Helsreach Walker

Hello and Welcome back, 

Ever since I was a spotty kid, I have admired the slaver walkers in the Helsreach art in the first edition 40K rule book. 

Fast forward to 2014 and Mr Papafakis's awesome Helsreach Walker kit bash inspired me to build one for myself. After a good while scouring the Internet I ccouldn't find a suitable toy to cut up but I discovered a Ban Dai Destroid Spartan kit which I acquired. Work started on this during the late covid lockdowns here.

These kits are well detailed, each part of the leg and foot are fully mobile making posing it interesting. I only needed the bottom half so the rest of the model now lurks in the bits box. 

Things stalled as I waited to find a suitable item to make the platform, in this case a plastic individual dessert tub. I tried several glues before I found UHU managed to bond the two different plastics. Learning from that the tub was lined inside & out with standard ink jet paper and PVA glue. This not only reinforced the tub but allowed all the various gubbins to be added. 

The tub was a little deep for my 28mm figures to peep over so a piece of foam board was added to lift the deck. Granny grating/embroidery mesh was laid on top of it. The machinegun coupla was made from a kinder egg pod added to the side. Lots of milliput filled the gaps around the bottom. Card was wrapped around the outside to disguise the shape of the pods. The floor was then added. The gun rail is a bit of plastic rod warmed up (by holding against a mug of tea) and formed around the coupla shape. The gun was salvaged from the bits box, the handles came from a mantic vehicle heavy weapon and the ammo box is a 1/35 scale WW2 item. 

The metal posts for the ropes are made from plastic rod. The ropes are made with twisted wire from the inside of a electrical cable.

Various bits make up the controls and gubbins. The exhausts are from the Bandi walker kit and the water tank is a Ramshackle Games resin item. The light array posed a problem. It was eventually made from a small electronics component box lid (found in the bits box) and a bunch of stick on googly eyes. The ladders are 3d printed items which were cut up to look like they are retractable. A chain was added so the crew could pull it up or drop it as needed (it doesn't work on the model!). A spotlamp from a 40K Imperial Guard tank was added. 

Paint was reasonably quick once the front "toes" were painted with industrial hazard stripes. Lots of washes followed the base colours to make it look worn and weathered. The model was based on a CD. It's taken me 3 years to finish but I have learnt a lot. Who knows, I might make more walkers in future if suitable donor bits are found. 

The Walker will see use with my Orks on Maddans world when they come a raiding. On Mattblackgod’s World the Walker will get used by my Slaver gang "Tox's Blackhearts". 

Thanks for looking and stay safe out there.

2018 review....

Hello and welcome back to my blog. 

Well another year comes to a end and it is traditional to look back at my hobby year. This year I want to keep it brief. It has been a interesting year and I have learnt a few new hobby related things. I met a few people and hopefully made a new friend or two. It has also been challenging in some ways as I had the never ending viral infection in the first half of the year, my wife’s health hasn’t been great, technology problems and I have had a host of vehicle health issues including crashing my motorbike on a diesel spill (don’t overfill your cars, vans and trucks folks).

Although I didn’t get as many figures painted in 2018 as I hoped looking back it is actually more than I thought it was. It was a good mix of figures from Necromunda 2017, Copplestone, Warlord’s 2000AD Strontium Dogs and Ramshackle games lines with the odd figure from here and there thrown in for good measure.

The big thing for me this year was the BYOL 2018 oldhammer show. Curtis of Ramshackle games invited me to join him in setting up the Helsreach table on which the original Necromunda rules were going to be played. The idea was that I was going to supply the town buildings. I trundled on down there with my wife in tow, two cases of figures and three plastic crates of models. 

If you are looking at the pictures my terrain was anything covered in graffiti or posters where as Curtis’ models tended to be larger and had heavy weathering. I also supplied a great number of the citizens to be shot at or aggressively romanced by the space bastards marines. For good measure I took along three gangs. The Warriors (Orlock), Fatal Floozies (Eshers) and my old Gothrats - OOP Shockforce mutant rat man. 

