+ inload: Painting The Ashes of Armageddon gameboard +

+ Third Army: The Wastelands of Armageddon +

+ A Steel Legion Heavy Bolter team hopes to chalk up some kills against the orks of Waa-Ghazghkull. +

+ No, not the Steel Legion 3rd Army Group described in this article [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] on The Ashes of Armageddon blog, but the Third Army of wargaming: the tabletop scenery. +

+ Armageddon Wasteland terrain +

+ I've been threatening to repaint my second-hand Realm of Battle board for ages. I bought it painted in a white polar scheme, and used it for many years for various games. In fact, the Steel Legion I'm currently repainting were originally painted white specifically to have an army to use on it – and since they're getting a glow-up, I thought the board ought to follow suit. +

+ This was a surprisingly swift process. I used a dish sponge to apply some slightly diluted raw sienna acrylic over the surface, excluding only the exposed rock, which was already painted grey from its previous incarnation. I used Pebeo studio acrylics, which are affordable and tough enough to stand up to the inevitable bumps and bashes of tabletop warfare. +

+ Once dry, I repeated the process with raw sienna and buff titanium – not in an even mix, but allowing them to mix and mingle on the surface, leaving the pure raw sienna visble in recesses. I then gathered some sprays – black primer, camo brown and camo green from Halfords, plus GW's Wraithbone spray and used them to add some quick smoky detail here and there. +

+ Once that had all dried, I went back in with a large soft brush and buff titanium to pick out some texture with dry brushing. I then heavily diluted some Skrag brown and Liche purple (I think Phoenician purple is probably the modern equivalent) and used these to work into the cracks and crevices to boost the contrast in tones. +

+ I also used these very dilute mixes to add a few discoloured patches – surface vegetation? Chem-waste pollution? Dirt and debris? – it doesn't really matter which, as such additions are mainly there to avoid weird blank gaps in the surface. +

+++

 + The board in use +

+ Here's a couple of shots of the finished elements of my gradually-being-repainted Steel Legion force:

+ These details show two things of note: firstly, the importance of contrast between your models and your table if you want them to make an impact. The rims of the bases frame the model and make a statement, while the dark armour, guns, gloves and boots define the features and make the models 'read'. That's even the case here, where the figures are intended to read as camouflaged. Without that built-in (and unrealistic) framing and contrast, the models would be literally camouflaged against the surface, and you'd lose a lot of the visual appeal of a game. Bear this in mind when deciding on your schemes! +

+ Secondly, the difference between basing and terrain. One could, of course, prepare and paint the whole board using the same paints and techniques as used on a model's base, but it'd be considerably more time-consuming and expensive, not to mention more likely to be fragile. You'd end up with something more akin to a diorama rather than a playing space. +

+ The 'Third Army' needs attention, but it also need a slightly different mindset – happily, a more forgiving one, for the gaming table will rarely garner as much attention as your models, and thus can be treated with less attention to detail. +

+ While explicitly intended to represent one of the many Wasteland areas of Armageddon, the finished result is pretty flexible, and can pull double-duty for other games – or simply as a pict-capture backdrop. +

+++

+ inload: Battle report: The Revenge of Toshiba part I +

+ The Revenge of Toshiba: part I +

+ A Warhammer 40,000 9th edition battle report +

+ The Reginae Obscurae looms over the quailing Lamb's Worlders... +

+++Doctrinal integrity at 23% and falling+++ 

+++Noradrenaline spike detected+++

+++Dopamine levels flat-lining+++

Archmagos Murasaki Toshiba wiped away lubricant tears from her compound optical nodes with the heavy sleeve of her rubberised red robes, as she approached the sealed vault. Her attendant flock of servo-skulls and cybercherubs wailed binaric litanies of lamentation. 

