Rogue Trader Era Vortex Weapons Et Cetera

I have never ever used these in a game, although they captured my attention back in the late 1980s. Looking at a copy  of RT the other day, the rules in there are fun.   In retrospect, the thing almost seems iconic, like Jokaero Digital Weapons and those crazy fat Marines and bulbous Tyranids.  And Ambulls.  And Sand Clams.  I mean, what's not to like?  A bomb that makes razorwire!  A grav-tank from a deodorant stick!  It would even smell manly, except for all the craft-ichlorians!

New Arrival, Spanner-Brother Norrin.  He's in the dip, awaiting colour reassignment.

I don't know about the most recent Vortex stuff; I guess there's a dataslate and it's given a treatment in the Fortress Assault rule book, maybe.  I saw a copy of that the other day and it was cool, but essentially a catalog of the dreary skulls and arches terrain.  Don't get me wrong, I like that stuff, but I'm seeing now why people call it 40K$.  A 'D' template weapon as big as a 2-liter bottle of coke, to shoot at your stomping Knight and make all the little guys irrelevant.

Back to the subject, it seems to me like you'd need a couple of turns worth of trenches, a 3 inch blast marker, and a ping pong ball on a base. Could be a fun thing to scratch build. I'll need to think on it for a spell.  I already envision how to paint and base it, with one of those dumb electronic tea lights.  It's going to be freakin' sweet.

Also, I'm done buying new GW stuff, and done hunting it up on eBay. Aside from Spanner-Brother Norrin up above, I am losing my interest in collecting. I got sniped about 4 times for Genestealer Hybrids and a sweet RT dread, and  I think rather than go through the heartache anymore, I will just convert things and make due.  Like, welcome to my table everyone, as long as your shit has a lick of paint then it's all good.

Speaking of making due, I turned a bunch of junk into almost-terrain tonight. Just a couple of hours of greebles-ing and all this junk will be ready for a layer of PVA wash and some spray paint.  I figure two weeks or so and I should have a pretty playable Underhive ready and willing and able.  I had 3 cans of oldish spray paint seize up on me Sunday and so I went into a Red Fugue and slew everyone in this hab-block, but I figure maybe they were just cold or old or both. Like me that morning.

I'm going to add to my list of "must dos" a couple of feet of slimy canals full of purplish goo, a big factorium where the Taint Cola cult can live and brood/breed, some ratty shacks on CD bases, a couple of destroyed corners-from-styrofoam, 1 big- and 2 or 3 medium- dimensional lumber and laminate flooring hive platforms.  The laminate is 8 inches by 48 inches.  I have a lot of cool plans for stackable stuff, so we may see some height in this Hive.  I look forward to slogging some Marines and 'Nids across it.  You can see I have a bit of a new thing for trying to figure out how to convert scraps of dimensional lumber into gaming terrain.  My system isn't close to perfect at the moment, and I never have the time to cut stuff the way I want to (in my brain) so the miter saw sits and sulks and I make due with the stuff I almost threw away from under our deck.  I persevered in the same manner a Hiver wouldn't throw away anything found, and so here:

Is it junk? Terrain? Terrain made from junk? What do these hivers build their homes of, anyhow?

Also, you ought to check out Inquisimunda.  It's the bees knees, and takes the urgent, mixed squads feel I loved about RT and plops it into an Underhive I already love. I dig Inq28, but nobody wants to play on account of ITS A NARRATIVE GAME or something

After I get the table and terrain ready, I think I'm going to learn to sculpt and cast figs. We'll see.