanus who takes a 3 round burst from the newly arrived Caamrhone, shredding one of his legs and taking him out. The only ray of light for the Nurgle cult is Mouth’s charge into Whailes, smashing the already weakened acolyte to the ground and critically injuring him before retreating back behind cover. The hybrids will need to find a doctor with low morals pretty quick if the rock saw wielding lunatic is going to make it to another skirmish.  

Turn 5

The Chaos forces gain the initiative, but a failed charge from Mouth leaves him vulnerable to a 2 pronged attack from the genestealers- first Jorhnson drops him with a burst of auto fire, then Caamrhone charges in to deliver the coup-de-gras, though this only knocks the putrescent Skitarii out for now. The relative quiet in the north is shattered by a barrage of fire on both sides, with Mhogg-Rhise weathering a hail of fire from Sporeslinger at close range. Redmhaine takes careful aim through a window and manages to blow a chunk out of Ventrot, he’ll be recovering from that damage for a while. Redmhaine’s victory is short-lived however as a blaze of accurate stubber fire from Bilebeetle shreds him and sends him off to recover later too. 

Rotbringer flees the flight while Ventrot and Sporeslinger advance as Hidlystorm lurks in the distance. 

Turn 6

The remaining Chaos cultists decide it’s better to flee the field whilst they still can, and as Bilebeetle lumbers off into the sewers once more the Genestealer Cultists can claim the spoils of victory... Damned xenos scum, coming over here and taking our loot... 

Hard Work in Gotham City

Well, It's been a while since I posted anything, partly due to health and partly due to a couple of commissions that took a fair bit of time up. And partly due to my nephew erasing all my RE4 save games so I had to do it all again. I had to. there's no choice there.

No Choice. 

Anyway I painted up some lovely Guild Ball teams (fishers and alchemists) which were tons of fun but I utterly failed to take any photos, Some infinity for the same client that are almost finished and I will photograph, and the big one- A Gotham City demo board for Knight models Batman miniatures game, commissioned by Firestorm Games. 

(the full sized version, not this one)

The base buildings were sourced by Firestorm itself, and they came to me assembled, They are from this chap and are pretty detailed. I enlisted the help of Dom and gave them a patchy spray job, first of textured paint, then black, then a dark grey, this would give me a base to drybrush up from. I gradually lightened the colours upwards as I painted to exaggerate the shadows and floors, I also added a metric ton of grey and white splodges to represent the years of Pigeon Poo accumulated on Gotham's rooftops, seriously I'm surprised Alfred doesn't make Bats take his shoes off when he enters the cave.

Whilst they were drying Dom and I planned the basic layout, We had four buildings with 6 upper floors, I always feel height is a really important part of catching the eye with a demo table (hence the crane on the Malifaux board) so at least one building would be four stories, and that would be close to the centre of the table. The second tallest next to that with the two smaller buildings across the street.

 The street is 20cm across exactly, as Dom worked out this would require effort to cross in game (especially with pavements to) meaning players couldn't just stay hidden all game. I decided to fill the blank areas with a small park in the corner, a disused car showroom opposite and a filthy bins area behind the taller buildings. These extra areas would break up the grey and add some variation to the table.  

I really like demo boards to tell a story, they should set the scene for the game and help the staff member to really get the players involved, so I decided to add the Gotham Towers sign to the tall building, and paint the bottom floor as though it had just exploded, scattering glass and shrapnel everywhere. 

Behind this building I added a parking lot in terracotta slabs, (I'll take a minute here to mention Metcalfes Self adhesive Paving Slabs, these are ace! Cheap as chips, pretty good scale wise, relatively durable once sealed with a couple of coats of PVA and they have a lovely texture, they make paving very fast indeed)  This was a bit more colour and gave some more realism to the board

Lamp posts are apparently super important in Batman, so Tom from Firestorm knocked one up and asked Marty of Model Display products to cast the top and bottom, with a lollipop pole and a streetsign attached they do the job lovely.

I ordered some fire escapes from TT combat, this manufacturer lacks the fine details of people like 4Ground, but they are unearthly cheap, and they finished the buildings off lovely, ready for painting. (as these aren't TT combat buildings a little Modification was required, but they are still worth the £3 they cost me, especially as they come with dumpsters too!)

Most of the resin vehicles are my Ainsty castings cars I've shown on here before, but a few more I picked up from a car boot sale, they are close to perfect for scale so I made one up as a Pizza delivery car and the other (pictured) in Nolan's series GPD colours. 

The ruined Car lot was fun to build, with trash everywhere and a lot of graffiti, some I made up on the fly, others (like sprayzilla) I found online and just had to replicate. Graffiti and waste are the sort of details that really bring a board to life, the creation of that lived in feel that convinces players that this isnt just a battlefield, it's also people's home.  Here's a bunch of photos of the car lot to hopefully illustrate to you what I mean.