As she began entering the hexagrammatic code commands into an ancient but scrupulously maintained terminal, the sacred metal of its outer casing almost completely obscured by solidified wax and purity seals, she felt the holy rage build inside her. Her mem-nodes involuntarily autospooled back to the logically impossible events that had taken place scant days ago when the fleshunits of the provincially-named 'Lambs Worlders' had somehow managed to defeat her forces  – despite a woeful lack of augmentation, and using the most rudimentary of combat STC templates. 

This blasphemy, this shame, could not be suffered. That drive, an emotional response so strong that it ate at the adamantine-hard strings of her logic like the oxidative process that transmuted holy iron into worthless rust, had brought her here to this place, this tomb of proscribed wonders. 

The last of the command codes entered, the silence was broken by the metronomic thunder of vast gears at work and the vast portal began – 

+++Doctrinal integrity at 48% and rising+++

+++Dopamine spike detected+++

– to open. She stepped past the threshold, her many mechanical insect-jointed legs clicking on the hard floor as she did so. With a thought, the head of her axe of office ignited, casting a wan light across the chamber. Dimly, it reflected from the red lenses of scores of ancient battle-automata – Domitars, Castellax, Kastelans... even the mighty Thanatar. They stood in their serried ranks, unmoving, their compact reactor cores quiescent. 

+++Rise. Awaken. Your Hive Queen demands it. Rise. Awaken+++

+ Magos Toshiba of Bezoa, amid a sea of her underlings. Defeat, she decided, would be avoided by placing her reliance entirely in the hands of capable machines, not puling partial-fleshunits. +

+++

+ Game type and Mission +

+ Belligerents: Bezoan Skitarii and allies (Lucifer216); Lamb's World Imperial Guard (Apologist) +
+ Limitations of conflict: 200 Power Level +
+ Battle site: Westward Spill, the outskirts of a proto-hive on Neues Tremo, a frontiersworld in the Magyar system, Sector Antona Australis. [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] +

+ An unapologetic 'big game', Lucifer216 and I had been keen to continue the campaign begun in Tensions over Neues Tremo [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], where the plucky boys and girls of Lamb's World had pulled off an unlikely victory over the increasingly erratic Bezoans. The roots of the war lay in a conflict of doctrine between the Bezoans and the Slav Nasr Enginseers assigned to the Lamb's World regiments. Toshiba of Bezoa an ambitious, and covetous Magos, had secretly instigated conflict on a frontier world and manipulated events to ensure Lamb's World regiments were assigned to suppress the rebellion – which left them, so she supposed, isolated and vulnerable to destruction at the hands of her forces. +

+ Alas for Toshiba, Caef Whittaker of the Lamb's World 18th proved a capable commander, and he managed to fight off the ambush. As the Bezoans retreated to lick their wounds, Whittaker and his forces high-tailed it to Westward Spill, where he hoped to report the betrayal. Scant days passed before the Bezoans appeared again, and the exhausted forces of the Lamb's Worlders were forced back into the field. +

+ Caef Whittaker, of the Lamb's World 18th, frantically redirecting his forces to avoid a collapse of morale in the face of the Lords of War. +

+ I mustered pretty much everything Lamb's World related that I could find, and the inimitable Omricon pledged an allied platoon from the Lastrati 3rd Rifles, supplemented by the famed Righteous Indignation, an ancient and storied Baneblade. +

+ Magos Toshiba (commanded by Lucifer216) meanwhile, opted to shelve the partial-fleshunits that had clearly caused her defeat(!) and raided the deep vaults of Bezoa in search of the dubiously-permitted technomancy that she calculated would bring her victory. +

+ Mighty robots from 'the Hive' – some sanctioned, others... not so much. +

+ In addition to an army of robots, she called in favours from the ill-starred House Temporis, a peculiar – and arguably* heretical – Navigator-led Knight Household. Two Knights of legend attended the Magos: Gnosis and the Reginae Obscurae. +

+ Being a bit rusty on the rules, and aware we'd have our work cut out with such a big game, we opted to minimise additional rules, so there were no warlord traits, non-modelled unit upgrades or the like in this game – just a big game involving the simple underlying engine of 9th edition. +

+ There were six objectives to fight over – these represented critical noospheric spoor that the Bezoans could use to justify their apparently treasonous attack on the Slav Nasr Enginseers (and – by the by, as far as the Bezoans are concerned – their Lamb's World and Lastrati hosts). Denied these, the attack would be completely unjustifiable – and there were be call in higher places to sanction the aggression of Bezoa. Perhaps worse for Toshiba, they might instigate investigations into their shadowy domains. +

* Omricon's Inquisitor Josiah Maltheus always argued they were!

