Necromunda - Sump City Showdown Session #2 - The Hunt for the Great White One!

It's been a bit of a rough patch over the last month or so, with a death in the family and huge deadlines and drifting piles of work eating up almost all of my hobby time. That said, we did manage to get some Necromunda in here and there and I figured it was high time to get at least something up on the blog this month...

The second session of the Sump City Showdown in late October included one of my favorite scenarios from the 1st edition, The Hunt for the Great White One! A group of hunters sets out on skiffs across the great gunk sea in a bid to kill and collect the lucrative gemmed eyes of the monstrous sump spiders.

The sump spiders all got cards which were shuffled into a deck, with the Great White One being added in the bottom half of the cards. Each turn a few more spiders would be drawn, with the players never quite knowing when the mother of all spiders would erupt from the gunk and start wreaking havoc!

 

The table was primarily covered in gunk, with a few small islands and a couple buildings to offer refuge. It being around Halloween, there was plenty of fake spider webbing, which added to the theme nicely.

 

The players got stuck in straight away, firing a few desultory shots at each other before the spiders became a much larger threat and the group found themselves working together (mostly) to survive!

 

Before too long however, the Great White One arrived and began taking revenge on the hunters!

What started as a nice hunt turned into a rout rather quickly, with the various gangs doing their best to escape of the table edges with their loot before being dragged to the bottom of the sump by the wicked talons and fangs of the mighty spider queen! All in all a very fun scenario!

 

As per the usual, I set up a few other tables for gangs to fight over, and actually managed to play a few games myself! In the previous campaign I was solely acting as the arbitrator so never got to actually play. Of course, that means I'm not getting as many pictures as I would otherwise like...

A recurring theme in our recent games have been gangers plummeting to their deaths (or at least to their horribly lasting injuries), and this table was no exception. Could be argued that this scenario should have been called "It's raining men". Hah!

 

A little tunnel skirmish between the Council of Crows and PT Barnacle's Scavvy Cavalcade turned into an utter rout for the Tzeentch cult. When there's a dozen or more plague zombies, scalies and mutants bearing down on you, even the Changer of the Ways suggests running for your lives!

We just ran another session this past weekend but I still need to go through and collate the pictures, and in the meantime I'm putting together the plans for the December session, wherein the underhivers will be celebrating Fistmas!

Necromunda - Gang Plank and Guilder (Venator) gang ready for Adepticon!

Been plugging away on projects for Adepticon, and between World Eaters stuff I took some time and sorted out the Necromunda side of things!

One of the things that's been in the backlog for a while is an MDF "Gang Plank" from Prometheum Forge (available here: https://everylittlewar.com/products/gang-plank-event-tray). I'd picked up a couple a while back and other than having built them I hadn't done much. Busted out some nice bright colors and got to work!

It's a cool little magnetized tray that can hold the cards, dice and tokens for the game, and offers a nice way to display and transport the models between games. I've settled on taking my Guilder gang out to Adepticon, Count DeMonet and his cronies are ready to engage in some skullduggery and profit in the Underhive! From left to right (front) Harry the Hump, Minka the Ninker, Count DeMonet, Dr. Whirlygig, Biceps McSixpack, and Eats Bad Fungus. (back) Frellin' Tom, Brother Hameln and his Bomb Rats, and Mr. Hand. 

Back to the World Eaters next, the deadline is bearing down worryingly quickly!

Necromunda - House Cawdor gang painted!

More Necromunda today with the Brotherhood of the Benificent Creator, a House Cawdor gang! I really dig how GW has been tweaking the background and aesthetic of the various gangs, and House Cawdor is no exception. They really changed up the rag-tag look of the models, but still maintained some design cues with the old metals which I appreciate. They're definitely more emaciated and ragged overall and while my initial gut impression was less favorable, once I had them in-hand I have to say I did a 180 and absolutely adore them!

In a callback to my old metal gang from back in the day, the new version got a blue-and-yellow paint scheme which always pops nicely. I tried to ensure that each of the repeat poses got a mirror image color scheme (one got yellow pants and blue shirt and the other got blue pants and yellow shirt, for example).

The gang leader and champion are both just dripping with character, I love all the candles and scavenged equipment!

The idea that the members of House Cawdor saw soem art of the Adeptus Custodes and atempted to build guardian spears to emulate the guardians of the Emperor is really a nice touch, and I had to add four guys swinging around these unwieldy monstrosities!

On the other end of the scale I like having a few gunfighters in my gangs so several guys got a pair of pistols, a pistol and axe combo, and one brother with a scavenged autogun and a molotov cocktail, because you can't go wrong setting the unbelievers on fire, now can you?

Rooting around in the Closet of Doom I uncovered a pair of old metal Juves (still bummed that GW hasn't done any bespoke Juve models in the new sets), and was pleased to see they fit right in to the new aesthetic. Hoping the get them running through the underhive this coming weekend!

Necromunda - Spyrers, Hired Guns, Hive Scum and Robots!