Take a peek at the tables and Helsreach action here:

https://mattblackgodsworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/helsreach-and-other-byol-tables.html

https://mattblackgodsworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/helsreach-pt-2-action.html

I had a fun couple of days gaming Helsreach. Thank you Curtis for inviting me, GMing and the fresh inspiration. 

The Helsreach gaming inspired me to arrange a Post Apocalyptic Wargames meet up for next year. So far the plans have fallen flat trying to find a suitable location to host it. Things may have to go on hold on that front as my wife may be starting dialysis by then. As you can imagine it will be a busy life changing year for us both. 

The post apocalyptic Wargames forum reached 10 years in the wastelands of the internet. I commissioned a figure to celebrate. Eventually I took delivery of the 10 figure from the casters after a few teething troubles. 

BTW - I have plenty of these figures still for grabs. You only have to pay P&P. Email me on mattblackgod@gmail.com if you are interested.

My own homebrew rules Radlands got a quick play test this year. They seem to play okay. My debate is to release the main rules for play test or to finish them before I let the wastelanders get their mitts on them. Batrep here:

https://mattblackgodsworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Radlands

That pretty much sums up my 2018 hobby wise. I hope to be more productive next year. I have some ideas and plans which I hope to explore in next years blog posts. 

So my lovely wasteland wanderers, thank you for reading and putting up with the sporadic blog posts this year. Have a happy New Year’s Eve. Stay safe out there and have fun. See you next year.

Helsreach Pt 2 - The action

Hello and welcome back. In this blog post I am going to show some of the action from the Helsreach table at this years BOYL show. Again this is going to be picture heavy. Enjoy the fun.

Day One:

I took along Shadens Brood which is my old Shockforce Gothrats with a couple of converted Skaven. I found some homebrew rules for Skaven in Necromunda. Here we see them riding around looking for loot whilst Radiation Bob and his body guard look on with disgust ("I remember the good old days before dratted rat men went joy riding about town"). Looking back I should  have split them across two transports.

Shadens Brood dismount and go chasing loot to sell at the Market.

The Juves (Squeekers) load the Transport as the other clan members look for trouble. Shaden fancies picking a fight with Bazza the Chaos Champion on top of the Statue. He had been shooting at the Brood after all.

 Meanwhile the beasts rise up to fight everything. The Dunger herd stampedes. 

The sand worm pops up in town looking for a snack. 

A outlaw runs into town. The Brood line up to give him a broad side....successfully missing with every shot.

The Dunger herd thunders into town.

 The Brood wisely run out of the way. 

The Brood have shoot up a rampaging bug. The returning mob ram the Dunger herd killing a couple. 

The Dungers attack the Brood from behind as they stare jaw open at the large bear that has just eaten a Helsreach citizen. Local animal enforcement sends a cyber hound into the fray and try to pick off angry Dungers.

Three of the Brood are down whilst the cyberdog distracts the Dungers. Sadly the remaining Brood member gets attacked by the Bear. Shaden arrives after a respawn to attack the bear (Bazza killed him). Animal control fires on the herd and their tank fires on Bazza on the statue. Bazza is hurt and teleports into the wasteland.

Meanwhile another Brood member bribes a angry  monkey with some Monkey nuts forming an alliance to take the head up the statue. After all Bazza is out of town. 

The Brood in the transport load up the dead Dungers to trade at the meat market. Meanwhile Shaden and the other Rat man was ripped to bits by the angry bear.

At this point I had to leave the game to take my poor suffering Wargames Widow for a nice meal.

Day Two:

Outlaws deploy in the wastelands 

The locals don't look too happy. 

 The Squat  miners deploy in the market. 

 Outlaws roam about the wastelands bothering each other and collecting items to gain points.

The jet bikes assemble for the race. The blue one top right is mine.  

A closer view of Curtis' jet bikes (available from Ramshackle Games)

Under starters orders 

 The racers head to the gate.

 Through the gate and out into the Wastelands where many hazards await the racers. Sadly their was a lot of bodies around  the table so I couldn't get pictures of the course around the wastes.

 After screaming around the town the first  rider crosses the line. Another bike is about to run through the final gate. In the distance my bike is about to make the final thrust to the finish gate. It has just narrowly avoided the pile up on the last corner. But the has a penalty from the collision so cant be pushed too hard. 