+++

Nothing happened for the span of many mortal hearts and breaths. With machine-born patience, Toshiba waited in the silent azure gloom. Then she felt it, the first waves of electromagnetism as the fire in reactor-hearts kindled. Turbines spun up, heavy metal limbs let out pneumatic hisses and the blue glow of her axe gradually gave way to the blood red glow coming from countless active sensor nodes and diode displays. 

The local noosphere, a moment ago near-absent, sprung into eager, buzzing life. It was filled with dozens of reports indicating successful activation. In a microsecond they were drowned out by a flurry of failed target acquisition notifications. If Toshiba had retained her human throat, she would have swallowed involuntarily. The sheer… hunger of the automata always took her by surprise, despite her eidetic recall. That and the extent of their animalistic awareness.

+++Bide. Target acquisition will commence in 22 hours sidereal. Such is the will of the Omnissah. Follow+++

With that cant, Toshiba turned, ignoring the thunderous cacophony behind her, and began to march out of the tomb, beginning the long procession to the bulk lifters that would carry this maniple of machines to where they would make holy murder in the Machine God’s name.  

+++

+ Set up and deployment +

+ Move up, we can barely breathe! +

+ Coo, well this was a big game. More than a hundred Guard infantry, a score of robots, nearly a dozen tanks and three super-heavies meant that the Guard barely fitted on an 8 x 4ft board – and with the number of huge bases on the Mechanicus side, things weren't better there! To an extent, this is part of the problem of the increasing size of games (not much room for meaningful manouevre), but as we were aiming for spectacle, I think it works well! +

+ Guard's-eye view. The forces barely fit into the 12in deployment zone – not, I suspect, that these Lamb's Worlders would complain about the shield of steel around them! +

+++

+ For big games, we find it generally more sensible to discuss set up etc. rather than rely on the luck of the dice. A diagonal deployment might have worked, but short edges would have just meant most stuff wasn't involved. Long board edges mean everything can get stuck in – for maximum carnage and over-the-top spectacle. +

+ Three-quarters of the board represented part of the badland deserts of Neues Tremo, the remainder representing a small xeno-archaeological outpost of the planet's proto-hive. The Guard gathered in the south, while the Mechanicus approached from the north. +

+ The Lamb's Worlders deployed an armoured wedge in the centre, anchored by the Righteous Indignation and supported by first platoon – directly behind the tanks. To their west, their urban-fighting allies, the Lastrati 3rd, waited in the urban edges of the Spill (bottom of picture), supported by a heavy weapon platoon (a battery of mortars and heavy bolters) and a Rapier squadron. +

+ To the east of the Baneblade, Second Platoon and the company's auxiliaries (Rough Riders and Ogryns) advanced alongside the grumbling Lastrati tanks. _

+ Opposite this gathering of might drew up the dread robots of the Mechanicus, with the unmistakable Knights seeking a mighty kill in the centre. In the Spill, skittered a mass of Vorax, directed by a Datasmith. +

+++

+ Early turns +

+ Vorax rush forward to secure the peculiar xenos technology + 

+ Commanding the Mechanicus western flank, Datasmith Teslo Murakoshi urged his Vorax forward, keen to push up to the walls of the complex, where they could muster for a brutal assault, sheltered from the small arms of the Guard. +

