I've mentioned before how Necromunda is a game for older, more experienced gamers. Well, if you are as old as me then you are very much excited about how the hobby (and your favourite game: Necromunda...) has turned out...yet, you are also very much driven to have the things you never had or always wished you did.

One of the words that can be used to describe what that is is 'Nostalgia'...we'll leave those other words out for just now...

You never know what will have a big impact on you as a person. I always like to see lists of people's favourite things, it lets me know what shaped them, I guess. I'm not quite vain enough to provide you with a list, without anyone asking, but I will say that 'How To Make Wargames Terrain' would be in my top three bestest books ever. Games Workshop changed the course of my life forever in 1996 when I first opened a copy of that 81 page (weird, I know...) tome. As well as an excellent beginners guide to the hobby, the book is filled with classic scenery from the early days of Games Workshop. All that fantastic cardboard, Styrofoam and PVA glue mixed with sand.

Quite compact and relatively easy to understand, as far as Holy Books go anyway...

I feel my tabletop gaming collection is pretty top notch, however, there are still a few things I have on my bucket list of essential scenery. This article deals with two items from (and now removed from...) that list. The first is simple: Page 62 of the aforementioned book: Giant Cacti.

Though they are a non-lethal cultivar many lives were lost securing these Death World Cacti so you could appreciate them in the food courts of YYC Hive.

I honestly don't know if these are a quality end product...I can't tell...I'm too close to it. I have wanted these goofy things for ages but never had the time to make them, and now that I have, I love them so much. The instructions are short and simple. Basically, stick some skewers into a Styrofoam ball, seal and paint. Presto: Cactus. If only it had ended up being so simple...

These were a total pain in my ass, for lack of a better expression. The skewers had to be glued and re-glued again until I meticulously puttied around a good 80% of them for stability. They were sealed with glue and paint at least 4 times after that, both to bulk up the skewers and to alter the texture of the Styrofoam ball (which is so obviously a Styrofoam ball...).

I made some planters out of circular bases and stuck the Cacti in, shaving off a flat section on the bottom of the ball for better contact. Then they got a patchy paint job to further draw attention away from the surface detail.

This new Tectonic Fragdrill (That's some solid product naming...) gave me strange ideas when I was building it

Still waffling on what to do next I got a few of the new Games Workshop scenery boxes. Many of them will be used on my big project which is still in the works but I took some time to build the Tectonic Fragdrill and it was fun and easy and the scenery piece is big. More importantly however I was looking at the component parts and wondering how to build something even bigger and funner. And with a little help from 1989 I did...

Strange how stuff works out. I got a hold of an old Armorcast/Games Workshop Warhound Titan kit...which is another thing I have always needed. It was partially assembled and painted when I got it and the casting quality was dubious, even for 1989. I'm going to assume that it is a re-cast and be sad while I spend many, many hours filling bubble holes and sanding and cleaning up mould lines...

Not sure that Necromunda is classified as a Forge World but they must make something...looks like YYC Hive produces these Legio Tempestus pattern Warhounds.

The rarity of this piece lead me to make it a bit more multi-usable than I normally would. I entertain thoughts of playing 40K in some glorious future time using this Warhound and the Legion that accompanies it...but that is way, way, way away. Right now I want to make a production scaffold sort of thing around the Titan, as if it was being assembled in Hive. Long story short: I used magnets. The right arm socket is magnetized and the loose cable is removable (so, I can add another arm at some point...), The upper torso is also magnetized and removable and has another piece of loose cable to hide the connector should I choose to set it up disassembled. I then started hacking up another Tectonic Fragdrill, a couple Sarchristian Forgeshrines, some tubes, a couple of those walkways I cast up last article and some toy scale chain. I want it to look like the arm is being hoisted into place.

Since this is a rather long terrain piece I also felt the need to magnetize the bridge piece and a half dozen various spots, for maximum re-playability. And that is how you kill your hobby budget. Kill it dead. Still, the nostalgia drives me on regardless of any other factors!

I never had any issues building this piece, which is weird. The new Games Workshop scenery is just so multi-part and well made that everything just sort of fit together. I had an image in my mind and it turned out pretty much how I had envisioned it. Then a simple paintjob, with as much danger striping as I could manage, some decals and a rust wash and finished! I think, when you have wanted something for so long and you get it at a time where you are able to execute better than you could when you first wanted it...well, that is supremely motivational, I suppose. This is an adequate centre piece for my Sector Mechanicus spread...and also removes any further space in my terrain storage area. So...done!

I'm not sure how excited this makes you. It makes me a little too excited, like, as a 45 year old man...

Now I'm going to get my four year old and we are going to make shooting noises and moving crane noises and put some little guys down there and they are going to hangout and make more noises and it is going to be amazing...

Also...

Next time I actually game with it will be amazing as well.

Nostalgia is real, get into it!

- Uncle Mike