An unexpected gift

 Every now and then, the hobby throws you a little reminder of why we all stick around.

This very week, the ever-generous Demi_Morgana very kindly sent me this absolutely cracking little mini as a gift. A Cawdor Juve straight out of classic Necromunda. No strings attached, no bribes involved (as far as I know!), just a lovely gesture from one hobbyist to another:

Looking far more confident than most Juves tend to survive for

No joking, this genuinely meant a lot to me. It really hit me right in the feels

 You can (and absolutely should) read his own post about the mini over on his blog here. Seriously, go and have a look, there’s loads of great stuff there, and it’s well worth your time.

The mini itself is a beauty: full of character, wonderfully scruffy, and with that unmistakable oldschool Necromunda vibe. It’s one of those minis that tells a story the moment you look at it: Full of attitude and slightly questionable life choices, exactly what a Juve should be. Ragged robes, oversized gun, and that wonderful sense that this lad has no real idea how dangerous his situation actually is.

Either lining up a heroic shot… or about to miss spectacularly

Yes, even the back of the mini has character. No lazy sculpting here

 But more than the mini itself, it’s the gesture that really got me. Taking the time to paint something specifically for someone else and then sending it off into the wild. This is peak hobby generosity. When people talk about how great this community can be, this is exactly what they mean.

Standing tall, surveying the wasteland, probably making very poor life choices

 So yeah: thank you, Demi_Morgana, genuinely. Stuff like this really does make the hobby feel that bit warmer and more human. And yes, I’m still ridiculously pleased with this.

Much appreciated, mate. 

Testing the board: Necromunda

The day has finally come! Trumpets and fanfares! After six years working on the vertical board of the mining town of Qala Debdou, it’s time to actually start trying it out for real :)

I’ve been building it for ages (and not building it for even longer), and up until now I’d only tested it with miniatures, checking if they could move around the board, if I could reach every corner with my hand... But I still hadn’t actually broken it in with a proper game. Well, I’ve finally done it!

First things first: the board isn’t finished! There’s still loads of stuff I want to add. But the truth is the whole main module has been ready for over a year now, and it’s good enough to put to the test. What I really want to find out is whether I’ve spent years building a genuinely playable board… or just an oversized dollhouse that’s totally got out of hand :D

For the occasion I got together with my usual geek crew, who very kindly set me up with a game of Necromunda. I’d never played it before (not even the original, which has been a thorn in my side for years), so I told them I thought it was a brilliant idea.

There was a bit of buzz about trying the board out, so in the end four of us got together. Two of them are regular Necromunda players and have been running a campaign for a while now, one with an Escher gang and the other with an Orlock gang. For the other two of us, they suggested a mutant gang and a group of Enforcers.

The idea behind the game is that the working population at the smelter/factory/mine/whatever has turned into a bloodthirsty horde of cannibal mutants thanks to the management slipping unauthorised additives into the food in a bid to save a few credits... Now riots have broken out in the district, and two rival gangs have seized the chance to loot everything. The foreman is under threat, so a small detachment of local enforcers has to escort him to the spaceport for evacuation.

But the local mutants are lying in wait! They see both sides as filthy invaders, and they’ll do whatever it takes to defend their home...

The outskirts

When I prepared the board I decided to display almost any other scenery elements I had, in order to present the town and its outskirts. In the end it wasn't such a good idea, but we'll get to that in a moment. Here you have the gangs:

Escher lurking in the shadows

Orlocks coming over to the party!

The escorted foreman

 I'll edit the first picture so you can have a better understanding of the situation. I'm marking the Orlocks on the left of the pic (green), the Escher on the right (red), the Enforcers on the lower part (blue) and the spaceport on top of the structure (blue arrow). There are several objective tokens scattered throughout all the board (which both Escher and Orlock gangs will attempt to get) and we determined six random points frow where the mutants will come out each turn:

 The goal for the Enforcer team was quite impossible to achieve. They'd have to go just across the battlefield, enter the town and go up and up through the maze, being caught between two way larger gangs and the upcoming mutants. The two gangs would have a more or less standard confrontation, having to capture the objectives and, ideally, the foreman (who was coming to them anyway). The mutants would only have to cause some mayhem, so their victory conditions imply keeping the hive clean of strangers.

Let's roll!