+ As Whittaker struggled to direct his forces through vox-static, Toshiba  smoothly ordered her unshakeable forces forward. A sea of bloodshed-eager robots kicked up clouds of dust in their urgency. The Magos lingered over an irrelevant feeling of satisfaction; but dismissed it. Such indulgences, she mused, were clearly the cause of her earlier defeat. +

+ The Lastrati, a mongrel regiment made up of the battered survivors of decade-long conflicts, grimly looked down their sights. With no targets visible, they were wearily aware that the order to advance must come – the noospheric datapackets must be kept from the hands of this lunatic priesthood. +

+ A battery of Lamb's World mortars begins to bombard Murakoshi's forces, arcing high over the reinforced walls – with the aim of softening up the defenders and make the Lastrati's work easier. Alas, anti-personnel shells do little to robots designed to withstand high-intensity attacks. + 

+ Urged forward with the digital equivalent of bloodlust, the battle-automata made advance at the double, their shooting paltry. +

+ The noise is cacophonous, the confusion total! +

+ With what little sense of self-preservation being furiously overridden by the Magos, they marched towards a killing field. +

+ Before events overtook them, the order came for a general advance. Whittaker favoured a policy of oversaturating target acquisition – in essence, by making everything an equal threat, unwary opponents would spread out their fire, diluting its effect instead of concentrating on key targets. +

+ To ensure compliance, Commissars and Priests were seeded amongst the Lamb's Worlders – though thus far, the nearby Righteous Indignation had proven a reassuring presence for the Guardsmen. +

+ Toshiba had adopted a 'horns of the bull' strategy, with a solid centre flanked by faster units on both the west and east. Hovering drones spearheaded the eastern flank, their Thallax jet-troops making the most of the Munitorum supply depot, which had only just seen the end of the assault on the proto-hive. +

+ With neither side willing to back down, the centre of the battlefield quickly filled with troops and vehicles from both sides. Casualties at first were light, with the Mechanicus' short-to-medium range weaponry unable to cover the distance. +

+ The same could not be said for the Guard. Shells and missiles began to fall amongst the centre, blasting apart the advancing Castellax. The Rapier squadron in particular proved their worth, an entire maniple of the battle-automata being reduced to scrap metal in one volley. +

+ The Leman Russ squadrons focussed their fire on the Knights – Whittaker was all too aware that these Lords of War would be intent on the biggest prize... +

+ Second platoon, spearheaded by the Company's elite mounted Grenadiers, lends their fire to the attack, their small arms contributing little in damage. +

+++

+ Mid battle +

+ Toshiba's forces have taken the majority of the damage and casualties at this point – but the forces are now arrayed at the optimum range for the inhuman robots. Besides, casualties overall have been light. The Reginae Obscurae and Gnosis, both smoking but operational, close in on the Righteous Indignation, determined to claim the scalp. +

+ For its part, the Righteous Indignation was living up to its name, it weapons proving considerably more effective than the slightly-smaller bore battle cannons of the Lamb's World tanks. +

+ A Valkyrie swept in, performing a strafing run on the Vorax as it carried its Grenadier squad towards the central objective. Murakoshi's forces had little to answer, and so continued their metallic advance, heedless of the myriad small explosions around them. +

+ This was not a battle that men could win by strength of arms – but perhaps the power of their weaponry could overcome their hulking foes? This Special Weapons team finds out the hard way that even melta guns can fail to find their mark... +

+ A panoramic shot shows the flow of the battle. The two forces are poised to meet in the middle, where the bulk of the noospheric datapackets lie. The speed of the Mechanicus means that three lie in Bezoan hands – and this keen eye on the mission early on is to prove crucial. +

+ Second Platoon demonstrate why the Mechanicus cannot rest on their laurels – fewer than a dozen Thallax now need to hold their prize from a reinforced platoon of determined Guardsmen for an extended period. +

+ The duel of the Superheavies heats up. The Reginae Obscurae and Righteous Indignation trade hammerblows, both taking grievous damage. The Gnosis, meanwhile, almost disappears under battlecannon and Manticore fire...+