The racers line up in the winners line up ready for some hot food from Sam n Ellaz and Rad Pizza. The first place bike is on the far right. My bike came in third. I should have thrashed the bike harder in the first and second turns. Not a bad result though. The winner was awarded a 28mm scale cup. 

The Jetbike race proved hugely popular and was easy to play with Curtis Fell and Adlan Baxter moving the bikes and working out hazards, penalties and damage. It was a slick race and a well planned game. It was good fun. Hats off gents. 

The Star Bastards arrived in Helsreach. It was a hugely popular game.This lot took a shine to the glowing lamb bar. Poor Moxie got sex pested by the hard up Star Bastards. Luckily for them Moxie is a professional and was in a accommodating mood. 

Some Star Bastards got into conflict with the locals.

Some Star Bastards ran rampage in the wastelands. Even Giggles clan were not immune to the Star Bastards affections.  

 More action mid town. 

 The market was busy

The Star Bastards raid the Glowing Lamb whilst the Squat Miners attempt to fight them off. Meanwhile the Star Bastards do not seem interested in the mutant man stood outside the bar.

 In other parts of Helsreach the Star Bastards continue to fight with the locals who are not too happy with the intruders from the warp. 

 A star bastards walker tangles with local law enforcement. 

It was not long until the warp pulled the Star Bastards back into its demonic dimensions. A rogue Imperial Guard detachment loots the wastes for points. 

 They form an alliance with the Helsreachers. They hope to reassemble the statue from under the watchful gaze of Bazza the Chaos champion. That guy was a real pain all weekend. 

The Helsreach factions team up to take the fight to the Outlaws. One gang is parked near the gate with the Squat Miners on the other flank.The Fatal Floozies gang rush up the street in two transports hoping to plug the gap in the defences. The turncoat rogue IG rhino is parked up at the foot of the statue. 

The girls arrive waiting to open fire on something only to find the rogue IG unit are outside the gate and the only things inline of sight. Meanwhile a cheeky girl steals a loot loaded truck to take to the market. 

The Squat Miners decide that they have had enough and drive out the gates screaming "Rat Onnna Stick!"

They take immediate weapon fire by lurking outlaws. The rolled out into the wasteland taking fire and they slowly got butchered. After this the outlaws climbed over the walls stealing the trade goods. 

I forgot to take pictures of the next part but a Fimir, Zoat and somesort of early genestealer beast rode through the gates. The Fatal Floozies laid down fire but only managed one wound on the huge creatures. Hand to Hand followed which saw the girls massacred. The outlaws who scaled the wall fired on the girls taking the girls out of the fight. Game Over for the Floozies. 

 These awesome assault mono wheels didn't arrive in time to game. Amazing models with boarding planks for getting over the walls.

I had a great time at the BYOL Oldhammer event at Foundry Miniatures. I met a lot of great people. Curtis did a great job of GMing the table. The guy is a natural at it and did a great job of controlling the chaos and encouraging people to join in. Curtis and his brothers models are amazing. All the pictures I have seen of his terrain over the years do not do these models justice. They have given me a lot of inspiration for updating my models and making new ones. I wish I was more familiar with Necromunda rules so I could stop asking questions and help Curtis more with the GMing of Helsreach. 

My terrain and townsfolk got a lot of complements over the weekend especially the Glowing Lamb bar and it's insanely detailed interior. I got a real kick out of the smiles Rad Pizza and Sam n Ella's generated. I also got told off by a young man who didn't like the fact that the signs on my Borderlands inspired arms dealer wasn't exactly as the game. He was a nice and chatty lad. 

I would like to thank the Star Bastards for tagging my terrain. It has added to the graffiti look of my models. Different hand writing and slogans. Good stuff,cheers lads. 

I would like to thank Foundry for hosting the event, Curtis for inviting me to help build this year's town and for the tips & inspiration and every person with a kind word for my models. Finally I would like to thank my long suffering wife for putting up with me and going along with me this weekend. 

Thanks for reading, stay safe out there.