It's also a tremendous amount of fun painting graffiti and whilst I kept it off the main facades of the other buildings, the back alleys, dumpsters and refuse areas are covered in it, it's hard to stop once you get going! The park was next, a simple clay surface with sand/static/pebbles and clump foliage on top, I wanted it to look overgrown and patchy, I ordered some ballustrades from a railway hobbyist company and they were so much bigger than I expected they made great walls all on their own!

I added the tops of Brettonian knights helms across the wall posts, with some gargoyles on the gate. each animal is different which will make sense if you've been to Cardiff and seen the walls near the castle. the rest of the buildings started to gain some character now, with billposters and graffiti, as well as signs (Firestorm Games, Axis Chemicals and Gotham Tower) I tried to make them all unique, as well as giving them different coloured window frames to help the staff know how to build it when it's delivered. then I weathered the bejeezus out of absolutely everything. green and brown inks, sprayed through a mister and painted on by hand where I wanted it heavy, they soaked into the posters as well as the gaps in the pavement.

the Red rocket on the side of the Cola Machine means something to Tom who used to work at Firestorm. He's a sick puppy. I wanted as much of a 'used' feeling on the rear of the buildings as on the used car lot, so more newspapers, a couple of skips and dumpsters and a dividing wall to hide all this from the stuck up staff at Gotham towers. All the newspapers are scaled down replicas of newspapers from the various Batman films, The posters are all from the movies or comics too. all the magazines scattered around are actually the front covers of Batman comics, each one the first appearance of one character or another (the poster on the grate in the park is poison Ivy's first appearance for example) You can see some extra detailed Graffiti in the alley, some of which is covered up by the dumpsters, another small touch that I hope adds realism.

Oh- and a basketball court, home-made hoop complete with police chalk marks, lovely. I finished it off with a bunch of extra window dressing- more posters, bins, fuel cans and road markings. 20cm gave me a strange road size of three lanes, so I looked for some American lane markings and did the best I could. I'm pretty sure these would involve a massive crash if anyone tried to follow them, but hey ho... The crosswalks and grates at the sides added more detail, although I couldn't find a good scale american corsswalks and traffic light set, so I may make those in the fullness of time. 

There's a ton of extra detail I can't begin to show with photo's, including the safe on the floor by the Jokers van shows a crime in progress, the glass and wood blown out by the explosion on the road, and all this extra detail really helps the story comes to life. To finish off fully I'd like a few more cars, but for now I'm calling this one done, I hope the boys at Firestorm enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it:)  

Finished at last!

Here's a selection of Photographs of the finished table at it's new home in Firestorm games, shortly before I found out that I really do suck at Malifaux! (more on that later;)

The clock above the warehouse is made from the innards of the pocketwatch I use as a soulstone marker, it does tell the time.. ish... the varnish and the hour hand have occasional issues..

the East side entrance, the smallest of the doors it does face the long quay, and so deserves it's own sign. 

The interior of the factory, complete with treadmill and chemical vats, as well as some crates and other bits and bobs of scatter terrain.

The doors onto the main street, you can just see the skeletal form of an airship through the window, the name Halifax came from the word my friend and I always got when we typed Malifaux into our phones, we had arranged a game of Halifax so often I decided to do something about it.

As well as the usual wanted posters for Malifaux's denizens, the posters contain adverts for the Guild Guard, the Star Theatre and various mercenaries services, the board inside also has shift patterns for factory workers. (many of the wanted posters feature members of my gaming group)

The view across the bridge, you can see the Toll prices from here, as well as small map of the quarantine zones and some weaponry restrictions whilst on the bridge.

a few general pictures of the boats and crane- as you can see an extra platform has been added to the base of the crane since the original photos were taken, this adds a lot more playability to the watery section and the ladders add an extra detail. the extra walkways and jetty can be moved around to change the playing surface, and there is a lot of scatter terrain around to give even more cover. 

The inspiration came from one of Toulouse Lautrec's Moulin Rouge posters for the advertisement for the star theatre, with the dancer swapped for a Coryphee, extra stars and of course a change to the wording. I use freehand rather than printing as I find it easier to blend the colours in with the rest of the board. 

Some better views of the front, the doors looked less wonky in person, ah well, can't have everything:) these doors are massive, they really are, the smaller door fits a 35mm tall model through no issues, and even my Rail Golem could skip through without bumping it's head!

I am happy to say that the feedback from the players has been pretty positive overall, even those players who initially thought it would be unplayable found it made for a good game with interesting movement possibilities, (although Dom did manage to get a grem in an almost unassailable position which I had to put measures in to prevent happening again) no crew found itself particularly favoured or hampered by the table, so all in all a good project that I really enjoyed putting together that looks great in it's new home!