+ As the battle begins to stretch, the two forces grapple with each other; neither yet able to find the telling advantage. Where will victory fall? +

+ We'll find out in part two! +

+++

+ [+ Part II currently inloading – [awaitpend] updates +] +

+ inload: Adeptus Titanicus board-building +

+ Welcome to Calth: building an Ithraca board for Adeptus Titanicus +

+ Sound the warhorns! Like me, lots of happy hobbyists received their copy of Adeptus Titanicus over the weekend, and I spent my spare time reading over the rules, poring over the models, and generally enthusing. I haven't played it, but the genuine enthusiasm that the designers have poured into the game is obvious. The rulebook is littered with thoughtful designer's notes that make it clear this new game is a love letter to its forebears, but it has been redesigned from the ground up, streamlined and generally combining the best bits of history to make something very impressive (entirely fitting for the Adeptus Mechanicus!) +

+ There are lots of reviews and discussions on various aspects of the game, so I thought I'd exload some thoughts on building a board, along with what little advice I can offer. The third army is something I think will be vital to a good game of Adeptus Titanicus which, like Epic, appears to be a game of manoeuvre. +

Look at how the Titan is given context as a giant within even this work-in-progress cityscape.

+ Theoretical +

+ First off, why build a board at all? The answer to that is fourfold, and it ties in with the different ways of playing listed in the rulebook. 

+ Open Gaming  This most accessible way to play, when you simply pick models and get going, is sometimes sneered at; but I think it's the core of play. It's simply more fun to play on a pleasing-looking board, and if you're looking for new people to try it out, having something beautiful is more likely to attract and interest them. Adeptus Titanicus is also aimed at older games, who may well have children of their own. If they're interested, Open Gaming is a natural way in; and what better way to get involved than with the art and craft of building a board? +

+ Narrative Gaming  From a narrative point of view, a modelled gameboard helps with immersion. It's much easier to imagine yourself as a Princeps stomping through a city when there are some tiny walls, car-parking lots (or the distant future equivalents) and so forth to suggest scale. Building a new board for every game you play is all but impossible, but creating something for a specific campaign – whether all the way through, or for a special scenario – will help set the scene and make your storytelling all the sweeter. +

+ Matched Gaming  You can, of course, use an existing table or board, but the more you use a board or mat, the more familiar it becomes. Testing your skill as a general in the real world is as much about mastering the terrain as your troops; and having a new board will give you some and your opponent new challenges. +

+ Finally, if you're not confident with your painting skills, then be assured that fielding even the most basic models will be hugely enhanced by a nice gameboard. In the same way that a good frame can gives a touch of class and status to an average painting, a proper gameboard will enhance your work and show it off to best effect. The converse is also true: even the most beautiful models are made to look less interesting on a undecorated table surface. This really gets to the root of tabletop wargaming as a visual spectacle: models are small (well, duh!), and from a gamer or spectator's viewpoint, they have much less impact than the board itself. +

+++

+ Practical +

+ To hobbyists used to lavishing hours on a single model, it can look exhausting even to consider modelling and painting such a relatively large area. However, building a useable board can be surprisingly quick. Remember, don't think of it as the artwork; think of it as the frame. A good frame enhances the focus, but doesn't draw it. Unless you're going for all-out one-off visual spectacle – as in the astonishing Legen project of (the equally astonishing) Gardens of Hecate [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and Iron Sleet's brilliant Thorn Moon project {+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – you don't want to overdetail an all-purpose board, as it'll draw attention from your models, and be less versatile, giving it a shorter gaming lifecycle. +

Board-building can be cheap: I built this Ithraca board using junk from my garage, some DIY materials and a few select bits from my bits box, but to make a similar board from scratch would cost just a few quid.

