STC: Hive Terrain from Dimensional Lumber pt I

Okay -

Process is pretty well considered, and the wood is cut. I'm trying to build a good deal of cheap terrain out of dimensional lumber and stuff I have just laying around. I use laminate flooring for the platforms, plus whatever plastic lids turn up.  And junk. Heavy sprinkling of junk.  The laminate is 1/4" by 8" by 48", but it's got these notches on the sides to slip it together, so I chopped that out. If I were cleverer, I'd have found a way to include it in the design but so it goes.  To keep the decks at the standard Necromunda height of 3 inches, I just gotta cut it all to 2 and 3/4" and also 5-3/4" lengths. I'm shooting for at least a few platforms that can be taken apart and held together with either magnets or screws, and stuck in a box for storage and multiple configurations.

Today with a couple of precious minutes before work sans my juve and Gang Leader, I turned a bunch of trash wood from under my porch (and some scraps from the futon-turned-game table) into this:

Which will have a little more panache than this'n Nintendo-cartridge-on-the-half-shell bolted onto a hacked up 4 by 4 (like so):

Although, to be completely fair the entire process of mashing the junk together was fun beyond recounting.  I woulda painted it tonight, but frankly I'm beat. Watched Real Detective, instead.

The gunner's nest looks like this when primed with Krylon:

You can see where the mold release or whatever caused the spray paint to shrink back.  I don't think it'll negatively impact the thing very much.  Lastly, the 4x4 with plastic top and metal sides after a coating of Krylon enamel (bear in mind that although I think about these issues a good deal it's a process of discovery and improv more than anything else):

You could totally beat a Genestealer to death with this thing. It's like S7 AP3 and it confers Dubious Egress to any units that start the turn on it.  You'll need to buy the dataslate to have access to those rules.

Tomorrow I will maybe fiddle with the bases and platforms and work out a magnet system... Flush-mounted neodymium in the tops of the supports and washers underneath the platforms?  Possibly reversible?  See where I'm going with this?  I trimmed the 8' lengths of laminate flooring down to 7' square, and so maybe that's a weird number. I don't know how it will work out yet, but the good thing is if I use wing nuts or magnets, nothing will be set in stone!

And don't forget to remind me to explain my thinking on ubiquitous hazard stripes and whether it's worth it to paint them by hand...  With the thing I'm thinking of they'll be all over everything.

EDIT: I thought I was all clever and searched it up on google and somebody didn't just beat me to the proverbial one-two, but they also used LASERS

DAMMIT

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=70

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.