Howdy folks! Been having some issues getting new pics uploaded to my galleries, but finally got it sorted out and have a whole slew of new pics ready to go! After working on a ton of heresy stuff, I thought I'd take a breather and switch gear to do a mess of Necromunda models who have been lurking on the to-be-painted shelf for months, if not years. Buckle up for a couple weeks worth of painting!

First up is one of the oldest models that have been rattling around the Closet of Doom for decades, the Spyrer Patriarch! I essentially had to paint him in the green and yellow of the classic "Doc Ock" scheme, and I'm going to be hard-pressed not to refer to him as "Apothecary Cephalopod" now!

Figured I ought to take a quick snap of the whole hunt team. Part of me want to see if I can find the alternate poses for each of the four 'basic' spyrers and get them painted up as well!

Next up are a trio of Hired Guns from the recent Forge World releases, Grendl Grendlsen, Belladonna and Eyros Slagmyst. Really enjoyed painting them up, especially Grendl - Had to give him the classic House Mjolnir paint scheme!

As a contrast, I also painted up a trio of old hired guns from the original release back in the day - Biceps McSixpack, Frellin' Tom, and Ever-Ready Evan.

As a callback to a friend's old gang, Eats Bad Fungus the Ratskin Scout got a lick of paint. I always loved this model, it's by far my favorite of the Ratskin sculpts.

Similarly, as an homage to my dubby Dave's old Pit Slave gang, Dr. Whirlygig the Pit Slave Champion is ready to rampage through the underhive!

In other news, I love to trawl the interwebs for likeminded folks who enjoy the old Rogue Trader era minis and aesthetic, and ran across a fellow who had sculpted up some robots based on some art from the 1st edition rulebook. I had to get my mitts on a few!

They're scaled to fit on 40mm bases and I don't really have any use for them in 30k/40k, but they'll work really well as some counts-as Ambots for a planned Necromunda scenario in the near future!

More stuff to come shortly, as I work through the photo backlog!

Necromunda - Eschers and others on display!

Managed to get my mitts on the new Necromunda on Friday and couldn't help but dive right in! After a good day of gluing my fingers together and a fair chunk of brush time the newest iteration of the Eschers were ready for their close up, and some old faces got taken off the shelves for a bit of fresh air!

The Militia of Eth Ridge (har!) is the first time I've actually done any Eschers - When we played years ago several other of the group played them so I never gave 'em a try. The new plastic set is really fantastic and I rather enjoyed building them, fiddly as they may be! Stuck fairly close to the 'default' paint scheme on them, and tried my hand at some zebra stripes and leopard spots here and there. The front 90 degree facing is important in the new Necromunda, so I marked out the bases in white, though in retrospect I think I'm going to turn it into black and yellow hazard stripes.

While I was putting the models into a tray to run down to the GW shop, I figured I ought to dig out what Necromuna models remained in the depths of the Closet of Doom, and uncovered my House gang of choice - House Delaque. The Cobalt Snakes were never a particularly effective gang, but over time there sure were a lot of 'em! Really interested to see what the new iteration of their models will look like!

My other favored gang from back in the day was Hunt Team Phi Sigma Rho, a group of Spyrers comprising one each of Orrus, Malcador, Yeld and Jakara. I'm really hoping that GW will continue on beyond the 'original six' and delve into the models and rules from the Outlanders supplement, including the Spyre Hunters, Ratskins, Scavvies and of course The Redemption!

I held on to a couple special characters and follow-on gangs from the Outlanders book and Necromunda magazines, including Bull Gorg, pit fighter extrordinairre, and Kal Jerico the most badass bounty hunter in the Underhive. ...At least that what he'll tell ya! Rather pleased with how this particular pic turned out, with the inestimable Jerico menaced by the beast while the guilder and his cronies look on and jeer from the stands!

Speaking of, one of my very favorite 'gangs' were the guilders, with my particular band led by the portly-but-surprisingly-dangerous Count DeMonay and his pack of henchmen, cronies, bodyguards and hired guns. I initially didn't hold out much hope that we'll see the Guilders, but they're mentioned in surprising detail right in the main rulebook alongside the house gangs, so perhaps Count DeMonay may see the table again earlier than expected!

Last but not least, the Arbites of Precinct 13 ("Unlucky for some"). I really hope we'll see these guys walking the beat again at some point in the future as well. With as well done as the new Escher and Goliath (and as of today Orlock) models have been I am super jazzed to see what else they come out with!

Got a chance to play the basic game yesterday (to come to grips with the main rules before adding on all the Gang War campaign expansion stuff) and I gotta say I REALLY enjoyed it. The lineage of the 1st edition game shines through, with a few tweaks to the old rules and a few new additions that all added to the experience in.my opinion. I really dig the small update to the flesh wound/serious injury method and the bottling out process, and the gangs definitely feel more differentiated from the outset than they did in 1st edition. Used to be it was really only after a few games that your gangs started for show their house flavor. The tactics cards added a nice extra bit of spice without being overpowered (at least the ones we drew), and while I was initially down on the ZM tiles (I much prefer the 3d terrain of old) it was actually rather fun to rumble in the tunnels for our learner games.