+  It can also be spontaneous. Having built my first Warlord (see below), I took it downstairs to prime, and got completely carried away. A bit of texture gel, PVA and polyfilla later, I'd turned a spare bit of thick MDF into a serviceable little board. It's an odd size – roughly 3½ft square – but that's right in the middle of the suggested sizes for smaller Titanicus games. +

+ While I do encourage you just to get stuck in, as I did for Ithraca Calth, If you do want to make a board, here are some practical considerations that can help make your board more useable for Adeptus Titanicus in particular:

+ Keep texture subtle  Gluing sand down is a time-tested way to create texture on the board; but for smaller scale gaming, it can look too coarse – particularly for urban areas. Instead, try skimming the surface with polyfilla or similar [+LINGUOSERVITOR APPEND+I think Spackle is the US equivalent] will approximate tarmac texture and give visual interest to large flat areas. Plaster will also work, but make sure to 'key' (i.e. rough up) the surface beforehand to prevent it flaking off. This is a lesson learned from my Purefinder Chanterwick boards [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], built for Court of the Sun King project [REF: pagetab above]. Heavy texture looks great, but it's awkward to place large buildings on, particularly if they themselves have a flat base. You end up with wobbly or awkward placing, which breaks the immersion. +

+ Consider incorporating a feature  A focal feature is optional. Leaving it off will make your board more flexible and versatile, but less characterful. I chose to add a large crater, which I embedded into the surrounding polyfilla, to help hide the ugly edges and improve the immersion. A crater is anonymous enough to add to the visual without completely taking attention. Other features like hills or parkland would work similarly. If you're building a feature board, you might consider something more eye-catching, like a mine entrance, landing pad or other definite feature. +

+ Break the lines  Avoid placing roads, rivers, canyons, building foundation plates and similar features at right angles to the edges of the board, and each other. A grid system feels 'safe' and will allow you to tile your board with others more easily, but always looks less interesting and natural. It's also bad for Matched Play, as it allows for metagaming distances etc. Keeping the terrain at angles other than 90º will keep you and the other player guessing. Similarly, avoid placing features too near the centre, as it makes for predictable games. Having a clear area here gives maximum versatility – remember you can always place scatter terrain or a standalone feature here. +

+ Use manufactured materials  For Ithraca, I laid down some mesh tape to indicate the roads. When I skimmed polyfilla over the top, it leaves a subtle ordered texture – using regularly-textured materials like duct tape, aluminium mesh or cross-stitch fabric helps to quickly build up large convincing areas of man-made (or xeno-made) construction that subtly break up the otherwise featureless plain. I incorporated some mountcard offcuts as raised concrete platforms/building plates for similar reasons. +

+ Scale-appropriate detail  I mentioned above not wanting to draw attention from the models, but a few hints of detail will make a huge difference to the overall effect. A few linear strips of low-standing ruins – from the old Epic: 40,000 base sprue – and some gravel and sticks from the garden give the impression of rubble and broken trees, helping to sell the specific scale. Of course, this does somewhat restrict the board's use to a particular game or scale, but I think that's a feature, not a bug – if you're going to the effort of making a board for a game, I think you should go the whole hog, or you risk making a halfway house that isn't particularly interesting. +

Coropedion, Legio Sumer-Nikator (Sons of the Temple)

+ Leave space  Don't overfill the board. Remember that you're creating a framing effect, and that you'll be playing a game on it. The more you cram onto the board, and the more complex road/canal/river systems you create, the less space your models will have, and the less versatile the board will become in terms of buildings/scatter terrain. However, this needs to be balanced. Part of the reason for building the board is to create interesting tactical challenges. You might intentionally restrict the space between two flat areas. This will allow you to create a narrow street that only certain models can fit down in some games by adding free-standing buildings on either side. In others, you can simply leave the flat area open as a market square or gathering area. +

+ Wobbly model syndrome  Due to the size of the Titan bases, texture is particularly important to bear in mind for Adeptus Titanicus games. It's partly for this reason, and partly to help sell the setting and scale of a ruined city, that I've kept the board mostly flat. Having your Titans canted awkwardly highlights their model nature, and generally causes problems. Give your Titans room to walk. +

+ Storage  Consider what space you have to store the board. The realtively small size of an Adeptus Titanicus playing area means it's potentially practical to create and store it as a single piece (as I've done), but you might want to break it into two or more parts. Consider also he height and delicacy of the details you incorporate – keeping things low and building them sturdily is essential if you have to store your board upright or against something. However, if you have the space to leave it set up, or to store it flat, then feel free to go to town on modelled-on mountains and spires!