The gangs spread out and start eyeing everything around them with greed and hunger:

Come on, girls!

Come on, boys!

At the end of the turn we rolled the dice and the muties started to come out!

Come on, non-binary unwilling genetically altered people!

The Enforcers started to run with the foreman towards the entrance to the town:

But the gangs are already dangerously close

 On the next turn the Orlocks already ran into some serious clashes with the mutants...

But they just kept coming out of everywhere:

These minis are perfect for everything but what for what they were originally designed

One of the Escher Juves threw a demo charge at the Enforcers squad. They all held their ground, but the foreman ended up wounded:

Boom

I'm new to the game, but that result doesn't look good

The two gangs started closing in on the Enforcers, figuring they’d force them to hunker down and dig in. But for me that would’ve meant certain death — the goal was to make it to the other side of the board. So the Enforcer sergeant grabbed the wounded foreman by the leg and dragged him along while the squad broke into the open, firing at anything that moved within range.

Orlocks got their share too

The muties were more dreadful than anticipated:

Those steroids on the meal really made their effect

 An Orlock with a jetpack (they have two in the gang) got onto an Escher occupied roof, severily injuring two girls and capturing the objective:

Ouch

The mutants deployed their ultimate weapon, an Ambot (we used my mini of the Genestealer Cult Mining Suit)

You can ignore the posters in the background. Or not

The mutants caused an absolute bloodbath — they turned out to be lethal.

Both for the Orlocks

And for the Eschers

 As for the Enforcers, they made their desperate dash into the open — and honestly, I think I had possibly the best turn I’ve ever had in any game in my whole life XD

With a single shot they took down the Escher leader, which meant her wild pet (that had been attacking an Enforcer) was forced to flee:

Bang

 They also dropped a mutant that was charging straight at them:

Blamm

 And finished off the wounded Escher Juve (the one who’d lobbed the demo charge at them earlier):

K-pow

The Orlock with the jetpack killed the remaining Escher on the roof, meaning that the Escher gang lost five (five!) members in a single turn. Wow.

The Escher gang was essentially out of the game, and this was turn 4

Now that the Ambot had taken care of the Escher, the path was clear to its next target… the Enforcers

Whiiiir. Stomp. Stomp. Whiiiir

 The Orlocks were having a hard time dealing with the muties too. However, the guy with the jumpack and flamer guns managed to fry a couple of them:

Flames on! (flying flaming guy, come on)

The foreman managed to get back on his feet, but they could no longer run for it. The Orlocks caught up with them and the fight turned into close combat:

Orlock, Orlock, what a big hammer you have!

It's to smash you better with!

Things are getting rash for the Enforcers...

Yup, that one on the roof is a jetpack Orlock

Can you foresee the result of this encounter?

 

Well, but of course you can

Eschers were not doing any better...

Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys!

Given the current situation, the foreman simply started running as fast as he could:

Nope. Not gonna stay here

But he got caught on the run by a jetpack Orlock (kind of true star of the game). He intercepted him and engaged to capture him:

Were you going anywhere?

The Orlocks got the ground and captured the foreman:

You coming with us, big boy

 So by the end of turn 7 the game was totally done. The Orlocks declared themselves the winners, having captured the foreman and taken down 16 muties. The Eschers, decimated, had managed to secure three objectives, but they’d only killed one mutant and were left in tatters.

Wow. Intense.

The game was really tense and a lot of fun. The chaos of playing with four different sides added loads of enjoyment, and I didn’t mind the imbalance between players. In fact, that’s what gave the game its unique flavour. However, as you’ve probably noticed while reading, the issue I mentioned at the start did come up. Setting up the whole village on the outskirts of the town was a mistake. In the end, the game focused almost entirely on the horizontal area of the board, and the city —which was what we’d actually come to test— ended up being little more than an oversized backdrop.

We never really got to test its true worth as a board: the corners, the LOS blockers, the chances for ambushes, the different vertical levels... all of that ended up untouched, which is a real shame. Maybe Necromunda (especially with so many players) turned out to be a game with too many minis. I’d have liked to try this out in the town itself. But my gang didn’t even get the chance to set foot on the board, we ended up stuck among the scenery on the outskirts.