I will say that to me the Eschers were definitely the standouts of the two. Far more customizable than the Goliaths, though I understand why that's the case - with all the exposed musculature they had to make the arms fit on the Goliaths in a very specific way to look good. I found it amusing as well that the Goliaths are actually showing more skin than the Eschers, and am rather happy that the girls aren't hyper-sexualized. They are feminine without being cheesecake which to me is quite welcome.

As of now I'm giving it a 9/10 - nostalgia filters in place for me of course as Necromunda was always my favorite specialist game, and I'm appy to report that my fears that they would mess it up were unfounded. This is more or less exactly what I hoped the reboot would be, a loving adaptation of the old system and not a complete rewrite from the ground up. Good stuff!

Necromunda - More Bulkheads!

Few more strips of the "solid" style bulkheads given a little extra detail! For the most part the "skeletal" style bulkheads just got the oily metal treatment but there's tons of room to play with on these:

Did a couple strips with blood spatter - A dark reddish brown was stippled on, then some Blood for the Blood God was drizzled in. Another strip got some graffiti - Cracked open some old Judge Dredd comics for some cheeky hive curse words.

The last couple strips got some propaganda posters and handbills glued in place - I'm concerned they're not going to stick too well so will be coming back at them tomorrow to give 'em another pass of PVA and another sealant pass to hopefully nail them in place.

Necromunda - Bulk(head)ing up

Ah, Necromunda, how I've missed you! I have been cautiously optimistic about the upcoming release of the updated Necromunda and while there are a few things that I find disappointing (the rules for only two of the six original house gangs being included at release being the big one), overall I'm rather liking what I'm seeing! As I recently finished off one army and made great strides on another, and with the new plastics hopefully in hand and then on the painting desk in another week or so, I didn't want to undertake a massive new project. So something Necromunda-themed it is!

Rooting around in the darker depths Closet of Doom I uncovered the old, old cache marked "Necromunda Terrain", and after blowing the dust off of it unpacked it to see what treasures lurked within. I was immediately buried under a tidal wave of the old plastic bulkheads - over 150 of 'em in point of fact! I didn't have the space to lay them all out of photos, but over the last couple days I was able to get them primered in batches and have started dabbling in various weathering and whatnot. Tried some greasy oils, some rusty patching and some dripping verdigris/slime, to varying degrees of success. Has been a hoot experimenting though! Going to do some graffiti and perhaps some posters on some of them as well - There's plenty to mess with. Really glad to hear that the Gang War book includes rules for 3D terrain, while the Zone Mortalis aspect of the sounds fun to me one of the best parts of the game was the claustrophobic blasted hivescape terrain!

No school like the old school - Confrontation Gang Leader (precursor to Necromunda)

The heat wave continues so my hobby output has been pretty minimal this week - On the upside I got a box of joy from Forge World yesterday which included the Horus Heresy Book V, and the Xiphon Interceptor for the Imperial Fists, but as the model is just sitting in a soak tank not a lot of new pictures of progress. So, time to trawl the photo archives and see what I hadn't posted up while my computer was in the shop!

A few months back while spelunking in the Closet of Doom I struck a rich seam of old out of print minis from the late 80's, and I chiseled a few out of the strata as 'palatte cleanser' models to fiddle around with when I needed a breather from the main projects. I'd documented the painting process fairly well, and thought I'd step through the process as an adjunct to the hobby articles from last month.

  

The model for today is from the way out of print "Confrontation" game whose rules were released in While Dwarf and was a precursor to what would eventually become Necromunda. I always thought the model would make a great Rogue Trader, as well. Starting off with faces and skin, as per the 'inside out' method - everything got a basecoat of Leather Brown, then the eyes got a layer of Ghost Grey, and Bronzed Flesh was used to pick out the forehead, cheekbones, nose and lips, leaving the Leather Brown in the recesses for shadowing.

As a bit of a hobby cheat, I do not actually paint irises on models, instead I turn to a trusty Micron pen in 005. So much more control for someone with fists of ham like me!

 

A quick stripe down the center of the whites using the pen followed by the tiniest little dot of Ghost Grey in the middle of the stripe as a reflective dot. A quick touch-up in Bronzed Flesh for any overspill, and then the extreme edges of the nose, cheeks, forehead and knuckles get one further highlight in thinned Bonewhite.

  

The pants got a basecoat of Jade Green, followed by highlights of Foul Green and Scorpion Green, and then a wash of Biel-Tan Green to help blend it together.

 

The reds and purples were kept pretty dark in hue - As there was a lot of gold detail on those areas I wanted to ensure the details had a dark background to set off against.

 

Laid in all the gold and leather and suddenly the model starts to snap into focus! Overall the model was looking quite dark so the power axe blade and the critter on his shoulder both got a bright blue to (over)compensate.

A few final details, some static grass and the model is ready to go adventuring on the fringes of Imperial space!