+++

+ Conclusion +

+ I hope that's given you some ideas – and it helps you avoid mistakes I've made in the past!+

+ The sample set-up below shows the sort of thing you can then create on your board with scatter scenery. Even very simply primed, it's already looking interesting with some WIP buildings on it. +

+ inload: Scenery building for Necromunda +

+ Scenery for Golgotham +

This one's name was Viggsy Carbolic, a verti-docker working the breach from the filtration districts down to where the Chemsalt Opens began. Every morning he woke up to the distant cry of ratowls out over the cavernous sea chambers; eyes sore, muscles tight across his back.

Muscle. That's what Carbolic could provide. He'd be introduced to me as a useful man to have in a tight spot; ex-ganger, ex-dealer, ex-enforcer – in-house, of course; the 'Ficials wouldn't have taken a second-look at him – and ex-criminal. 

'That's a lot of exes,' I'd commented, when we'd met at last. His scarred old face had pulled up into that sad, distant half-smile I'd later remember him by.

'You should meet the ex-wives.' 

I'd grinned. In truth, Carbolic was over-the-hill – an old man of nearly thirty, and already showing the greying skin of oxide build-up that takes us all in Water IV. Still, there was something about him; and the Throne alone knew that I couldn't afford to turn down a proper ganger; not when the rest of the block was skinny, excitable juves and a few loosescrews who couldn't make ends meet elsewise.

'So why the change of heart, Carbolic? What makes you want to get back into the game?'

Again, that sad smile. He didn't catch my eye; kept looking down at the pitted old table.

'You don't choose gang life, Fito. Gang life chooses you.'

+++

+ Water filtration district +

+ A small gathering of the PCRC at the weekend saw us beavering away to build some terrain for the upcoming release of Necromunda. +

+ Between Warmtamale, grahamgilchrist and myself, we've put together a very dense little 2 x 2 board – or more likely, enough to cover a 4 x 4 in a more practical fashion. +

+ The core of the water filtration district is one of the individual Sector Mechanicus boards that GW sell for their Armies of Parade event. A swift bit of hacksawing down one side of the road gave us an imposingly large wall [+vis-ref above+], which we then built up into a box with a spot of impromptu carpentry. +

+ The concept for the piece is a water-processing facility; one of thousands in the hive. Wickerwater, in the Vice IC district, has been loudly chugging away for the past four millennia or so, converting chemsalt- (and worse) polluted water that condenses and trickles and collects down the hive into potable (well, 'potable') water for the industrotech workers nearby. +

+ There's still a lot to do – greebling on the 'top deck', tidying, and of course painting, but we're really pleased at it so far. +

+ The underlying structure is essentially a huge pipe that just out of the wall, passes in front of the huge aquila – for, after all, the water must be purified spiritually as well as physically. +

+ We wanted to create a sense of 'monolithic claustophobia' – huge basic structures that are covered in a tangled wormery of pipes and walkways that have grown up like weeds over the centuries, so we included bits from a variety of sources to give a hotch-potch feel of varied tech-levels. +

+ Timber repairs – perhaps once temporary, but now as essential to the structure as anything else sit alongside the crumbling mechanical sections and dangling chains. +

+ There's a lot of height here – I think the highest point is about two foot off the surface! – which I hope will make for fun gaming. There's a balance to be struck between spectacle and playability; so a number of large chunks of the piece are separate, so that we can disguise the underlying pipework structure to a greater or lesser degree. Thus, Wickerwater will be able to double up as other areas; and is also practical for full scale 40k games, where such dense terrain is not always so desirable. +