For the next test game I want to try something different. First off, I’ll only use the town itself —no extra scenery on the side. I want to really test what the board can do, that’s what matters to me. Secondly, I think this will work better with fewer minis and with a more narrative-driven scenario, not just a standard match of fighting and grabbing objectives. I’m not sure what I’ll go for yet, but I’ll probably try out Stargrave or some other ruleset along those lines. I’ll keep you posted!

In the meantime, I hope you’ve enjoyed this battle. I promise more test games are on the way! 

Don't feed the troll

You can find trolls all over the internet, that's a fact. Even here, on this blog! Don't you believe me? See by yourself, today I bring a commission. Just in the same fashion of the Blood Bowl Ogre turned into Necromunda, I was given this Blood Bowl Troll to turn it into... well, Necromunda.

I didn't get many specific instructions, just to make it grimdark and menacing. In the beginning I toyed with the idea of a huge, massive two handed weapon, something like this:

At what point does something become 'too much' even for Warhammer?

I discarded that as I found the Goblin King hand from the Hobbit starter box. This could work better...

Five fingers on the right hand, four clawed fingers on the left one... Necromunda muties, man

The front part of the mini was painfully clear, something needed to be added. I thought of a canister of some kind, instead of the original wooden sign he had hanging from his neck.

I think this is the first time I intubate anyone ever

Best way to WH40K-ize a mini

In the end I turned the weapon into a spear. That helped with the original pose of the mini, throwing a ball.

It had a more natural flowing pose this way

I had been asked questions about the green stuff tubes. Far from my intention to make a 'tutorial', I'll just share my ideas on a way that works for me, I hope someone finds it useful.

More than enough for most of the uses on a 28mm mini

 The roll maker is kind of easy to use, but it can be deceiving. Try not to abuse of yellow stuff in the mix, though the key here is about constant pressure (and speed) when using the tool. If you press harder  at some point (or stop the movement halfways) you will likely smash the roll and make it lose its shape. Worst case scenario is having greenstuff stuck on the plate itself, that's a pain in the ass. In case of need, keep the tool wet.

A tube, long enough. Pay atterntion to both ends

Now the issue is to give proper shape to this and to add it to the mini. My hint is to never use your bare hands, as you inevitably will leave your prints or smash the tube. You can work with the tube immediately, as long as you don't touch it directly. You can use different tools (mainly burins) to manipulate the tube. Let's keep it simple and cheap, today I'll be using a mere toothpick. Just take the excess on the end apart.

This way you'll have only proper tube on one end

Stick the toothpick on that 'new' end (on it's very edge, we don't want to make a mess with this useful part)

Now we can manipulate it

Stick it to the desired part of the mini. Roll the toothpick to free the greenstuff.

Don't worry if the joint is a little mess, we'll get back there later

Now you can take the other end of the tube wherever you please. In this case there was enough so I could use my hands, but you may want to use the burin/toothpick again. At this point you may want to make complex forms or whatever you fancy. Work now that the greenstuff is not cured.

Be careful and avoid harsh movements so the tube joint remains in place

Use the toothpick to fix the tube to the other end at will. You will inevitably have to smash it.

Damn, it's /%&%$ difficult to take pics like this one

 This way the tubes stay in place. Just let the greenstuff cure, we'll manage later with the ugly ends.

It works for now

 Let's repeat the process quickly:

Enough for my purposes

 And again:

So you get the idea. I don't want to give the impression that I'm speaking the truth or giving a lesson. It's just the way that works for me. But OK, we have a problem, all those dirty, messy joints. What can we do? Once the greenstuff is cured, we will have to add a small 'ring' around the tube, just on the joint, to hide our previous mess. Look at the spear:

Do the same on each one

 It works the same way for fine wiring. Glue the thread and once everything is safe add the small ring to hide the thing, giving the impression of the proper plug:

This will be pretty much the mini

It also works on bases or wherever

Painting wise, the main direction I was given was making it dark and menacing, and specifically wearing kind of gothic makeup, the kind of The Crow one. So...

Grrrrrr

There she snorts!

The shoulder pad comes from the Blood Bowl Ogre!

This is how we hunt in our tribe

Told ya, Jim, this pest control job in the underhive sucks

 This is it!

At this point I can only wish you a merry Christmas! Enjoy the holidays with your beloved ones; I'll try to bring a last post before the year ends. In the meantime, best wishes to you all!!