The Beard Bunker

Greetings all you hive scum and curious uphivers! Come to admire the architecture have you? Because you should, it's a bit pretty... As we're a little bit immersion obsessive here in the bunker we wanted our Necromunda Zone Mortalis experience to be just that little bit "extra" compared to the bare tiles. Don't get me wrong, the tiles are lovely and some of my favourite floorplans that GW has ever put out there. But there's something unintuitive about a 2D black shape blocking line of sight. We needed something more, something that told stories, something with a third dimension... Shop at: https://ttcombat.com/collections/industrial-hive I looked around a lot of different shops offerings and eventually fell for TT Combat's varied range of walls and corner columns. I liked the fact that it wasn't all "just wall" and had that "functional architecture" vibe that I feel the underhive needs. The pieces are all laser cut from M

Greetings! It's getting closer, I can aaaalmost taste it. The kickoff event for our Necromunda campaign is now a week away. As a result I have put aside my xenos bretheren and knuckled down to getting some scenic elements done and ho boy! They are pretty... the scenary contents of one box of Necromunda There are several schools of thought on terrain in wargames. At one extreme end are the people who see the game as naught but a tactical challenge and are just as happy with a box being a building and a circle of paper with "wood" written on it. It will not surprise regular readers to discover that I - in common with most, if not all, of the bunker dwellers - sit firmly in the opposite camp. So far in the opposite camp that I'm nearly in the next field. I believe that terrain should help tell the story, enhance the aesthetic appeal of models put on it, and inspire scenarios. Mercifully the plastic stuff does that very well in Necromunda. The most basic eleme

For today's niche* within a niche** within a niche*** within a niche**** I'll be reviewing the custom 3D-printed name plates I got from Versatile Terrain  for the Necromunda gang I posted earlier this month . In case you haven't heard of Versatile Terrain, they (or rather, he... pretty sure it's a one man band) prints off customised name plates for all the common base shapes and sizes. You submit your list of names, he prints them with a sexy 3d printer, then posts them to you. I was keen to pick some up (a) because I think they look cool, and (b) because they can optionally have 90 degree vision arcs notched in them, which is ideal for Necromunda. For clarity, I'll keep this review as short as possible, so let's get to it. The Good The website offers a wide range of base sizes, fonts, and plate styles. Despite this, I just went for the standard font and style, mostly because I think it suits my gang best. Preparation was extremely easy. After t

What's that, Skip? You can stick blue and orange carrier bags over your lights to jazz up the ambience? Crikey. Back in February I finished  building a hefty pile of Sector Mechanicus  scenery with  Tom's  help. Now with Drew's assistance it has been painted. At last, the Beard Bunker is equipped for some industrial shenanigans. I can't wait to play Necromunda, Kill Team, Deathwatch and 40K all over it. Basic grungy metal paint recipe Given the essentially infinite amount of detail on these kits, I've kept things basic for now. Perhaps, when more of the scenery backlog is clear, I'll go back and add more colours, as well as the underhanging cables and the walkway rails. For now, though, here are the paltry stages to get a sort of catch-all filthy metal: Spray black. Stipple patches of a mid-brown (all thanks to Drew for her skill at brown splodging). Drybrush Army Painter Gunmetal (I'm sure Leadbelcher would do). Edge drybrush Necron Compound.

Finally, I can post the reason I've been quiet for a while: I've been working on a Necromunda gang. Looking back through the blog, the last time I posted finished models (beyond a single Ultramarine test model ) was five Empire outriders  back at the start of March , and they were quick and dirty. A Necromunda gang, though? This seemed like a good opportunity to try and apply more than my usual amount of love to a project. I had two main objectives: Paint to a high enough standard that I don't regret my laziness three minutes after finishing. Make it feel earthy and grounded but with intense splashes of colour, a bit like the aesthetics of Fallout 4. For once I feel pretty good about hitting those goals. They aren't flawless, but they're good enough for me. As a result I got overexcited and have written a long, in-depth post geeking out about paintjobs, characters and the gang's history. Seriously, it's chunky. If that's what you're into