Pretty Much a Bunch of Photos of Plants...With Some Giant Rats Thrown in For Fun.
This month I (could have...) had a good shot at finishing up all the little projects from The Book Of Peril. Unfortunately, while doing these, I had a great idea for a really large project...so, this article marks the 'almost finished' point and will also begin a massive build that will be revealed in an article or two.
What does it all mean?
The Book Of Peril is hobby value. Buy it! Quick re-cap: Necromunda can be more funnerer with the addition of Badzones, which have Environments and generate Events...some of those require scenery, models, or other markers. I am attempting to make all that stuff, so when my group plays we have everything ready. Also, I need to fill my hobby time, also also, I'm a desperate man in the throes of a full-on Necromunda fixation. While out exploring the crummier locals of the Underhive you may chance upon a Dome Jungle where dangerous, and hungry, plants have taken over. The Book of Peril gives you three choices of Carnivorous Plants and I have two covered with the old Games Workshop Alien Plants box (the last being reserved for that big project...). Each variety has different in-game effects, which I'll worry about in-game, rules-wise I need 'at least six' to fulfill the Environment requirement. I started with the Barbed Venomgorse, as I had only three stands to paint.
Lucky for me I also have an eight-year-old, who is a competent painting lackey, when I need one. Painting weird plants is much like painting weird monsters...you can kinda do what you want, it's meant to look weird. We chose a strange colour scheme and started blocking out colours, and before you could say 'child labour laws' we were finished! This was a great, fun and easy project for my Daughter and (in my strange way of measuring time...) I got more time for other Necromunda stuff!!!
The Shardwrack Spines, as a sculpt, bring me no joy but were easy to paint and I have five stands. So, eight stands of two varieties of Carnivorous Plants is what I end up with. I'm going to call that done as I have more than enough to play and I feel the urge to build something...I have been saving a cool model railroad billboard and somehow ended up with two extra sets of platform legs.
With a bit of creativity...and a whole lotta rust I'll have some new scatter terrain for my Badzones.
I've grabbed a pack of the Games Workshop Barbed Bracken which will supply more than enough greenery for what I have planned. Next I cull the dwindling bits box for a few bits and pieces of techno-stuff, and then onto the basing material...
I notice that I have lots and lots of bases from various other game kits and plenty of square G.W. ones as well, both of these next projects were done at the same time but for ease of reading let's break them up by picture.
Oddly sized round bases, strange low profile bases or different angles of slope on a base side all set my teeth on edge, especially in a Games Workshop game...I mean these guys invented a staggering number of base sizes, why use other ones? Normally I never would but then it occurred to me that to make organic looking / feeling scenery a round footprint (especially in a setting where almost everything is square or rectangular...) would help differentiate these pieces. The concept is easy enough: glue a few bases together, glue on some junk, use putty to fill any big holes/ smooth out areas, add Barbed Bracken, paint, rust and add classic G.W. Flock (or 'fungus' as it was called in first edition...) and done. I will use these pieces for double duty as they will also make good Ghast deposits, allowing me to use the Ghast Harvest scenario from the Main Rulebook Arbitrator tools.
I had lots of Barbed Bracken leftover and also lots of square bases of varying size and it got me thinking about strip-malls and shopping complexes and I realized what my Necromunda board had been missing all along was potted plants! I also realized that I should keep an eye out for more food-court or drinking establishment scenery...mostly because aesthetically it is awesome. The planters were constructed by gluing square bases onto each other. The top base (which is upside down) was then filled with putty, which was painted brown while still soft, and the pre-painted Bracken was pressed into the putty. The planters which had been sprayed silver were given a quick sponge of danger yellow for a splash of colour and they were finished. I've got a few more ideas for ornamental plants in the Underhive and am looking at plastic Christmas berries, Styrofoam balls, and all sorts of other things. I've got plenty more bases so no doubt there will be some more in the future. That's all I have pulled together for this month's roughly plant themed article.
The Badzones setting is pretty much handled with these projects. I do however need some giant rats for an Event and some more industrial terrain pieces for my own satisfaction. Giant rats ended up being harder to source than I had suspected...finding none from Games Workshop I settled (after much searching...) on the Barrow Rats from Reaper Bones.
These giant rats were sculpted on an integral base that was a bit too fantasy themed for my liking. The Bones plastic is quite soft and cuts easily, so the bases were removed and the rats were put on Games Workshop bases. Then painted. I like the sickly look of these guys, they fit right into an industrial nightmare world.
No idea what I'll talk about next month as I'm pretty content being at least one book further along than my gaming. Keen readers will note that I've totally missed the Sump Sea setting. Or have I?...more likely this is the big project that is forming in my mind...but, I also want more food-court stuff...and more guys for my gangs...and I really like the looks of that new terrain...Boy! I feel pulled in many different directions and I'm not sure where I'll end up.
Stay tuned for more disorganized madness in the future!
-Uncle Mike
